cluster topology</h2><p>To demonstrate <code>istioctl</code> working on a remote cluster, we&rsquo;ll start by using the
<a href=/v1.19/docs/setup/install/external-controlplane/>external control plane install instructions</a>
to set up a single remote cluster mesh with an external control plane running in a separate external cluster.</p><p>After completing the installation, we should have two environment variables, <code>CTX_REMOTE_CLUSTER</code> and <code>CTX_EXTERNAL_CLUSTER</code>,
containing the context