This lab is currently in Beta — content may be updated as we refine the material
LABINTERMEDIATE

Securing Services with Linkerd mTLS

Implement automatic mTLS and authorization policies using the Linkerd service mesh.

45 minutes
platform-engineering/security
Securing Services with Linkerd mTLS - Platform Engineering Hands-On Lab Icon

Lab Overview

This hands-on lab teaches you to secure service-to-service communication using Linkerd, the lightweight CNCF graduated service mesh.

You'll learn to:

  • Install Linkerd and validate the control plane with linkerd check
  • Inject the Linkerd proxy into application namespaces for automatic mTLS
  • Verify encrypted traffic using linkerd viz and diagnostics
  • Create Server and ServerAuthorization resources for fine-grained access control
  • Compare Linkerd and Istio approaches to service mesh security

Linkerd's Rust-based proxy provides automatic mTLS with zero configuration, making it a popular choice for platform teams that prioritize operational simplicity.

What You'll Learn

Install Linkerd service mesh in Kubernetes

Enable automatic mTLS for all meshed services

Configure Server and ServerAuthorization policies for access control

Compare Linkerd and Istio service mesh trade-offs

Prerequisites

kubernetes-fundamentals

networking-basics

security-concepts

Technologies Covered

linkerdmtlszero-trustsecurityservice-meshkubernetescnpe

Part of a Course

This lab is part of the Certified Cloud Native Platform Engineer (CNPE) course

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