e="CLI with local access to istiod pods"><img class=element-to-stretch src=/v1.21/blog/2022/istioctl-proxy/istioctl-primary-cluster.svg alt="CLI with local access to istiod pods"></a></div><figcaption>CLI with local access to istiod pods</figcaption></figure><p>When using a remote cluster, on the other hand, this is not possible since the <code>istiod</code> instances are running outside
of the mesh cluster and not accessible to the mesh user. The instances may not even be deployed using pods on a Kubernete