Installation Configuration Profiles

This page describes the built-in configuration profiles that can be used when installing Istio. The profiles provide customization of the Istio control plane and of the sidecars for the Istio data plane.

You can start with one of Istio’s built-in configuration profiles and then further customize the configuration for your specific needs. The following built-in configuration profiles are currently available:

1. default: enables components according to the default settings of the IstioOperator API. This profile is recommended for production deployments and for primary clusters in a multicluster mesh. You can display the default setting by running the command istioctl profile dump.

2. demo: configuration designed to showcase Istio functionality with modest resource requirements. It is suitable to run the Bookinfo application and associated tasks. This is the configuration that is installed with the quick start instructions.

   This profile enables high levels of tracing and access logging so it is not suitable for performance tests.

3. minimal: the minimal set of components necessary to use Istio’s traffic management features.

4. remote: used for configuring remote clusters of a multicluster mesh.

5. empty: deploys nothing. This can be useful as a base profile for custom configuration.

6. preview: the preview profile contains features that are experimental. This is intended to explore new features coming to Istio. Stability, security, and performance are not guaranteed - use at your own risk.

Some additional vendor-specific configuration profiles are also available. For more information, refer to the setup instructions for your platform.

The components marked as X are installed within each profile:

To further customize Istio, a number of addon components can also be installed. Refer to integrations for more details.

See also

Deploying Istio Control Planes Outside the Mesh

A new deployment model for Istio.

Safely Upgrade Istio using a Canary Control Plane Deployment

Simplifying Istio upgrades by offering safe canary deployments of the control plane.

Introducing the Istio Operator

Introduction to Istio’s new operator-based installation and control plane management feature.

Getting Started

Try Istio’s features quickly and easily.

Install Istio with the Istio CNI plugin

Install and use Istio with the Istio CNI plugin, allowing operators to deploy services with lower privilege.

Install with Helm

Install and configure Istio for in-depth evaluation.