Istio Quick Reference

Istio Quick ReferenceChapter 06 of 10

Istio multi-cluster

As of Istio 1.31 · Edition 2026.11 · Release data checked on 30 October 2026

Topologies & setup

Primary-remote: one istiod, several workload clusters. Multi-primary: istiod per cluster, shared root CA. External control plane: istiod on the outside.

Required: common root CA, shared trustDomain (or trustDomainAliases), unique cluster name, endpoint discovery via istioctl create-remote-secret. Multi-network only: label topology.istio.io/network on istio-system.

istioctl create-remote-secret \
  --context=cluster-b \
  --name=cluster-b \
  | kubectl apply --context=cluster-a -f -