Kiali
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| Kiali | |
|---|---|
| Name | Kiali |
| Developer | Red Hat |
| Initial release | 2017 |
| Programming language | Go, JavaScript |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| License | Apache License 2.0 |
Kiali Kiali is an observability and management console designed for Istio service mesh deployments and projects that adopt Envoy (software) proxies, providing visualization, telemetry aggregation, and operational controls. It integrates with control planes and telemetry backends such as Prometheus, Grafana, and Jaeger (software) to present service topology, metrics, traces, and configuration validation. Kiali is frequently used alongside orchestration platforms like Kubernetes, OpenShift, and continuous delivery systems such as Argo CD and Jenkins in cloud-native environments.
Overview
Kiali presents a graphical topology view of workloads and services, correlating metrics from Prometheus, traces from Jaeger (software), and configuration from Istio to help operators troubleshoot distributed systems. It offers validation and policy insights by parsing Envoy (software) configurations, VirtualService (Istio) rules, and DestinationRule constructs to surface misconfigurations and runtime discrepancies. Kiali is commonly deployed in clusters managed by Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift, and is referenced in tutorials by CNCF projects and training by organizations like Linux Foundation and Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
Architecture and Components
Kiali’s architecture comprises a web console, API server, and adapters to observability backends. The API aggregates data from Prometheus, Jaeger (software), and the Istio control plane (including Pilot), and exposes endpoints for the console UI used by operators and SREs. Internally, the project uses components implemented in Go (programming language) and frontend code compatible with frameworks referenced by Angular (web framework) and React (JavaScript library). Kiali stores state transiently and relies on telemetry services such as Prometheus for timeseries and Elasticsearch when integrated into logging workflows that include Fluentd or Logstash pipelines. It integrates with identity providers like OpenID Connect implementations such as Dex (software) and enterprise providers including Keycloak and Okta.
Features and Functionality
Kiali provides a topology graph that maps namespaces, services, workloads, and pods, correlating traffic flows measured by Envoy (software) proxies with metrics from Prometheus and traces from Jaeger (software). It offers traffic policy visualization by parsing VirtualService (Istio) and DestinationRule resources, and surfaces configuration validation against Istio best practices and schemas. Observability features include request rates, error rates, and latency histograms linked to links and nodes; distributed tracing links to spans collected by Jaeger (software); and metrics dashboards that can be embedded into Grafana panels. Kiali supports advanced traffic management debugging for features like mTLS within Istio and visualization of Circuit Breaker behaviors implemented via Envoy (software) filters.
Deployment and Integration
Kiali is packaged as a containerized application and distributed with manifests for Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift. Operators typically install Kiali via Helm (software) charts, Operator (Kubernetes) patterns such as the Operator Framework, or platform-specific operators shipped with OpenShift Container Platform. Integration points include scraping metrics from Prometheus service monitors, connecting to the Istio control plane APIs, and linking to tracing backends like Jaeger (software) or Zipkin. Kiali can be integrated with CI/CD pipelines using systems like Jenkins, Tekton, or Argo CD to enable automated validation as part of delivery workflows and supports multi-cluster topologies commonly managed through Istio multicluster configurations.
Security and Access Control
Kiali leverages cluster RBAC primitives provided by Kubernetes and platform identity via OpenID Connect or OAuth 2.0 providers such as Keycloak and Okta to enforce access to the console and APIs. It supports role-based access control at the UI level to restrict actions like configuration edits, and integrates with Service Mesh Interface-style controls and Istio authentication policies to reflect runtime security posture including mTLS and authorization policies. Kiali’s API server can be exposed through ingress controllers such as NGINX Ingress Controller or Traefik (software) and supports TLS termination with certificates managed by cert-manager or platform-managed secrets from Red Hat OpenShift.
Use Cases and Adoption
Kiali is used by Site Reliability Engineering teams at organizations deploying Istio-based service meshes for microservices architectures, including financial services, telecommunications, and technology enterprises referenced in case studies from Red Hat and cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. Typical use cases include topology-driven incident triage, traffic-splitting verification during progressive delivery with Canary release or Blue–green deployment strategies, performance debugging with linked Jaeger (software) traces, and compliance checks for mesh security policies. Kiali appears in reference architectures for service mesh adoption alongside projects like Envoy (software), Prometheus, Grafana, and Fluentd.
Development and Community
Kiali is an open-source project maintained in collaboration with contributors from Red Hat and the broader cloud-native community, with development hosted in public source repositories and governance influenced by maintainers and community SIGs similar to other CNCF-adjacent projects. The project receives contributions from developers experienced with Istio, Envoy (software), and Kubernetes operators, and participates in community events including KubeCon and meetups organized by regional Cloud Native Computing Foundation chapters. Roadmap discussions and issue triage occur in public issue trackers and community calls, and the project aligns with observability toolchains involving Prometheus, Jaeger (software), Grafana Labs, and platform vendors such as Red Hat and cloud providers.