Configuring Traffic Mirroring with Aeraki in an Istio Service Mesh

Aeraki's MetaProtocol extension enables management of any L7 protocol in a service mesh, supporting Dubbo, Thrift, and others, and introduces traffic mirroring as a risk‑free testing method.

First, install Aeraki, Istio, and the sample programs; after installation two namespaces meta-dubbo and meta-thrift appear.

kubectl get ns | grep meta
meta-dubbo   Active   16m
meta-thrift  Active   16m

Deploy two versions (v1 and v2) of the Dubbo sample provider using the provided Deployment manifests.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: dubbo-sample-provider-v1
  labels:
    app: dubbo-sample-provider
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: dubbo-sample-provider
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      annotations:
        sidecar.istio.io/bootstrapOverride: aeraki-bootstrap-config
        sidecar.istio.io/proxyImage: aeraki/meta-protocol-proxy-debug:1.1.1
      labels:
        app: dubbo-sample-provider
        version: v1
        service_group: user
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: dubbo-sample-provider
        image: aeraki/dubbo-sample-provider
        ports:
        - containerPort: 20880

Create a ServiceEntry for the Dubbo service.

apiVersion: networking.istio.io/v1alpha3
kind: ServiceEntry
metadata:
  name: dubbo-demoservice
  namespace: meta-dubbo
  annotations:
    interface: org.apache.dubbo.samples.basic.api.DemoService
spec:
  hosts:
  - org.apache.dubbo.samples.basic.api.demoservice
  ports:
  - number: 20880
    name: tcp-metaprotocol-dubbo
    protocol: TCP
  workloadSelector:
    labels:
      app: dubbo-sample-provider
  resolution: STATIC

Route consumer requests to v1 using a MetaRouter.

apiVersion: metaprotocol.aeraki.io/v1alpha1
kind: MetaRouter
metadata:
  name: test-metaprotocol-dubbo-route
  namespace: meta-dubbo
spec:
  hosts:
  - org.apache.dubbo.samples.basic.api.demoservice
  routes:
  - name: traffic-mirroring
    route:
    - destination:
        host: org.apache.dubbo.samples.basic.api.demoservice
        subset: v1

Verify that the consumer receives responses from v1.

aerakictl_app_log consumer meta-dubbo --tail 10
Hello Aeraki, response from dubbo-sample-provider-v1-6d67cc67fd-chfrk/172.16.0.183

Enable traffic mirroring to v2 by adding a mirror section to the MetaRouter.

apiVersion: metaprotocol.aeraki.io/v1alpha1
kind: MetaRouter
metadata:
  name: test-metaprotocol-dubbo-route
  namespace: meta-dubbo
spec:
  hosts:
  - org.apache.dubbo.samples.basic.api.demoservice
  routes:
  - name: traffic-mirroring
    route:
    - destination:
        host: org.apache.dubbo.samples.basic.api.demoservice
        subset: v1
    mirror:
      host: org.apache.dubbo.samples.basic.api.demoservice
      subset: v2
    mirrorPercentage:
      value: 100.0

Observe that v2 provider logs show the mirrored requests while v1 continues to receive the original traffic.

Explanation: Aeraki injects a MetaProtocol proxy into the sidecar’s outbound listener, translates MetaRouter rules into proxy routes, and uses an internal RDS server to distribute the configuration. The RoutesConfigDump reveals the request_mirror_policies that implement the mirroring.