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Istio Telemetry API

Istio Telemetry API

The Istio Telemetry API is a configuration mechanism used to control and customize observability features within the Service mesh.^[open-telemetry/README.md]

Configuration Resource

The API is primarily utilized through a custom resource definition with the apiVersion of telemetry.istio.io/v1alpha1 and the kind set to Telemetry.^[open-telemetry/README.md]

Scope and Naming

Configurations are typically defined within the istio-system namespace^[open-telemetry/README.md]. A common convention for resources affecting the entire mesh is to use the name mesh-default^[open-telemetry/README.md].

Access Logging

A primary use case for the API is configuring access logging. This is achieved by defining the accessLogging field within the resource's spec^[open-telemetry/README.md]. This field accepts a list of providers to which the mesh should send logs^[open-telemetry/README.md].

Integration with OpenTelemetry

The API facilitates the integration of Istio with external observability tools, such as OpenTelemetry.^[open-telemetry/README.md]

By specifying a provider (e.g., named otel) in the accessLogging configuration, users can instruct the Istio control plane to forward Access Log Service (ALS) data to a designated receiver, such as an OpenTelemetry Collector running on a specific port^[open-telemetry/README.md].

Sources

  • open-telemetry/README.md