How to Configure mTLS in Istio for Secure Kubernetes Workload Communication

To secure network communication between container applications in the Istio service mesh, you can make use of mutual Transport Layer Security (mTLS). With mTLS, you can validate the sender of any request in your application network environment, as well as encrypt the network traffic from being understandable to any other party that might intercept it. Istio automatically enables mTLS in the service mesh, however, you may want to modify the default configurations to suit your Kubernetes workload requirements. This is especially important because security is a major concern when you have microservices communicating with each other in a Kubernetes cluster. There is likely to be a lot of network traffic traversing the cluster as the different microservices communicate with each other. As such, teams need to be able to securely attach verifiable identities to the microservices running in the cluster, as well as encrypt the network traffic to mitigate the risks of potential man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. Service mesh implementations like Istio offer enhanced features to secure the data in transit within your Kubernetes cluster.

In this video, I'll cover how Istio implements mTLS and how you can configure it for different scopes in the service mesh.

#kubernetes #istio #servicemesh

Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
00:05 - Overview
00:23 - Authentication and encryption with mTLS
01:46 - How mTLS works in Istio
03:01 - Using mTLS peer authentication in Istio at different scopes
03:33 - Demo of mTLS peer authentication with different policies

Repositories with source code:
https://github.com/LukeMwila/istio-gateway-and-virtual-services
https://github.com/LukeMwila/microservice-example-helm-charts

Other relevant videos:
Using Istio Gateway to Route Traffic to Microservices on Amazon EKS - https://youtu.be/_ImVPrUZ6yY
Secure Istio Gateway Traffic with TLS Encryption on Amazon EKS - https://youtu.be/sn4_j_E62VE

Connect:
GitHub: https://github.com/LukeMwila
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LuKE9ine
Medium: https://medium.com/@outlier.developer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukonde-mwila-25103345/

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