Quick Start with GKE

Manage your GKE clusters with Meshery. Deploy Meshery in GKE in-cluster or outside of GKE out-of-cluster. Note: It is advisable to Install Meshery in your GKE clusters

Prerequisites

  1. Install the Meshery command line client, mesheryctl.
  2. Install kubectl on your local machine.
  3. Install gCloud CLI, configured for your environment.
  4. Access to an active GKE cluster in your Google Cloud project.

Also see: Install Meshery on Kubernetes

Available Deployment Methods

In-cluster Installation

Follow the steps below to install Meshery in your GKE cluster.

Preflight Checks

Read through the following considerations prior to deploying Meshery on GKE.

Preflight: Cluster Connectivity

  1. Verfiy you connection to an Google Kubernetes Engine Cluster using gCloud CLI.
  2. Login to GCP account using gcloud auth login.
  3. After a successful login, set the Project Id:

gcloud config set project [PROJECT_ID]
  1. After setting the Project Id, set the cluster context.

gcloud container clusters get-credentials [CLUSTER_NAME] --zone [CLUSTER_ZONE]
  1. Verify your kubeconfig’s current context.

kubectl config current-context

Preflight: Plan your access to Meshery UI

  1. If you are using port-forwarding, please refer to the port-forwarding guide for detailed instructions.
  2. If you are using a LoadBalancer, please refer to the LoadBalancer guide for detailed instructions.
  3. Customize your Meshery Provider Callback URL. Meshery Server supports customizing authentication flow callback URL, which can be configured in the following way:

$ MESHERY_SERVER_CALLBACK_URL=https://custom-host mesheryctl system start

Meshery should now be running in your GKE cluster and Meshery UI should be accessible at the EXTERNAL IP of meshery service.

Installation: Using mesheryctl

Use Meshery’s CLI to streamline your connection to your GKE cluster. Configure Meshery to connect to your GKE cluster by executing:


$ mesheryctl system config gke

Once configured, execute the following command to start Meshery.


$ mesheryctl system start

If you encounter any authentication issues, you can use mesheryctl system login. For more information, click here to learn more.

Installation: Using Helm

For detailed instructions on installing Meshery using Helm V3, please refer to the Helm Installation guide.

Post-Installation Steps

Optionally, you can verify the health of your Meshery deployment, using mesheryctl system check.

You’re ready to use Meshery! Open your browser and navigate to the Meshery UI.

Accessing Meshery UI

After successfully deploying Meshery, you can access Meshery’s web-based user interface. Your default browser will be automatically opened and directed to Meshery UI (default location is http://localhost:9081).

You can use the following command to open Meshery UI in your default browser:


$ mesheryctl system dashboard

If you have installed Meshery on Kubernetes or a remote host, you can access Meshery UI by exposing it as a Kubernetes service or by port forwarding to Meshery UI.


$ mesheryctl system dashboard --port-forward

Depending upon how you have networking configured in Kubernetes, alternatively, you can use kubectl to port forward to Meshery UI.


$ kubectl port-forward svc/meshery 9081:9081 --namespace meshery

Verify Kubernetes Connection

After installing Meshery, regardless of the installation type, it is important to verify that your kubeconfig file has been uploaded correctly via the UI.

  1. In the Meshery UI, navigate to Lifecycle from the menu on the left.
  2. Click on Connections.
  3. Ensure that your cluster appears in the list of connections and is marked as Connected.
  4. Click on the cluster name to perform a ping test and confirm that Meshery can communicate with your cluster.
Customizing Your Meshery Provider Callback URL

Meshery Server supports customizing your Meshery Provider authentication flow callback URL. This is helpful when deploying Meshery behind multiple layers of networking infrastructure.

For production deployments, it is recommended to access the Meshery UI by setting up a reverse proxy or using a LoadBalancer. By specifying a custom redirect endpoint, you can ensure that authentication flows complete successfully, even when multiple routing layers are involved.

Note: For production deployments, it is important to preselect the choice of Remote Provider in order to control which identity providers authorized. Learn more about this in the Extensibility: Providers guide.

Define a custom callback URL by setting up the MESHERY_SERVER_CALLBACK_URL environment variable before installing Meshery.

To customize the authentication flow callback URL, use the following command: 


 
$ MESHERY_SERVER_CALLBACK_URL=https://custom-host mesheryctl system start

Meshery should now be running in your Kubernetes cluster and the Meshery UI should be accessible at the EXTERNAL IP of the meshery service.

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