Cloud Service Mesh Updates Guidance for Proxy Image Types
Google Cloud has updated its guidance for using proxy image types (default and distroless) with Managed Cloud Service Mesh. Directly onboarded clusters using the TRAFFIC_DIRECTOR implementation now default to distroless proxy images, with no support for other types. Migrated clusters, previously using ISTIOD, default to default images but can opt into distroless via MeshConfig or a Pod annotation. This update affects engineers and architects managing service mesh deployments on GCP, streamlining proxy image selection and configuration.
Features (1) ›
- Cloud Service Mesh
The guidance for using proxy image types ( default and distroless ) with Managed Cloud Service Mesh has been updated: Directly onboarded clusters using the TRAFFIC_DIRECTOR implementation use distroless proxy images by default, and other image types are not supported. Migrated clusters (migrated from ISTIOD to TRAFFIC_DIRECTOR ) default to default images, but can opt in to distroless images via MeshConfig or the sidecar.istio.io/proxyImageType: distroless Pod annotation. For more information, see Distroless proxy images and Identify the proxy image type used in the cluster .
https://docs.cloud.google.com/release-notes#August_20_2026
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