Run baseline Envoy testing on a Google Axion C4A Arm VM

Validate Envoy installation with a baseline test

With Envoy installed successfully on your GCP C4A Arm virtual machine, you can now validate that Envoy is running as expected.

In this section, you will do the following:

• Create a minimal Envoy config
• Start Envoy with it with config
• Verify functionality using curl

The test confirms the following:

• Envoy listens on port 10000
• Forwards requests to httpbin.org
• Returns a 200 OK response

Create a minimal configuration file

Using a text editor, create a file named envoy_config.yaml and add the following content as shown below.

    

        
        
static_resources:
  listeners:
  - name: listener_0
    address:
      socket_address:
        protocol: TCP
        address: 0.0.0.0
        port_value: 10000
    filter_chains:
    - filters:
      - name: envoy.filters.network.http_connection_manager
        typed_config:
          "@type": type.googleapis.com/envoy.extensions.filters.network.http_connection_manager.v3.HttpConnectionManager
          stat_prefix: ingress_http
          route_config:
            name: local_route
            virtual_hosts:
            - name: backend
              domains: ["*"]
              routes:
              - match:
                  prefix: "/"
                route:
                  cluster: service_httpbin
                  host_rewrite_literal: httpbin.org
          http_filters:
          - name: envoy.filters.http.router
            typed_config:
              "@type": type.googleapis.com/envoy.extensions.filters.http.router.v3.Router
  clusters:
  - name: service_httpbin
    connect_timeout: 0.5s
    type: LOGICAL_DNS
    dns_lookup_family: V4_ONLY
    lb_policy: ROUND_ROBIN
    load_assignment:
      cluster_name: service_httpbin
      endpoints:
      - lb_endpoints:
        - endpoint:
            address:
              socket_address:
                address: httpbin.org
                port_value: 80

    

Explanatory notes on the configuration

This configures Envoy to listen on port 10000 and forward all traffic to http://httpbin.org. The host_rewrite_literal is required to prevent 404 Not Found from the upstream server.

• Listeners: Envoy accepts incoming HTTP requests on port 10000 of your VM.
• HTTP Connection Manager: Processes incoming requests, and applies routing.
• Routing: All traffic is routed to the service_httpbin cluster, with the Host header rewritten to httpbin.org.
• Clusters: The service_httpbin cluster defines the upstream as httpbin.org:80.

Run and test Envoy

This is the final phase of functional validation, confirming that the proxy is operational. Start the Envoy proxy using your configuration file:

    

        
        
envoy -c envoy_config.yaml --base-id 1

    

The output should look similar to:

    

        
        [2025-08-21 11:53:51.597][67137][info][config] [source/server/configuration_impl.cc:138] loading 1 listener(s)
[2025-08-21 11:53:51.597][67137][info][config] [source/server/configuration_impl.cc:154] loading stats configuration
[2025-08-21 11:53:51.598][67137][warning][main] [source/server/server.cc:928] There is no configured limit to the number of allowed active downstream connections. Configure a limit in `envoy.resource_monitors.downstream_connections` resource monitor.
[2025-08-21 11:53:51.598][67137][info][main] [source/server/server.cc:969] starting main dispatch loop
[2025-08-21 11:53:51.599][67137][info][runtime] [source/common/runtime/runtime_impl.cc:614] RTDS has finished initialization
[2025-08-21 11:53:51.599][67137][info][upstream] [source/common/upstream/cluster_manager_impl.cc:240] cm init: all clusters initialized
[2025-08-21 11:53:51.599][67137][info][main] [source/server/server.cc:950] all clusters initialized. initializing init manager
[2025-08-21 11:53:51.599][67137][info][config] [source/common/listener_manager/listener_manager_impl.cc:930] all dependencies initialized. starting workers

        
    

Leave this terminal running. In a new terminal, send a test request to the Envoy listener using curl:

    

        
        
curl -v http://localhost:10000/get

    

The -v flag provides verbose output, showing the full request and response headers. A successful test will show a HTTP/1.1 200 OK response with a JSON body from httpbin.org.

A successful test shows HTTP/1.1 200 OK with a JSON body from httpbin.org, for example:

    

        
        *   Trying 127.0.0.1:10000...
* Connected to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1) port 10000 (#0)
> GET /get HTTP/1.1
> Host: 127.0.0.1:10000
> User-Agent: curl/7.76.1
> Accept: */*
>
* Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< date: Fri, 22 Aug 2025 11:20:35 GMT
< content-type: application/json
< content-length: 301
< server: envoy
< access-control-allow-origin: *
< access-control-allow-credentials: true
< x-envoy-upstream-service-time: 1042
<
{
  "args": {},
  "headers": {
    "Accept": "*/*",
    "Host": "httpbin.org",
    "User-Agent": "curl/7.76.1",
    "X-Amzn-Trace-Id": "Root=1-68a85282-10af9cfe0385774600509ddd",
    "X-Envoy-Expected-Rq-Timeout-Ms": "15000"
  },
  "origin": "34.63.220.63",
  "url": "http://httpbin.org/get"
}
* Connection #0 to host 127.0.0.1 left intact

        
    

Summary of the curl output

• Successful connection: The curl command successfully connected to the Envoy proxy on localhost:10000.
• Correct status code: Envoy forwards the request and receives a successful 200 OK response from the upstream.
• Host header rewrite: Envoy rewrites Host to httpbin.org as configured.
• End-to-end Success: The proxy is operational; requests are received, processed, and forwarded to the backend.

To stop Envoy in the first terminal, press Ctrl+C. This confirms the end-to-end flow with Envoy server is working correctly.