KubeSphere Logging System

KubeSphere provides a powerful, holistic, and easy-to-use logging system for log collection, query, and management. It covers logs at varied levels, including tenants, infrastructure resources, and applications. Users can search logs from different dimensions, such as project, workload, Pod and keyword. Compared with Kibana, the tenant-based logging system of KubeSphere features better isolation and security among tenants as tenants can only view their own logs. Apart from KubeSphere's own logging system, the container platform also allows users to add third-party log collectors, such as Elasticsearch, Kafka, and Fluentd.

For more information, see Log Query.

Enable Logging Before Installation

Installing on Linux

When you install KubeSphere on Linux, you need to create a configuration file, which lists all KubeSphere components.

1. In the tutorial of Installing KubeSphere on Linux, you create a default file config-sample.yaml. Modify the file by executing the following command:

   vi config-sample.yaml
   

   Note

   • If you adopt All-in-One Installation, you do not need to create a config-sample.yaml file as you can create a cluster directly. Generally, the all-in-one mode is for users who are new to KubeSphere and look to get familiar with the system. If you want to enable Logging in this mode (for example, for testing purposes), refer to the following section to see how Logging can be installed after installation.

   • If you adopt Multi-node Installation and are using symbolic links for docker root directory, make sure all nodes follow the exactly same symbolic links. Logging agents are deployed in DaemonSets onto nodes. Any discrepancy in container log path may cause collection failures on that node.

2. In this file, navigate to logging and change false to true for enabled. Save the file after you finish.

   logging:
     enabled: true # Change "false" to "true".
     containerruntime: docker
   

   Info

   To use containerd as the container runtime, change the value of the field containerruntime to containerd. If you upgraded to KubeSphere 3.4 from earlier versions, you have to manually add the field containerruntime under logging when enabling KubeSphere Logging system.

   Note

   By default, KubeKey will install Elasticsearch internally if Logging is enabled. For a production environment, it is highly recommended that you set the following values in config-sample.yaml if you want to enable Logging, especially externalElasticsearchHost and externalElasticsearchPort. Once you provide the following information before installation, KubeKey will integrate your external Elasticsearch directly instead of installing an internal one.

   es:  # Storage backend for logging, tracing, events and auditing.
     elasticsearchMasterReplicas: 1   # The total number of master nodes. Even numbers are not allowed.
     elasticsearchDataReplicas: 1     # The total number of data nodes.
     elasticsearchMasterVolumeSize: 4Gi   # The volume size of Elasticsearch master nodes.
     elasticsearchDataVolumeSize: 20Gi    # The volume size of Elasticsearch data nodes.
     logMaxAge: 7                     # Log retention day in built-in Elasticsearch. It is 7 days by default.
     elkPrefix: logstash              # The string making up index names. The index name will be formatted as ks-<elk_prefix>-log.
     externalElasticsearchHost: # The Host of external Elasticsearch.
     externalElasticsearchPort: # The port of external Elasticsearch.
   

3. Create a cluster using the configuration file:

   ./kk create cluster -f config-sample.yaml
   

Installing on Kubernetes

As you install KubeSphere on Kubernetes, you can enable KubeSphere Logging first in the cluster-configuration.yaml file.

1. Download the file cluster-configuration.yaml and edit it.

   vi cluster-configuration.yaml
   

2. In this local cluster-configuration.yaml file, navigate to logging and enable Logging by changing false to true for enabled. Save the file after you finish.

   logging:
     enabled: true # Change "false" to "true".
     containerruntime: docker
   

   Info

   To use containerd as the container runtime, change the value of the field .logging.containerruntime to containerd. If you upgraded to KubeSphere 3.4 from earlier versions, you have to manually add the field containerruntime under logging when enabling KubeSphere Logging system.

   Note

   By default, ks-installer will install Elasticsearch internally if Logging is enabled. For a production environment, it is highly recommended that you set the following values in cluster-configuration.yaml if you want to enable Logging, especially externalElasticsearchHost and externalElasticsearchPort. Once you provide the following information before installation, ks-installer will integrate your external Elasticsearch directly instead of installing an internal one.

   es:  # Storage backend for logging, tracing, events and auditing.
     elasticsearchMasterReplicas: 1   # The total number of master nodes. Even numbers are not allowed.
     elasticsearchDataReplicas: 1     # The total number of data nodes.
     elasticsearchMasterVolumeSize: 4Gi   # The volume size of Elasticsearch master nodes.
     elasticsearchDataVolumeSize: 20Gi    # The volume size of Elasticsearch data nodes.
     logMaxAge: 7                     # Log retention day in built-in Elasticsearch. It is 7 days by default.
     elkPrefix: logstash              # The string making up index names. The index name will be formatted as ks-<elk_prefix>-log.
     externalElasticsearchHost: # The Host of external Elasticsearch.
     externalElasticsearchPort: # The port of external Elasticsearch.
   

3. Execute the following commands to start installation:

   kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubesphere/ks-installer/releases/download/v3.4.1/kubesphere-installer.yaml
   
   kubectl apply -f cluster-configuration.yaml
   

Enable Logging After Installation

1. Log in to the console as admin. Click Platform in the upper-left corner and select Cluster Management.

2. Click CRDs and enter clusterconfiguration in the search bar. Click the result to view its detail page.

   Info

   A Custom Resource Definition (CRD) allows users to create a new type of resources without adding another API server. They can use these resources like any other native Kubernetes objects.

3. In Custom Resources, click on the right of ks-installer and select Edit YAML.

4. In this YAML file, navigate to logging and change false to true for enabled. After you finish, click OK in the lower-right corner to save the configuration.

   logging:
     enabled: true # Change "false" to "true".
     containerruntime: docker
   

   Info

   To use containerd as the container runtime, change the value of the field .logging.containerruntime to containerd. If you upgraded to KubeSphere 3.4 from earlier versions, you have to manually add the field containerruntime under logging when enabling KubeSphere Logging system.

   Note

   By default, Elasticsearch will be installed internally if Logging is enabled. For a production environment, it is highly recommended that you set the following values in this yaml file if you want to enable Logging, especially externalElasticsearchHost and externalElasticsearchPort. Once you provide the following information, KubeSphere will integrate your external Elasticsearch directly instead of installing an internal one.

   es:  # Storage backend for logging, tracing, events and auditing.
     elasticsearchMasterReplicas: 1   # The total number of master nodes. Even numbers are not allowed.
     elasticsearchDataReplicas: 1     # The total number of data nodes.
     elasticsearchMasterVolumeSize: 4Gi   # The volume size of Elasticsearch master nodes.
     elasticsearchDataVolumeSize: 20Gi    # The volume size of Elasticsearch data nodes.
     logMaxAge: 7                     # Log retention day in built-in Elasticsearch. It is 7 days by default.
     elkPrefix: logstash              # The string making up index names. The index name will be formatted as ks-<elk_prefix>-log.
     externalElasticsearchHost: # The Host of external Elasticsearch.
     externalElasticsearchPort: # The port of external Elasticsearch.
   

5. You can use the web kubectl to check the installation process by executing the following command:

   kubectl logs -n kubesphere-system $(kubectl get pod -n kubesphere-system -l 'app in (ks-install, ks-installer)' -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') -f
   

   Note

   You can find the web kubectl tool by clicking in the lower-right corner of the console.

Verify the Installation of the Component

kubectl get pod -n kubesphere-logging-system

NAME                                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
elasticsearch-logging-data-0                  1/1     Running   0          87m
elasticsearch-logging-data-1                  1/1     Running   0          85m
elasticsearch-logging-discovery-0             1/1     Running   0          87m
fluent-bit-bsw6p                              1/1     Running   0          40m
fluent-bit-smb65                              1/1     Running   0          40m
fluent-bit-zdz8b                              1/1     Running   0          40m
fluentbit-operator-9b69495b-bbx54             1/1     Running   0          40m
logsidecar-injector-deploy-667c6c9579-cs4t6   2/2     Running   0          38m
logsidecar-injector-deploy-667c6c9579-klnmf   2/2     Running   0          38m

Thanks for the feedback. If you have a specific question about how to use KubeSphere, ask it on Slack. Open an issue in the GitHub repo if you want to report a problem or suggest an improvement.