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Server-side Agent (Istio WASM) & SESSIFY Installation

Deploy SP‑Istio Agent to your Istio service mesh, and integrate the SESSIFY for client-side enrichment.

SP‑Istio Agent on GitHub

SESSIFY

Creates session-scoped context across routes and enriches traces with client metrics and interaction events.

SP‑Istio Agent

Lightweight Wasm plugin in Istio’s Envoy sidecar capturing HTTP traffic and business flows, emitting native OpenTelemetry traces.

Prerequisites​

Before installing SP-Istio Agent in production, ensure you have:

  • A running Kubernetes cluster
  • Istio installed and configured
  • kubectl access with appropriate permissions
  • Network connectivity to Softprobe endpoints
Using GKE Autopilot?

If your cluster runs on GKE Autopilot, be aware of these common installation/permission constraints (summary from the full guide):

  • NET_ADMIN capability is disabled by default, which can break istio-init/iptables steps
  • You cannot modify the CNI ConfigMap in the kube-system namespace (managed namespace restrictions)
  • Some system namespaces are managed/protected and certain resources cannot be changed

Quick fixes:

  • Enable workload policies when creating or updating the cluster: --workload-policies=allow-net-admin
  • Disable the Istio CNI component during installation: --set components.cni.enabled=false

Read the full step-by-step guide, verification, and troubleshooting: GKE Autopilot Istio Installation Guide →

Install SESSIFY (Client-Side Enrichment)​

Add the Softprobe SESSIFY to your frontend to create session-scoped context and capture route changes. This provides full-context visibility without modifying server-side code.

Install package​

npm install @softprobe/sessify

Initialize at Your App Entry Point​

// app/layout.tsx or your application's entry file
'use client'
import { useEffect } from 'react';
import { initSessify } from '@softprobe/sessify';

export default function RootLayout({ children }) {
  useEffect(() => {
    // Initialize the session management library
    // This is the necessary first step to use @softprobe/sessify
    initSessify({});
  }, []);

  return (
    <html lang="en">
      <body>
        {children}
      </body>
    </html>
  );
}

See the full Sessify guide for framework-specific examples (React/Vue/Next.js) and advanced usage.

Install Server-side Agent (Istio WasmPlugin)​

Install SP‑Istio Agent using your personalized minimal.yaml file downloaded during Account Setup. It contains your public key identifier and pre-configured settings.

# Use the minimal.yaml file downloaded from the Softprobe Dashboard
kubectl apply -f minimal.yaml
Namespace

If your minimal.yaml does not set metadata.namespace, specify a namespace explicitly:

kubectl apply -n <YOUR_NAMESPACE> -f minimal.yaml

Or set it in the YAML:

metadata:
  namespace: <YOUR_NAMESPACE>

Choose the namespace that matches where Istio is installed and where you manage mesh‑wide resources in your cluster.

This deploys the WasmPlugin globally across your Istio service mesh.

Verify Installation​

Check that the WasmPlugin has been created successfully:

kubectl get wasmplugin -A

You should see the SP-Istio Agent plugin listed.

Restart Workloads​

After applying the WasmPlugin/EnvoyFilter, restart affected workloads to load the updated sidecar configuration:

# Restart all deployments in a namespace (replace <namespace>)
kubectl rollout restart deployment -n <namespace>

# Or restart a single deployment
kubectl rollout restart deployment <name> -n <namespace>

View Context View in Dashboard​

If you enabled sidecar injection on a namespace just now, restarting ensures pods are recreated with the updated sidecar and configuration.

Next: View Context View in Dashboard

After deploying SP‑Istio Agent and initializing the SESSIFY, generate some traffic in your app, then:

  1. Open your Softprobe Dashboard → Context View
  2. Select the time range and environment (env) matching your deployment
  3. Filter by serviceName if needed; search by userId/sessionId/request_body_hash to locate sessions
  4. Click a session to inspect the end‑to‑end graph, spans, client metrics, and interaction events

You do not need to change server‑side code to get full‑context visibility.

Dashboard GuideAccount SetupFAQ
Session Graph in Context View

Explore end‑to‑end session graphs after installation.

Configuration​

Softprobe’s default configuration captures HTTP traffic for all services in the mesh. To customize the capture scope, service identification, and advanced options, please refer to the full Configuration Guide: Configuration Guide. You can start from the minimal example and gradually extend collectionRules, service discovery, and external communication settings based on your needs.

Scoped Deployment​

To deploy the agent to specific namespaces or workloads only, you can create a scoped WasmPlugin configuration. See the Configuration Guide for detailed configuration options.