---
title: Charmhub | Deploy Kiali using Charmhub - The Open Operator Collection
description: Deploy the latest version of Kiali as a Kubernetes Operator on any cloud.
url: https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started
---

# Kiali

[Canonical Observability](https://charmhub.io/publisher/observability "View all packages from Canonical Observability")

* [Canonical Observability](https://charmhub.io/publisher/observability "View all packages from Canonical Observability")

Platform:

edge 6

```
juju deploy kiali-k8s --channel edge
```

[Learn to deploy on juju >](https://juju.is/docs/juju/manage-applications)

---

#### Contacts

* [Submit a bug](https://github.com/canonical/kiali-k8s-operator/issues)

---

Share your thoughts on this charm with the community on discourse.

[Join the discussion](https://discourse.charmhub.io/)

This tutorial demonstrates how to deploy and access Charmed Kiali to monitor an Istio service mesh from scratch.

At time of writing, `stable` releases of the Istio and Kiali charms were not yet available. This tutorial uses `edge` releases, but you should use the risk appropriate to your use case

# Contents

* [Prerequisites](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#prerequisites)
  + [Juju](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#juju)
  + [Istio](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#istio)
  + [Ingress](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#ingress)
* [Deploy Kiali](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#deploy-kiali)
* [Use Kiali](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#use-kiali)

# Prerequisites

## [Juju](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#p-37001-juju)

This tutorial assumes you have a Juju bootstrapped on a Kubernetes cluster. If not, refer to Juju’s documentation for instructions.

## [Istio](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#p-37001-istio)

For Kiali to be useful, it must be deployed alongside an instance of Istio that provides its metrics to a metrics store. This tutorial assumes you have [Charmed Istio](https://charmhub.io/istio-k8s) deployed in the `istio-system` model.

If you do not have your own Istio instance...

…you can generate one for this tutorial by doing the following. Deploy Istio and offer it for cross model relations:

```
juju add-model istio-system
# Deploy Istio
juju deploy istio-k8s --trust --channel edge
juju offer istio-k8s:istio-metadata
```

Connect Istio to a metrics store (Kiali works by observing the metrics generated by Istio). Note that this metrics store does not need to be specifically for Istio - it could also be the general metrics store used for the full [Canonical Observability Stack](https://documentation.ubuntu.com/observability).

```
juju deploy prometheus--k8s --trust
juju relate istio-k8s prometheus-k8s
```

And offer the metrics store for cross-model relations:

The `prometheus-api` integration was added as of Prometheus revision 237. At time of writing, it was only available in the `edge` channel, but will be promoted in due course.

```
juju offer prometheus-k8s:prometheus-api
```

## [Ingress](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#p-37001-ingress)

While not a hard requirement for deploying Kiali, it is convenient to use an ingress to expose Kiali outside the cluster. This guide assumes an ingress that supports the `ingress` interface is deployed in istio-system and offered for cross-model relations.

If you do not have an ingress...

… you can generate one for this tutorial by deploying the [istio-ingress charm](https://charmhub.io/istio-ingress-k8s):

```
juju deploy istio-ingress-k8s --trust --channel edge
juju offer istio-ingress-k8s:ingress
```

## [Something to Monitor](https://charmhub.io/kiali-k8s/docs/Getting Started#p-37001-something-to-monitor)

For Kiali to be useful, we need traffic to monitor inside the Istio service mesh. If you have something already, great! Just observe that when we get to using Kiali

If you do not have something to observe...

…you can use Istio’s Bookinfo sample application for this tutorial.

The `kubectl` command line tool is described [here](https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/).

Deploy the Bookinfo application:

```
juju add-model bookinfo
kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/refs/heads/master/samples/bookinfo/platform/kube/bookinfo.yaml
```

And a separate `sleep` application (just a simple Pod that has `curl` and doesn’t do anything else):

```
kubectl -n bookinfo apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/istio/istio/refs/heads/master/samples/sleep/sleep.yaml
serviceaccount/sleep
```

Then generate some traffic by `curl`ing from `sleep` to the bookinfo application’s `/productpage`:

```
while true; do
  kubectl -n bookinfo exec "$(kubectl -n bookinfo get pod -l app=sleep -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')" -- curl -sS productpage:9080/productpage  | grep -o "<title>.*</title>"; sleep 1
done
```

# Deploy Kiali

Deploy Kiali and connect it to Istio and its metrics store:

```
juju add-model kiali
juju deploy kiali-k8s --trust --channel edge

juju consume istio-system.istio-k8s
juju relate kiali-k8s:istio-metadata istio-k8s

juju consume istio-system.prometheus-k8s
juju relate kiali-k8s:prometheus prometheus-k8s
```

Expose it via the Ingress:

```
juju consume istio-system.istio-ingress-k8s
juju relate kiali-k8s istio-ingress-k8s
```

Once everything settles, Kiali should now be available at `INGRESS_IP/kiali-kiali-k8s` (`INGRESS_IP/NAMESPACE-APPNAME`), where the INGRESS\_IP can be obtained from the status message of istio-ingress-k8s (eg: from `juju status istio-ingress-k8s`).

# Use Kiali

Open the above url to Kiali in your browser. You should see the dashboard.

And we can observe the traffic on our service mesh from the `Traffic Graph` tab:

Congratulations, now you have a working Kiali to observe your service mesh!

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