Chainguard Container for istio

Istio is a service mesh that extends Kubernetes to provide traffic management, telemetry, security, and policy for complex deployments.

Chainguard Containers are regularly-updated, secure-by-default container images.

Download this Container Image

For those with access, this container image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio:latest

Be sure to replace the ORGANIZATION placeholder with the name used for your organization's private repository within the Chainguard Registry.

Istio Images

Istio is an open-source service mesh platform that provides a uniform way to secure, connect, and monitor microservices. Built on the high-performance Envoy proxy, Istio manages traffic flow between services, enforces access policies, and gathers telemetry data without requiring changes to application code. The service mesh architecture enables organizations to manage complex distributed systems with enhanced security, observability, and traffic management capabilities.

Chainguard offers several Istio images that provide the core components needed for a complete service mesh deployment:

istio-pilot

Istio Pilot serves as the core control plane component responsible for service discovery and configuration distribution throughout the mesh. This component performs several critical functions:

• Service Discovery: Automatically discovers services running in the cluster and maintains an up-to-date service registry
• Configuration Management: Distributes traffic management rules, security policies, and routing configurations to all Envoy proxies
• Certificate Management: Handles workload identity certificates and root certificate distribution for mutual TLS (mTLS)
• Traffic Routing: Implements advanced traffic routing capabilities including canary deployments, circuit breakers, and retry policies

istio-proxy

The Istio proxy is built on the Envoy proxy and acts as a sidecar container deployed alongside each application workload. This component provides the data plane functionality:

• Traffic Interception: Transparently intercepts all inbound and outbound traffic for the associated workload
• Security Enforcement: Implements mutual TLS authentication, authorization policies, and encrypted communication between services
• Observability: Collects detailed metrics, logs, and distributed tracing data for all service communications

istio-install-cni

The Istio CNI (Container Network Interface) plugin eliminates the need for elevated privileges (NET_ADMIN capability) during sidecar injection:

• Secure Network Setup: Configures iptables rules and network interfaces without requiring privileged init containers
• Traffic Redirection: Establishes traffic redirection rules to route application traffic through the Envoy proxy

istio-operator

The Istio Operator provides a Kubernetes-native way to install, configure, and manage Istio installations using Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs):

• Declarative Management: Allows users to define the desired Istio configuration through Kubernetes manifests
• Lifecycle Management: Handles installation, upgrades, and maintenance of Istio components automatically
• Multi-Cluster Support: Facilitates setup and management of Istio across multiple Kubernetes clusters

Installation with Helm

These images can be used by overriding the default image values in the official Istio Helm charts.

First, add the Istio Helm repository:

helm repo add istio https://istio-release.storage.googleapis.com/charts
helm repo update

Then install Istio using a single helm install command. Below is a basic example installing the Istio base, control plane, and CNI plugin.

helm install istio-base istio/base -n istio-system --create-namespace

helm install istiod istio/istiod -n istio-system \
  --set global.proxy.image=cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-proxy \
  --set pilot.image=cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-pilot

helm install istio-cni istio/cni -n istio-system \
  --set cni.enabled=true \
  --set cni.image=cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-install-cni \
  --set cni.cniConfDir="/var/lib/rancher/k3s/agent/etc/cni/net.d" \
  --set cni.cniBinDir="/opt/cni/bin"

To use the Istio Operator:

helm install istio-operator istio/operator -n istio-operator-system --create-namespace \
  --set operator.image=cgr.dev/chainguard-private/istio-operator

Installation with Helm Using values.yaml

If you prefer to keep your customizations in a file instead of long --set strings, create a small values.yaml for each chart you install.

Why one file per chart?
The Istio Helm repository publishes separate charts (base, istiod, cni, operator).
Each chart has its own values schema, so you pass the file that matches the chart you’re installing.

istiod-values.yaml

# istiod-values.yaml
global:
  proxy:
    image: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-proxy     # Envoy + iptables
pilot:
  image: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-pilot       # Control-plane

Install:

helm install istiod istio/istiod \
  -n istio-system -f istiod-values.yaml

istio-cni-values.yaml

# istio-cni-values.yaml
cni:
  enabled: true
  image: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-install-cni
  cniConfDir: /var/lib/rancher/k3s/agent/etc/cni/net.d
  cniBinDir: /opt/cni/bin

Install:

helm install istio-cni istio/cni \
  -n istio-system -f istio-cni-values.yaml

istio-operator-values.yaml

# istio-operator-values.yaml
operator:
  image: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/istio-operator

Install:

helm install istio-operator istio/operator \
  -n istio-operator-system --create-namespace \
  -f istio-operator-values.yaml

Documentation and Resources

• Official Istio documentation
• IstioOperator API reference
• Installation‑options reference

What are Chainguard Containers?

Chainguard Containers are minimal container images that are secure by default.

In many cases, the Chainguard Containers tagged as :latest contain only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These minimal container images typically do not contain a shell or package manager. Chainguard Containers are built with Wolfi, our Linux undistro designed to produce container images that meet the requirements of a more secure software supply chain.

The main features of Chainguard Containers include:

• Minimal design, without unnecessary software bloat
• Daily builds to ensure container images are up-to-date with available security patches
• High quality build-time SBOMs attesting to the provenance of all artifacts within the image
• Verifiable signatures provided by Sigstore
• Reproducible builds with Cosign and apko (read more about reproducibility)

For cases where you need container images with shells and package managers to build or debug, most Chainguard Containers come paired with a -dev variant.

Although the -dev container image variants have similar security features as their more minimal versions, they feature additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. We recommend using multi-stage builds to leverage the -dev variants, copying application artifacts into a final minimal container that offers a reduced attack surface that won’t allow package installations or logins.

Learn More

To better understand how to work with Chainguard Containers, please visit Chainguard Academy and Chainguard Courses.

In addition to Containers, Chainguard offers VMs and Libraries. Contact Chainguard to access additional products.

Trademarks

This software listing is packaged by Chainguard. The trademarks set forth in this offering are owned by their respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement by such companies.