know.

CookbookLabs and workshopsNo. 30

A service-mesh workshopKubernetes and Istio in an afternoon, with a cluster to break

Recipe No. 30 · Labs and workshops

For: A platform engineer running a half-day Istio workshop

You get: A handout with every command as a step, and a mesh simulator in it

Time: An evening, then two on a lab cluster

See it in know.sh

Try it. A Kubernetes and Istio cluster simulated in your browser: type help or kubectl get pods and work through five guided exercises. Nothing real is touched.

One exercise’s commands as numbered steps, each saying what a correct result looks like, and the real-cluster difference the simulator does not show.

Mesh workshopExercise 3

2of 5

Commands

Observation, key section, 1 note, 2 sources, 380 words

Exercise 2 must be done first: every reviews pod shows 2/2 under READY, the app and its sidecar.

On a real cluster. A virtual service is applied by the sidecar of the service making the call, here productpage. If productpage has no sidecar, its calls ignore the split and spread across all three versions. Restart every deployment in the namespace, kubectl rollout restart deployment -n shop, not only reviews.

The handout: the afternoon as a table in its overview, then a section for each thing people get stuck on.

Mesh workshopNo. 3

Mesh workshophandout for the afternoon

7 sections, 1,480 words, about 6 minutes, revised 21 September

Welcome. Bring a laptop with a cluster running, or use the simulator below. Every command in this handout was run on a kind cluster with Istio’s demo profile before today.

The password for every link is on the first slide. Nothing here touches any cluster but your own.

Sections

  1. 1Setup: a lab cluster of your ownObservation, keykind, Istio’s demo profile, and Bookinfo in the shop namespace.
  2. 2Why the pods still say 1/1ProblemLabelling a namespace injects sidecars only into pods created after it; restart the old ones.
  3. 3The delay you cannot see in an averageInsightTwenty per cent of calls at 2 s adds 400 ms to the mean, and 2 s to one call in five.
  4. 4Strict mTLS and a caller with no sidecarInsightA pod outside the mesh can no longer reach a service inside it.

and 3 more sections

How it works

Every mesh workshop loses twenty minutes to a laptop that will not start a cluster. Plan for it. Your handout sets the afternoon out as a table and each exercise’s commands as numbered steps, with a simulator at the top, so the attendee with the broken laptop still splits traffic, injects a fault and turns on strict mTLS.

  1. Draft the handout from your outline

    Give your assistant your outline and the Istio version you teach. Ask for a document per exercise with the same five sections, every command taken from the documentation, with a link.

  2. Run every command on a lab cluster

    Create a throwaway cluster with kind, install Istio’s demo profile and deploy Bookinfo. Work through every exercise as written, and fix every command that fails.

  3. Set the commands out as steps

    Ask for a steps element in each Commands section, one command per step with what a correct result looks like. Then write On a real cluster yourself.

  4. Put a simulator at the top

    Ask for a widget element: a terminal, a Bookinfo topology and five exercises that tick themselves off. Check it against your lab cluster, and list where they differ.

Try this prompt

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, add a widget element to the top of my Mesh workshop handout: a terminal that accepts kubectl get, label, rollout restart and apply, and istioctl analyze, against a pretend cluster with Bookinfo in the shop namespace; a topology with the reviews weights drawn on it; a button that sends 100 requests; and five exercises that tick themselves off. Say in the caption what it leaves out.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, read Exercise 3 on my Mesh workshop shelf and rewrite its Commands section as a steps element: one command per step, in order, from checking the sidecars to reading back the weights, each with a sentence on what a correct result looks like. Keep my On a real cluster paragraph exactly as it is.

Made with

ShelfDocumentYour AI assistantElementsPublic linkQuiz

See also