Quick Installation

This guides takes you through the quick installation procedure. The default settings will store all required state using Kubernetes custom resource definitions (CRDs). This is the simplest installation method as it only depends on Kubernetes and does not require additional external dependencies. It is a good option for environments up to about 250 nodes. For bigger environments or for environments which want to leverage the clustermesh functionality, a kvstore set up is required which can be set up using an Installation with external etcd or using the Installation with managed etcd.

Should you encounter any issues during the installation, please refer to the Troubleshooting section and / or seek help on the Slack channel.

Please consult the Kubernetes Requirements for information on how you need to configure your Kubernetes cluster to operate with Cilium.

Install Cilium

kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cilium/cilium/1.9.5/install/kubernetes/quick-install.yaml

Validate the Installation

You can monitor as Cilium and all required components are being installed:

kubectl -n kube-system get pods --watch
NAME                                    READY   STATUS              RESTARTS   AGE
cilium-operator-cb4578bc5-q52qk         0/1     Pending             0          8s
cilium-s8w5m                            0/1     PodInitializing     0          7s
coredns-86c58d9df4-4g7dd                0/1     ContainerCreating   0          8m57s
coredns-86c58d9df4-4l6b2                0/1     ContainerCreating   0          8m57s

It may take a couple of minutes for all components to come up:

cilium-operator-cb4578bc5-q52qk         1/1     Running   0          4m13s
cilium-s8w5m                            1/1     Running   0          4m12s
coredns-86c58d9df4-4g7dd                1/1     Running   0          13m
coredns-86c58d9df4-4l6b2                1/1     Running   0          13m

Deploy the connectivity test

You can deploy the “connectivity-check” to test connectivity between pods. It is recommended to create a separate namespace for this.

kubectl create ns cilium-test

Deploy the check with:

kubectl apply -n cilium-test -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cilium/cilium/1.9.5/examples/kubernetes/connectivity-check/connectivity-check.yaml

It will deploy a series of deployments which will use various connectivity paths to connect to each other. Connectivity paths include with and without service load-balancing and various network policy combinations. The pod name indicates the connectivity variant and the readiness and liveness gate indicates success or failure of the test:

$ kubectl get pods -n cilium-test
NAME                                                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
echo-a-76c5d9bd76-q8d99                                  1/1     Running   0          66s
echo-b-795c4b4f76-9wrrx                                  1/1     Running   0          66s
echo-b-host-6b7fc94b7c-xtsff                             1/1     Running   0          66s
host-to-b-multi-node-clusterip-85476cd779-bpg4b          1/1     Running   0          66s
host-to-b-multi-node-headless-dc6c44cb5-8jdz8            1/1     Running   0          65s
pod-to-a-79546bc469-rl2qq                                1/1     Running   0          66s
pod-to-a-allowed-cnp-58b7f7fb8f-lkq7p                    1/1     Running   0          66s
pod-to-a-denied-cnp-6967cb6f7f-7h9fn                     1/1     Running   0          66s
pod-to-b-intra-node-nodeport-9b487cf89-6ptrt             1/1     Running   0          65s
pod-to-b-multi-node-clusterip-7db5dfdcf7-jkjpw           1/1     Running   0          66s
pod-to-b-multi-node-headless-7d44b85d69-mtscc            1/1     Running   0          66s
pod-to-b-multi-node-nodeport-7ffc76db7c-rrw82            1/1     Running   0          65s
pod-to-external-1111-d56f47579-d79dz                     1/1     Running   0          66s
pod-to-external-fqdn-allow-google-cnp-78986f4bcf-btjn7   1/1     Running   0          66s

Note

If you deploy the connectivity check to a single node cluster, pods that check multi-node functionalities will remain in the Pending state. This is expected since these pods need at least 2 nodes to be scheduled successfully.

Specify Environment Variables

Specify the namespace in which Cilium is installed as CILIUM_NAMESPACE environment variable. Subsequent commands reference this environment variable.

export CILIUM_NAMESPACE=kube-system

Enable Hubble for Cluster-Wide Visibility

Hubble is the component for observability in Cilium. To obtain cluster-wide visibility into your network traffic, deploy Hubble Relay and the UI as follows on your existing installation:

Installation via Helm

Installation via quick-hubble-install.yaml

If you installed Cilium via helm install, you may enable Hubble Relay and UI with the following command:

helm upgrade cilium cilium/cilium --version 1.9.5 \
   --namespace $CILIUM_NAMESPACE \
   --reuse-values \
   --set hubble.listenAddress=":4244" \
   --set hubble.relay.enabled=true \
   --set hubble.ui.enabled=true

On Cilium 1.9.1 and older, the Cilium agent pods will be restarted in the process.

If you installed Cilium 1.9.2 or newer via the provided quick-install.yaml, you may deploy Hubble Relay and UI on top of your existing installation with the following command:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cilium/cilium/1.9.5/install/kubernetes/quick-hubble-install.yaml

Installation via quick-hubble-install.yaml only works if the installed Cilium version is 1.9.2 or newer. Users of Cilium 1.9.0 or 1.9.1 are encouraged to upgrade to a newer version by applying the most recent Cilium quick-install.yaml first.

Alternatively, it is possible to manually generate a YAML manifest for the Cilium DaemonSet and Hubble Relay/UI as follows. The generated YAML can be applied on top of an existing installation:

# Set this to your installed Cilium version
export CILIUM_VERSION=1.9.1
# Please set any custom Helm values you may need for Cilium,
# such as for example `--set operator.replicas=1` on single-cluster nodes.
helm template cilium cilium/cilium --version $CILIUM_VERSION \\
   --namespace $CILIUM_NAMESPACE \\
   --set hubble.tls.auto.method="cronJob" \\
   --set hubble.listenAddress=":4244" \\
   --set hubble.relay.enabled=true \\
   --set hubble.ui.enabled=true > cilium-with-hubble.yaml
# This will modify your existing Cilium DaemonSet and ConfigMap
kubectl apply -f cilium-with-hubble.yaml

The Cilium agent pods will be restarted in the process.

Once the Hubble UI pod is started, use port forwarding for the hubble-ui service. This allows opening the UI locally on a browser:

kubectl port-forward -n $CILIUM_NAMESPACE svc/hubble-ui --address 0.0.0.0 --address :: 12000:80

And then open http://localhost:12000/ to access the UI.

Hubble UI is not the only way to get access to Hubble data. A command line tool, the Hubble CLI, is also available. It can be installed by following the instructions below:

Linux

MacOS

Windows

Download the latest hubble release:

export HUBBLE_VERSION=$(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cilium/hubble/master/stable.txt)
curl -LO "https://github.com/cilium/hubble/releases/download/$HUBBLE_VERSION/hubble-linux-amd64.tar.gz"
curl -LO "https://github.com/cilium/hubble/releases/download/$HUBBLE_VERSION/hubble-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha256sum"
sha256sum --check hubble-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha256sum
tar zxf hubble-linux-amd64.tar.gz

and move the hubble CLI to a directory listed in the $PATH environment variable. For example:

sudo mv hubble /usr/local/bin

Download the latest hubble release:

export HUBBLE_VERSION=$(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cilium/hubble/master/stable.txt)
curl -LO "https://github.com/cilium/hubble/releases/download/$HUBBLE_VERSION/hubble-darwin-amd64.tar.gz"
curl -LO "https://github.com/cilium/hubble/releases/download/$HUBBLE_VERSION/hubble-darwin-amd64.tar.gz.sha256sum"
shasum -a 256 -c hubble-darwin-amd64.tar.gz.sha256sum
tar zxf hubble-darwin-amd64.tar.gz

and move the hubble CLI to a directory listed in the $PATH environment variable. For example:

sudo mv hubble /usr/local/bin

Download the latest hubble release:

curl -LO "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cilium/hubble/master/stable.txt"
set /p HUBBLE_VERSION=<stable.txt
curl -LO "https://github.com/cilium/hubble/releases/download/%HUBBLE_VERSION%/hubble-windows-amd64.tar.gz"
curl -LO "https://github.com/cilium/hubble/releases/download/%HUBBLE_VERSION%/hubble-windows-amd64.tar.gz.sha256sum"
certutil -hashfile hubble-windows-amd64.tar.gz SHA256
type hubble-windows-amd64.tar.gz.sha256sum
:: verify that the checksum from the two commands above match
tar zxf hubble-windows-amd64.tar.gz

and move the hubble.exe CLI to a directory listed in the %PATH% environment variable after extracting it from the tarball.

Similarly to the UI, use port forwarding for the hubble-relay service to make it available locally:

kubectl port-forward -n $CILIUM_NAMESPACE svc/hubble-relay --address 0.0.0.0 --address :: 4245:80

In a separate terminal window, run the hubble status command specifying the Hubble Relay address:

$ hubble --server localhost:4245 status
Healthcheck (via localhost:4245): Ok
Current/Max Flows: 5455/16384 (33.29%)
Flows/s: 11.30
Connected Nodes: 4/4

If Hubble Relay reports that all nodes are connected, as in the example output above, you can now use the CLI to observe flows of the entire cluster:

hubble --server localhost:4245 observe

If you encounter any problem at this point, you may seek help on Slack.

Tip

Hubble CLI configuration can be persisted using a configuration file or environment variables. This avoids having to specify options specific to a particular environment every time a command is run. Run hubble help config for more information.

For more information about Hubble and its components, see the Observability section.