Installing the Istio CLI (istioctl)

You must install and configure the Istio command line tool (istioctl) to use the command line interface (CLI) to manage your service mesh within the cluster.

For more information about istioctl, see istioctl .

Before you set up the Istio CLI, the following command line tools must be installed and configured to access your cluster:

• Kubernetes command line tool (kubectl): See Installing the Kubernetes CLI (kubectl) for installation instructions.
• IBM Cloud Private CLI: See Installing the IBM Cloud Private CLI for more information.

You can install the Istio CLI from the IBM Cloud Private CLI.

Complete the following steps to install the Istio CLI by using the IBM Cloud Private CLI:

1. Synchronize the clocks in between the client computer and the nodes in the IBM Cloud Private cluster. To synchronize your clocks, you can use network time protocol (NTP). For more information about setting up NTP, see the user documentation for your operating system.

2. From the IBM Cloud Private management console Getting started page, click Install CLI tools.

3. Expand Install Istio CLI. Read the text, then copy and run the curl command for your operating system. Continue the installation procedure in the product documentation.

   Choose the curl command for the applicable operating system. For example, you can run the following command for macOS:

   curl -kLo <install_file> https://<Cluster Master Host>:<Cluster Master API Port>/api/cli/istioctl-darwin-amd64
   

4. After you run the curl command for your operating system, continue to install the Istio CLI.

   To install the Istio CLI, run the command that matches your node architecture, where <path_to_installer> is the path to the directory where you downloaded the CLI file, and <install_file> is the downloaded file name.

   • For Linux® and macOS, run the following commands to change and move the file:

     chmod 755 <path_to_installer>/<install_file>
     

     sudo mv <path_to_installer>/<install_file> /usr/local/bin/istioctl
     

5. Run the following command to confirm that the Istio CLI is installed:

   istioctl --help
   

   The Istio CLI usage is displayed.

To download the file from the Istio website, see Istio on the Kubernetes page .