While installing istio using istioctl command, a set of labels is generated and applied for most of the resources that are not there if I compare it with the generated istioctl manifest generate. Does anybody knows what is the usage of these labels or if they are required at all?
labels:
install.operator.istio.io/owning-resource: istiocontrolplane-1-10-0
install.operator.istio.io/owning-resource-namespace: istio-system
operator.istio.io/managed: Reconcile
operator.istio.io/version: 1.10.0For install.operator.istio.io/owning-resource is actually generated by istioctl manifest generate but with value “unknown” instead of the one provided by the patching (-f) istiooperatorinstall .yaml file.
The definition of those labels is seen here, but its usage when not using an operator is uncertain to me.
Istio Operator is not installed in the cluster.
There is no reasoning behind those labels to be found anywhere, at least I could not find any information. Therefore the below is opinion based.
When you decide to install such operator at some point, those labels could help the operator to bring existing infrastructure to a desired level based on operator CRDs instead of creating a second layer of istio mesh.
EDIT
There is Istio resource deletion can't trigger operator reconcile #23603 issue on GitHub, that may explain those labels.