This section applies to Istio in Rancher v2.5.x. If you are using Rancher v2.4.x, refer to this section.

This section describes the minimum recommended computing resources for the Istio components in a cluster.

The CPU and memory allocations for each component are configurable.

Before enabling Istio, we recommend that you confirm that your Rancher worker nodes have enough CPU and memory to run all of the components of Istio.

Tip: In larger deployments, it is strongly advised that the infrastructure be placed on dedicated nodes in the cluster by adding a node selector for each Istio component.

The table below shows a summary of the minimum recommended resource requests and limits for the CPU and memory of each core Istio component.

In Kubernetes, the resource request indicates that the workload will not deployed on a node unless the node has at least the specified amount of memory and CPU available. If the workload surpasses the limit for CPU or memory, it can be terminated or evicted from the node. For more information on managing resource limits for containers, refer to the Kubernetes documentation.

    Workload CPU - Request Memory - Request CPU - Limit Memory - Limit
    ingress gateway 100m 128mi 2000m 1024mi
    egress gateway 100m 128mi 2000m 1024mi
    istiod 500m 2048mi No limit No limit
    proxy 10m 10mi 2000m 1024mi
    Totals: 710m 2314Mi 6000m 3072Mi
    Workload CPU - Request Memory - Request CPU - Limit Mem - Limit Configurable
    Istiod 500m 2048Mi No limit No limit Y
    Istio-Mixer 1000m 1000Mi 4800m 4000Mi Y
    Istio-ingressgateway 100m 128Mi 2000m 1024Mi Y
    Others 10m - - - Y
    Totals: 1710m 3304Mi >8800m >6048Mi -

    Configuring Resource Allocations

    You can individually configure the resource allocation for each type of Istio component. This section includes the default resource allocations for each component.

    To make it easier to schedule the workloads to a node, a cluster-admin can reduce the CPU and memory resource requests for the component. However, the default CPU and memory allocations are the minimum that we recommend.

    You can find more information about Istio configuration in the official Istio documentation.

    To configure the resources allocated to an Istio component,

    1. In the Rancher Cluster Explorer, navigate to your Istio installation in Apps & Marketplace
    2. Click Upgrade to edit the base components via changes the values.yaml or add an overlay file. For more information about editing the overlay file, see this section.
    3. Change the CPU or memory allocations, the nodes where each component will be scheduled to, or the node tolerations.
    4. Click Upgrade. to rollout changes

    Result: The resource allocations for the Istio components are updated.

    Editing the Overlay File

    The overlay file can contain any of the values in the Istio Operator spec. The overlay file included with the Istio application is just one example of a potential configuration of the overlay file.

    As long as the file contains kind: IstioOperator and the YAML options are valid, the file can be used as an overlay.

    In the example overlay file provided with the Istio application, the following section allows you to change Kubernetes resources:

    #      k8s:
#        resources:
#          requests:
#            cpu: 200m