$ oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user collect-application-logs system:serviceaccount:openshift-logging:logcollector
$ oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user collect-infrastructure-logs system:serviceaccount:openshift-logging:logcollector
The ClusterLogForwarder
(CLF) allows users to configure forwarding of logs to various destinations. It provides a flexible way to select log messages from different sources, send them through a pipeline that can transform or filter them, and forward them to one or more outputs.
Selects log messages using inputs
Forwards logs to external destinations using outputs
Filters, transforms, and drops log messages using filters
Defines log forwarding pipelines connecting inputs, filters and outputs
This release of Cluster Logging requires administrators to explicitly grant log collection permissions to the service account associated with ClusterLogForwarder. This was not required in previous releases for the legacy logging scenario consisting of a ClusterLogging and, optionally, a ClusterLogForwarder.logging.openshift.io resource.
The Red Hat OpenShift Logging Operator provides collect-audit-logs
, collect-application-logs
, and collect-infrastructure-logs
cluster roles, which enable the collector to collect audit logs, application logs, and infrastructure logs respectively.
Setup log collection by binding the required cluster roles to your service account.
To use the existing legacy service account logcollector
, create the following ClusterRoleBinding:
$ oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user collect-application-logs system:serviceaccount:openshift-logging:logcollector
$ oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user collect-infrastructure-logs system:serviceaccount:openshift-logging:logcollector
Additionally, create the following ClusterRoleBinding if collecting audit logs:
$ oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user collect-audit-logs system:serviceaccount:openshift-logging:logcollector
The Red Hat OpenShift Logging Operator is installed in the openshift-logging
namespace.
You have administrator permissions.
Create a service account for the collector. If you want to write logs to storage that requires a token for authentication, you must include a token in the service account.
Bind the appropriate cluster roles to the service account:
$ oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user <cluster_role_name> system:serviceaccount:<namespace_name>:<service_account_name>
The role_binding.yaml file binds the ClusterLogging operator’s ClusterRole to a specific ServiceAccount, allowing it to manage Kubernetes resources cluster-wide.
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
name: manager-rolebinding
roleRef: (1)
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io (2)
kind: ClusterRole (3)
name: cluster-logging-operator (4)
subjects: (5)
- kind: ServiceAccount (6)
name: cluster-logging-operator (7)
namespace: openshift-logging (8)
1 | roleRef: References the ClusterRole to which the binding applies. |
2 | apiGroup: Indicates the RBAC API group, specifying that the ClusterRole is part of Kubernetes' RBAC system. |
3 | kind: Specifies that the referenced role is a ClusterRole, which applies cluster-wide. |
4 | name: The name of the ClusterRole being bound to the ServiceAccount, here cluster-logging-operator. |
5 | subjects: Defines the entities (users or service accounts) that are being granted the permissions from the ClusterRole. |
6 | kind: Specifies that the subject is a ServiceAccount. |
7 | Name: The name of the ServiceAccount being granted the permissions. |
8 | namespace: Indicates the namespace where the ServiceAccount is located. |
The write-application-logs-clusterrole.yaml file defines a ClusterRole that grants permissions to write application logs to the Loki logging application.
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: cluster-logging-write-application-logs
rules: (1)
- apiGroups: (2)
- loki.grafana.com (3)
resources: (4)
- application (5)
resourceNames: (6)
- logs (7)
verbs: (8)
- create (9)
Annotations
<1> rules: Specifies the permissions granted by this ClusterRole.
<2> apiGroups: Refers to the API group loki.grafana.com, which relates to the Loki logging system.
<3> loki.grafana.com: The API group for managing Loki-related resources.
<4> resources: The resource type that the ClusterRole grants permission to interact with.
<5> application: Refers to the application resources within the Loki logging system.
<6> resourceNames: Specifies the names of resources that this role can manage.
<7> logs: Refers to the log resources that can be created.
<8> verbs: The actions allowed on the resources.
<9> create: Grants permission to create new logs in the Loki system.
The write-audit-logs-clusterrole.yaml file defines a ClusterRole that grants permissions to create audit logs in the Loki logging system.
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: cluster-logging-write-audit-logs
rules: (1)
- apiGroups: (2)
- loki.grafana.com (3)
resources: (4)
- audit (5)
resourceNames: (6)
- logs (7)
verbs: (8)
- create (9)
1 | rules: Defines the permissions granted by this ClusterRole. |
2 | apiGroups: Specifies the API group loki.grafana.com. |
3 | loki.grafana.com: The API group responsible for Loki logging resources. |
4 | resources: Refers to the resource type this role manages, in this case, audit. |
5 | audit: Specifies that the role manages audit logs within Loki. |
6 | resourceNames: Defines the specific resources that the role can access. |
7 | logs: Refers to the logs that can be managed under this role. |
8 | verbs: The actions allowed on the resources. |
9 | create: Grants permission to create new audit logs. |
The write-infrastructure-logs-clusterrole.yaml file defines a ClusterRole that grants permission to create infrastructure logs in the Loki logging system.
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: cluster-logging-write-infrastructure-logs
rules: (1)
- apiGroups: (2)
- loki.grafana.com (3)
resources: (4)
- infrastructure (5)
resourceNames: (6)
- logs (7)
verbs: (8)
- create (9)
1 | rules: Specifies the permissions this ClusterRole grants. |
2 | apiGroups: Specifies the API group for Loki-related resources. |
3 | loki.grafana.com: The API group managing the Loki logging system. |
4 | resources: Defines the resource type that this role can interact with. |
5 | infrastructure: Refers to infrastructure-related resources that this role manages. |
6 | resourceNames: Specifies the names of resources this role can manage. |
7 | logs: Refers to the log resources related to infrastructure. |
8 | verbs: The actions permitted by this role. |
9 | create: Grants permission to create infrastructure logs in the Loki system. |
The clusterlogforwarder-editor-role.yaml file defines a ClusterRole that allows users to manage ClusterLogForwarders in OpenShift.
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: clusterlogforwarder-editor-role
rules: (1)
- apiGroups: (2)
- observability.openshift.io (3)
resources: (4)
- clusterlogforwarders (5)
verbs: (6)
- create (7)
- delete (8)
- get (9)
- list (10)
- patch (11)
- update (12)
- watch (13)
1 | rules: Specifies the permissions this ClusterRole grants. |
2 | apiGroups: Refers to the OpenShift-specific API group |
3 | obervability.openshift.io: The API group for managing observability resources, like logging. |
4 | resources: Specifies the resources this role can manage. |
5 | clusterlogforwarders: Refers to the log forwarding resources in OpenShift. |
6 | verbs: Specifies the actions allowed on the ClusterLogForwarders. |
7 | create: Grants permission to create new ClusterLogForwarders. |
8 | delete: Grants permission to delete existing ClusterLogForwarders. |
9 | get: Grants permission to retrieve information about specific ClusterLogForwarders. |
10 | list: Allows listing all ClusterLogForwarders. |
11 | patch: Grants permission to partially modify ClusterLogForwarders. |
12 | update: Grants permission to update existing ClusterLogForwarders. |
13 | watch: Grants permission to monitor changes to ClusterLogForwarders. |
To modify the log level in the collector, you can set the observability.openshift.io/log-level
annotation to trace
, debug
, info
, warn
, error
, and off
.
apiVersion: observability.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
metadata:
name: collector
annotations:
observability.openshift.io/log-level: debug
# ...
The ClusterLogForwarder
resource has a managementState
field that controls whether the operator actively manages its resources or leaves them Unmanaged:
(default) The operator will drive the logging resources to match the desired state in the CLF spec.
The operator will not take any action related to the logging components.
This allows administrators to temporarily pause log forwarding by setting managementState
to Unmanaged
.
The CLF has a spec
section that contains the following key components:
Select log messages to be forwarded. Built-in input types application
, infrastructure
and audit
forward logs from different parts of the cluster. You can also define custom inputs.
Define destinations to forward logs to. Each output has a unique name and type-specific configuration.
Define the path logs take from inputs, through filters, to outputs. Pipelines have a unique name and consist of a list of input, output and filter names.
Transform or drop log messages in the pipeline. Users can define filters that match certain log fields and drop or modify the messages. Filters are applied in the order specified in the pipeline.
Inputs are configured in an array under spec.inputs
. There are three built-in input types:
Selects logs from all application containers, excluding those in infrastructure namespaces such as default
, openshift
, or any namespace with the kube-
or openshift-
prefix.
Selects logs from infrastructure components running in default
and openshift
namespaces and node logs.
Selects logs from the OpenShift API server audit logs, Kubernetes API server audit logs, ovn audit logs, and node audit logs from auditd.
Users can define custom inputs of type application
that select logs from specific namespaces or using pod labels.
Outputs are configured in an array under spec.outputs
. Each output must have a unique name and a type. Supported types are:
Forwards logs to Azure Monitor.
Forwards logs to AWS CloudWatch.
Forwards logs to an external Elasticsearch instance.
Forwards logs to Google Cloud Logging.
Forwards logs to a generic HTTP endpoint.
Forwards logs to a Kafka broker.
Forwards logs to a Loki logging backend.
Forwards logs to the logging supported combination of Loki and web proxy with OpenShift Container Platform authentication integration. LokiStack’s proxy uses OpenShift Container Platform authentication to enforce multi-tenancy
Forwards logs using the OpenTelemetry Protocol.
Forwards logs to Splunk.
Forwards logs to an external syslog server.
Each output type has its own configuration fields.
Pipelines are configured in an array under spec.pipelines
. Each pipeline must have a unique name and consists of:
Names of inputs whose logs should be forwarded to this pipeline.
Names of outputs to send logs to.
(optional) Names of filters to apply.
The order of filterRefs matters, as they are applied sequentially. Earlier filters can drop messages that will not be processed by later filters.
Filters are configured in an array under spec.filters
. They can match incoming log messages based on the value of structured fields and modify or drop them.
Administrators can configure the following types of filters:
Enables multi-line error detection of container logs.
Enabling this feature could have performance implications and may require additional computing resources or alternate logging solutions. |
Log parsers often incorrectly identify separate lines of the same exception as separate exceptions. This leads to extra log entries and an incomplete or inaccurate view of the traced information.
java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "String.toString()" because "<param1>" is null
at testjava.Main.handle(Main.java:47)
at testjava.Main.printMe(Main.java:19)
at testjava.Main.main(Main.java:10)
To enable logging to detect multi-line exceptions and reassemble them into a single log entry, ensure that the ClusterLogForwarder
Custom Resource (CR) contains a detectMultilineErrors
field under the .spec.filters
.
apiVersion: "observability.openshift.io/v1"
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
metadata:
name: <log_forwarder_name>
namespace: <log_forwarder_namespace>
spec:
serviceAccount:
name: <service_account_name>
filters:
- name: <name>
type: detectMultilineException
pipelines:
- inputRefs:
- <input-name>
name: <pipeline-name>
filterRefs:
- <filter-name>
outputRefs:
- <output-name>
When log messages appear as a consecutive sequence forming an exception stack trace, they are combined into a single, unified log record. The first log message’s content is replaced with the concatenated content of all the message fields in the sequence.
The collector supports the following languages:
Java
JS
Ruby
Python
Golang
PHP
Dart
When the drop
filter is configured, the log collector evaluates log streams according to the filters before forwarding. The collector drops unwanted log records that match the specified configuration.
Add a configuration for a filter to the filters
spec in the ClusterLogForwarder
CR.
The following example shows how to configure the ClusterLogForwarder
CR to drop log records based on regular expressions:
ClusterLogForwarder
CRapiVersion: observability.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
metadata:
# ...
spec:
serviceAccount:
name: <service_account_name>
filters:
- name: <filter_name>
type: drop (1)
drop: (2)
- test: (3)
- field: .kubernetes.labels."foo-bar/baz" (4)
matches: .+ (5)
- field: .kubernetes.pod_name
notMatches: "my-pod" (6)
pipelines:
- name: <pipeline_name> (7)
filterRefs: ["<filter_name>"]
# ...
1 | Specifies the type of filter. The drop filter drops log records that match the filter configuration. |
2 | Specifies configuration options for applying the drop filter. |
3 | Specifies the configuration for tests that are used to evaluate whether a log record is dropped.
|
4 | Specifies a dot-delimited field path, which is a path to a field in the log record. The path can contain alpha-numeric characters and underscores (a-zA-Z0-9_ ), for example, .kubernetes.namespace_name . If segments contain characters outside of this range, the segment must be in quotes, for example, .kubernetes.labels."foo.bar-bar/baz" . You can include multiple field paths in a single test configuration, but they must all evaluate to true for the test to pass and the drop filter to be applied. |
5 | Specifies a regular expression. If log records match this regular expression, they are dropped. You can set either the matches or notMatches condition for a single field path, but not both. |
6 | Specifies a regular expression. If log records do not match this regular expression, they are dropped. You can set either the matches or notMatches condition for a single field path, but not both. |
7 | Specifies the pipeline that the drop filter is applied to. |
Apply the ClusterLogForwarder
CR by running the following command:
$ oc apply -f <filename>.yaml
The following additional example shows how you can configure the drop
filter to only keep higher priority log records:
apiVersion: observability.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
metadata:
# ...
spec:
serviceAccount:
name: <service_account_name>
filters:
- name: important
type: drop
drop:
- test:
- field: .message
notMatches: "(?i)critical|error"
- field: .level
matches: "info|warning"
# ...
In addition to including multiple field paths in a single test
configuration, you can also include additional tests that are treated as OR checks. In the following example, records are dropped if either test
configuration evaluates to true. However, for the second test
configuration, both field specs must be true for it to be evaluated to true:
apiVersion: observability.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
metadata:
# ...
spec:
serviceAccount:
name: <service_account_name>
filters:
- name: important
type: drop
drop:
- test:
- field: .kubernetes.namespace_name
matches: "^open"
- test:
- field: .log_type
matches: "application"
- field: .kubernetes.pod_name
notMatches: "my-pod"
# ...
OpenShift API servers generate audit events for each API call, detailing the request, response, and the identity of the requester, leading to large volumes of data. The API Audit filter uses rules to enable the exclusion of non-essential events and the reduction of event size, facilitating a more manageable audit trail. Rules are checked in order, and checking stops at the first match. The amount of data that is included in an event is determined by the value of the level
field:
None
: The event is dropped.
Metadata
: Audit metadata is included, request and response bodies are removed.
Request
: Audit metadata and the request body are included, the response body is removed.
RequestResponse
: All data is included: metadata, request body and response body. The response body can be very large. For example, oc get pods -A
generates a response body containing the YAML description of every pod in the cluster.
The ClusterLogForwarder
custom resource (CR) uses the same format as the standard Kubernetes audit policy, while providing the following additional functions:
Names of users, groups, namespaces, and resources can have a leading or trailing *
asterisk character. For example, the namespace openshift-\*
matches openshift-apiserver
or openshift-authentication
. Resource \*/status
matches Pod/status
or Deployment/status
.
Events that do not match any rule in the policy are filtered as follows:
Read-only system events such as get
, list
, and watch
are dropped.
Service account write events that occur within the same namespace as the service account are dropped.
All other events are forwarded, subject to any configured rate limits.
To disable these defaults, either end your rules list with a rule that has only a level
field or add an empty rule.
A list of integer status codes to omit. You can drop events based on the HTTP status code in the response by using the OmitResponseCodes
field, which lists HTTP status codes for which no events are created. The default value is [404, 409, 422, 429]
. If the value is an empty list, []
, then no status codes are omitted.
The ClusterLogForwarder
CR audit policy acts in addition to the OpenShift Container Platform audit policy. The ClusterLogForwarder
CR audit filter changes what the log collector forwards and provides the ability to filter by verb, user, group, namespace, or resource. You can create multiple filters to send different summaries of the same audit stream to different places. For example, you can send a detailed stream to the local cluster log store and a less detailed stream to a remote site.
You must have a cluster role |
apiVersion: observability.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
metadata:
name: <log_forwarder_name>
namespace: <log_forwarder_namespace>
spec:
serviceAccount:
name: <service_account_name>
pipelines:
- name: my-pipeline
inputRefs: audit (1)
filterRefs: my-policy (2)
filters:
- name: my-policy
type: kubeAPIAudit
kubeAPIAudit:
# Don't generate audit events for all requests in RequestReceived stage.
omitStages:
- "RequestReceived"
rules:
# Log pod changes at RequestResponse level
- level: RequestResponse
resources:
- group: ""
resources: ["pods"]
# Log "pods/log", "pods/status" at Metadata level
- level: Metadata
resources:
- group: ""
resources: ["pods/log", "pods/status"]
# Don't log requests to a configmap called "controller-leader"
- level: None
resources:
- group: ""
resources: ["configmaps"]
resourceNames: ["controller-leader"]
# Don't log watch requests by the "system:kube-proxy" on endpoints or services
- level: None
users: ["system:kube-proxy"]
verbs: ["watch"]
resources:
- group: "" # core API group
resources: ["endpoints", "services"]
# Don't log authenticated requests to certain non-resource URL paths.
- level: None
userGroups: ["system:authenticated"]
nonResourceURLs:
- "/api*" # Wildcard matching.
- "/version"
# Log the request body of configmap changes in kube-system.
- level: Request
resources:
- group: "" # core API group
resources: ["configmaps"]
# This rule only applies to resources in the "kube-system" namespace.
# The empty string "" can be used to select non-namespaced resources.
namespaces: ["kube-system"]
# Log configmap and secret changes in all other namespaces at the Metadata level.
- level: Metadata
resources:
- group: "" # core API group
resources: ["secrets", "configmaps"]
# Log all other resources in core and extensions at the Request level.
- level: Request
resources:
- group: "" # core API group
- group: "extensions" # Version of group should NOT be included.
# A catch-all rule to log all other requests at the Metadata level.
- level: Metadata
1 | The log types that are collected. The value for this field can be audit for audit logs, application for application logs, infrastructure for infrastructure logs, or a named input that has been defined for your application. |
2 | The name of your audit policy. |
You can include the application logs based on the label expressions or a matching label key and its values by using the input
selector.
Add a configuration for a filter to the input
spec in the ClusterLogForwarder
CR.
The following example shows how to configure the ClusterLogForwarder
CR to include logs based on label expressions or matched label key/values:
ClusterLogForwarder
CRapiVersion: observability.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
# ...
spec:
serviceAccount:
name: <service_account_name>
inputs:
- name: mylogs
application:
selector:
matchExpressions:
- key: env (1)
operator: In (2)
values: ["prod", "qa"] (3)
- key: zone
operator: NotIn
values: ["east", "west"]
matchLabels: (4)
app: one
name: app1
type: application
# ...
1 | Specifies the label key to match. |
2 | Specifies the operator. Valid values include: In , NotIn , Exists , and DoesNotExist . |
3 | Specifies an array of string values. If the operator value is either Exists or DoesNotExist , the value array must be empty. |
4 | Specifies an exact key or value mapping. |
Apply the ClusterLogForwarder
CR by running the following command:
$ oc apply -f <filename>.yaml
When the prune
filter is configured, the log collector evaluates log streams according to the filters before forwarding. The collector prunes log records by removing low value fields such as pod annotations.
Add a configuration for a filter to the prune
spec in the ClusterLogForwarder
CR.
The following example shows how to configure the ClusterLogForwarder
CR to prune log records based on field paths:
If both are specified, records are pruned based on the |
ClusterLogForwarder
CRapiVersion: observability.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
metadata:
# ...
spec:
serviceAccount:
name: <service_account_name>
filters:
- name: <filter_name>
type: prune (1)
prune: (2)
in: [.kubernetes.annotations, .kubernetes.namespace_id] (3)
notIn: [.kubernetes,.log_type,.message,."@timestamp"] (4)
pipelines:
- name: <pipeline_name> (5)
filterRefs: ["<filter_name>"]
# ...
1 | Specify the type of filter. The prune filter prunes log records by configured fields. |
2 | Specify configuration options for applying the prune filter. The in and notIn fields are specified as arrays of dot-delimited field paths, which are paths to fields in log records. These paths can contain alpha-numeric characters and underscores (a-zA-Z0-9_ ), for example, .kubernetes.namespace_name . If segments contain characters outside of this range, the segment must be in quotes, for example, .kubernetes.labels."foo.bar-bar/baz" . |
3 | Optional: Any fields that are specified in this array are removed from the log record. |
4 | Optional: Any fields that are not specified in this array are removed from the log record. |
5 | Specify the pipeline that the prune filter is applied to. |
The filters exempts the |
Apply the ClusterLogForwarder
CR by running the following command:
$ oc apply -f <filename>.yaml
You can define the list of audit
and infrastructure
sources to collect the logs by using the input
selector.
Add a configuration to define the audit
and infrastructure
sources in the ClusterLogForwarder
CR.
The following example shows how to configure the ClusterLogForwarder
CR to define audit
and infrastructure
sources:
ClusterLogForwarder
CRapiVersion: observability.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
# ...
spec:
serviceAccount:
name: <service_account_name>
inputs:
- name: mylogs1
type: infrastructure
infrastructure:
sources: (1)
- node
- name: mylogs2
type: audit
audit:
sources: (2)
- kubeAPI
- openshiftAPI
- ovn
# ...
1 | Specifies the list of infrastructure sources to collect. The valid sources include:
|
2 | Specifies the list of audit sources to collect. The valid sources include:
|
Apply the ClusterLogForwarder
CR by running the following command:
$ oc apply -f <filename>.yaml
You can include or exclude the application logs based on the namespace and container name by using the input
selector.
Add a configuration to include or exclude the namespace and container names in the ClusterLogForwarder
CR.
The following example shows how to configure the ClusterLogForwarder
CR to include or exclude namespaces and container names:
ClusterLogForwarder
CRapiVersion: observability.openshift.io/v1
kind: ClusterLogForwarder
# ...
spec:
serviceAccount:
name: <service_account_name>
inputs:
- name: mylogs
application:
includes:
- namespace: "my-project" (1)
container: "my-container" (2)
excludes:
- container: "other-container*" (3)
namespace: "other-namespace" (4)
# ...
1 | Specifies that the logs are only collected from these namespaces. |
2 | Specifies that the logs are only collected from these containers. |
3 | Specifies the pattern of namespaces to ignore when collecting the logs. |
4 | Specifies the set of containers to ignore when collecting the logs. |
The |
Apply the ClusterLogForwarder
CR by running the following command:
$ oc apply -f <filename>.yaml