Installing the chart

Prerequisites

• Helm 3.6+
• Kubernetes cluster (Istio mesh setup may require additional components such as CNI, ztunnel, or ingress)

Installation steps

All examples in this guide use the public chart and images. If you've mirrored the repository for your own use (for example, to your Docker Hub namespace), update your commands to reference the mirrored chart instead of the public one.

For example:

• Public chart: dhi.io/<repository>:<tag>
• Mirrored chart: <your-namespace>/dhi-<repository>:<tag>

For more details about customizing the chart to reference other images, see the documentation⁠.

Step 1: Optional. Mirror the Helm chart and/or its images to your own registry

To optionally mirror a chart to your own third-party registry, you can follow the instructions in How to mirror an image⁠ for either the chart, the image, or both.

The same regctl tool that is used for mirroring container images can also be used for mirroring Helm charts, as Helm charts are OCI artifacts.

For example:

 regctl image copy \
     "${SRC_CHART_REPO}:${TAG}" \
     "${DEST_REG}/${DEST_CHART_REPO}:${TAG}" \
     --referrers \
     --referrers-src "${SRC_ATT_REPO}" \
     --referrers-tgt "${DEST_REG}/${DEST_CHART_REPO}" \
     --force-recursive

Step 2: Create a Kubernetes secret for pulling images

The Docker Hardened Images that the chart uses require authentication. To allow your Kubernetes cluster to pull those images, you need to create a Kubernetes secret with your Docker Hub credentials or with the credentials for your own registry.

Follow the authentication instructions for DHI in Kubernetes⁠.

For example:

kubectl create secret docker-registry helm-pull-secret \
  --docker-server=dhi.io \
  --docker-username=<Docker username> \
  --docker-password=<Docker token> \
  --docker-email=<Docker email>

Step 3: Install the chart

Install the chart with a release name and namespace. You typically install istiod in a dedicated namespace (e.g. istio-system). Configure global values as required by your mesh (e.g. global.proxy.clusterDomain, global.pilotCertProvider). Use pilotCertProvider: istiod (default; istiod as CA). The legacy kubernetes value is no longer supported.

Make sure you use helm login to log in before running helm install. Optionally, you can also use the --dry-run flag to test the installation without actually installing anything.

helm install istiod oci://dhi.io/istio-discovery-chart --version <version> -n istio-system --create-namespace \
  --set "global.imagePullSecrets[0].name=helm-pull-secret"

Replace <version> accordingly. If the chart is in your own registry or namespace, replace dhi.io with your own registry and namespace. Replace helm-pull-secret with the name of the image pull secret you created in Step 2.

For more options and values, see the Istio installation documentation⁠.

Step 4: Verify the installation

The istiod deployment and pods should show up and be running in the istio-system namespace:

$ kubectl get pods -n istio-system
NAME                      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
istiod-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx   1/1     Running   0          30s

Uninstall

helm uninstall istiod -n istio-system