VirtualService.Status.ObservedGeneration does not increment

[dprotaso]

Bug description

[x] Extensions and Telemetry (because CLI and other non-human programming of Istio are affected by this)
[x] User Experience (Advanced K8s users would expect this value to increment like other K8s resources)

Expected behavior

When a VirtualService's spec is changed and the istio controller's does its thing I expect the status.observedGeneration to match that of the metadata.generation

Steps to reproduce the bug

Apply bookinfo with the v1 VirtualService. Manually add some random host to one of the VirtualService and look at the observedGeneration

How was Istio installed?

Running kind 1.19
Istio version 1.9.1
Used istioctl manifest generate with the following operator config

apiVersion: install.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: IstioOperator
spec:
  values:
    global:
      proxy:
        autoInject: enabled
      useMCP: false
      # The third-party-jwt is not enabled on all k8s.
      # See: https://istio.io/docs/ops/best-practices/security/#configure-third-party-service-account-tokens
      jwtPolicy: first-party-jwt
    pilot:
      autoscaleMin: 3
      autoscaleMax: 10
      cpu:
        targetAverageUtilization: 60
    gateways:
      istio-ingressgateway:
        autoscaleEnabled: false
    sidecarInjectorWebhook:
      rewriteAppHTTPProbe: true

  meshConfig:
    defaultConfig:
      proxyMetadata:
        TERMINATION_DRAIN_DURATION_SECONDS: "20"

  addonComponents:
    pilot:
      enabled: true

  components:
    ingressGateways:
      - name: istio-ingressgateway
        enabled: true
        k8s:
          replicaCount: 3
          env:
            - name: 'TERMINATION_DRAIN_DURATION_SECONDS'
              value: '20'
          resources:
            limits:
              cpu: 3000m
              memory: 2048Mi
            requests:
              cpu: 1000m
              memory: 1024Mi

Environment where the bug was observed (cloud vendor, OS, etc)
Kind 1.19.7
kind config

apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
kind: Cluster
nodes:
- role: control-plane
  image: kindest/node:v1.19.7@sha256:a70639454e97a4b733f9d9b67e12c01f6b0297449d5b9cbbef87473458e26dca
- role: worker
  image: kindest/node:v1.19.7@sha256:a70639454e97a4b733f9d9b67e12c01f6b0297449d5b9cbbef87473458e26dca
# This is needed in order to
# (1) support projected volumes with service account tokens. See
#     https://kubernetes.slack.com/archives/CEKK1KTN2/p1600268272383600
# (2) use a random cluster suffix
kubeadmConfigPatches:
  - |
    apiVersion: kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta2
    kind: ClusterConfiguration
    metadata:
      name: config
    apiServer:
      extraArgs:
        "service-account-issuer": "kubernetes.default.svc"
        "service-account-signing-key-file": "/etc/kubernetes/pki/sa.key"

Additionally, please consider running istioctl bug-report and attach the generated cluster-state tarball to this issue.
Refer cluster state archive for more details.

[arturenault]

/cc @therealmitchconnors

[dprotaso]

This is still relevant

[dprotaso]

cc @howardjohn I haven't been following the status work - are you able to freeze this issue?

[skonto]

Any updates on this one?

[howardjohn]

@skonto the status features in Istio are currently experimental and off by default, so there is not currently much investment in this area. There have been recent discussions on the future of these features, but no concrete next steps yet.