Create multi-cluster mesh

Prerequisites 🔗︎

To create a multi-cluster mesh with Backyards, you need:

At least two Kubernetes clusters, with access to their kubeconfig files.
The Backyards CLI tool installed on your computer, as described in the Prerequisites section.

Create a multi-cluster mesh with Backyards 🔗︎

To create a multi-cluster mesh with Backyards, complete the following steps.

Install Backyards to the master cluster using the following command. This will install all Backyards components to the cluster.
```
backyards install -a
```
Backyards supports KUBECONFIG contexts having the following authentication methods:
- certfile and keyfile
- certdata and keydata
- bearer token
- exec/auth provider
Username-password pairs are not supported. If you are installing Backyards in a test environment you can install it without requiring authentication by running:
```
backyards install --anonymous-auth -a --run-demo
```
Attach a peer cluster to the mesh using the following command. This command automates the process of creating the resources necessary for the peer cluster, generates and sets up the kubeconfig for that cluster, and attaches the cluster to the mesh.
```
backyards istio cluster attach <PEER_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG_FILE>
```
Wait until the peer cluster is attached. Attaching the peer cluster takes some time, because it can be completed only after the ingress gateway address works. You can verify that the peer cluster is attached successfully with the following command:
```
backyards istio cluster status
```
The process is ready when you see Available in the Status field of all clusters.

Deploy the demo application. You can deploy the demo application in a distributed way to multiple clusters with the following commands:

backyards demoapp install -s frontpage,catalog,bookings
backyards -c <PEER_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG_FILE> demoapp install -s movies,payments,notifications,analytics,database --peer

Generate some traffic between the components to draw a picture of the data flow.
```
backyards demoapp load start
```
(If you want to stop generating traffic, run backyards demoapp load stop)
Open the dashboard and look around.
```
backyards dashboard
```

What’s next? 🔗︎

Test the features of Backyards.