Download the Istio release

Each Istio release includes a release archive which contains:

• the istioctl binary
• installation profiles and Helm charts
• samples, including the Bookinfo application

A release archive is built for each supported processor architecture and operating system.

Download Istio {#download}

1. Go to the [Istio release]({{< istio_release_url >}}) page to download the installation file for your OS, or download and extract the latest release automatically (Linux or macOS):

   {{< text bash >}} $ curl -L https://istio.io/downloadIstio | sh - {{< /text >}}

   {{< tip >}} The command above downloads the latest release (numerically) of Istio. You can pass variables on the command line to download a specific version or to override the processor architecture. For example, to download Istio {{< istio_full_version >}} for the x86_64 architecture, run:

   {{< text bash >}} $ curl -L https://istio.io/downloadIstio | ISTIO_VERSION={{< istio_full_version >}} TARGET_ARCH=x86_64 sh - {{< /text >}}

   {{< /tip >}}

2. Move to the Istio package directory. For example, if the package is istio-{{< istio_full_version >}}:

   {{< text syntax=bash snip_id=none >}} $ cd istio-{{< istio_full_version >}} {{< /text >}}

   The installation directory contains:

   • Sample applications in samples/
   • The istioctl client binary in the bin/ directory.

3. Add the istioctl client to your path (Linux or macOS):

   {{< text bash >}} $ export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH {{< /text >}}