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About deploying cluster logging

About deploying and configuring cluster logging

OpenShift Container Platform cluster logging is designed to be used with the default configuration, which is tuned for small to medium sized OpenShift Container Platform clusters.

The installation instructions that follow include a sample ClusterLogging custom resource (CR), which you can use to create a cluster logging instance and configure your cluster logging deployment.

If you want to use the default cluster logging install, you can use the sample CR directly.

If you want to customize your deployment, make changes to the sample CR as needed. The following describes the configurations you can make when installing your cluster logging instance or modify after installation. See the Configuring sections for more information on working with each component, including modifications you can make outside of the ClusterLogging custom resource.

Configuring and Tuning Cluster Logging

You can configure your cluster logging environment by modifying the ClusterLogging custom resource deployed in the openshift-logging project.

You can modify any of the following components upon install or after install:

Memory and CPU

You can adjust both the CPU and memory limits for each component by modifying the resources block with valid memory and CPU values:

spec:
  logStore:
    elasticsearch:
      resources:
        limits:
          cpu:
          memory: 16Gi
        requests:
          cpu: 500m
          memory: 16Gi
      type: "elasticsearch"
  collection:
    logs:
      fluentd:
        resources:
          limits:
            cpu:
            memory:
          requests:
            cpu:
            memory:
        type: "fluentd"
  visualization:
    kibana:
      resources:
        limits:
          cpu:
          memory:
        requests:
          cpu:
          memory:
     type: kibana
  curation:
    curator:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 200Mi
        requests:
          cpu: 200m
          memory: 200Mi
      type: "curator"
Elasticsearch storage

You can configure a persistent storage class and size for the Elasticsearch cluster using the storageClass name and size parameters. The Cluster Logging Operator creates a PersistentVolumeClaim for each data node in the Elasticsearch cluster based on these parameters.

  spec:
    logStore:
      type: "elasticsearch"
      elasticsearch:
        nodeCount: 3
        storage:
          storageClassName: "gp2"
          size: "200G"

This example specifies each data node in the cluster will be bound to a PersistentVolumeClaim that requests "200G" of "gp2" storage. Each primary shard will be backed by a single replica.

Omitting the storage block results in a deployment that includes ephemeral storage only.

  spec:
    logStore:
      type: "elasticsearch"
      elasticsearch:
        nodeCount: 3
        storage: {}
Elasticsearch replication policy

You can set the policy that defines how Elasticsearch shards are replicated across data nodes in the cluster:

  • FullRedundancy. The shards for each index are fully replicated to every data node.

  • MultipleRedundancy. The shards for each index are spread over half of the data nodes.

  • SingleRedundancy. A single copy of each shard. Logs are always available and recoverable as long as at least two data nodes exist.

  • ZeroRedundancy. No copies of any shards. Logs may be unavailable (or lost) in the event a node is down or fails.

Curator schedule

You specify the schedule for Curator in the cron format.

  spec:
    curation:
    type: "curator"
    resources:
    curator:
      schedule: "30 3 * * *"

Sample modified ClusterLogging custom resource

The following is an example of a ClusterLogging custom resource modified using the options previously described.

Sample modified ClusterLogging custom resource
apiVersion: "logging.openshift.io/v1"
kind: "ClusterLogging"
metadata:
  name: "instance"
  namespace: "openshift-logging"
spec:
  managementState: "Managed"
  logStore:
    type: "elasticsearch"
    elasticsearch:
      nodeCount: 3
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 32Gi
        requests:
          cpu: 3
          memory: 32Gi
      storage: {}
      redundancyPolicy: "SingleRedundancy"
  visualization:
    type: "kibana"
    kibana:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 1Gi
        requests:
          cpu: 500m
          memory: 1Gi
      replicas: 1
  curation:
    type: "curator"
    curator:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 200Mi
        requests:
          cpu: 200m
          memory: 200Mi
      schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
  collection:
    logs:
      type: "fluentd"
      fluentd:
        resources:
          limits:
            memory: 1Gi
          requests:
            cpu: 200m
            memory: 1Gi

Storage considerations for cluster logging and OpenShift Container Platform

A persistent volume is required for each Elasticsearch deployment to have one data volume per data node. On OpenShift Container Platform this is achieved using Persistent Volume Claims.

The Elasticsearch Operator names the PVCs using the Elasticsearch resource name. Refer to Persistent Elasticsearch Storage for more details.

Fluentd ships any logs from systemd journal and /var/log/containers/ to Elasticsearch.

Therefore, consider how much data you need in advance and that you are aggregating application log data. Some Elasticsearch users have found that it is necessary to keep absolute storage consumption around 50% and below 70% at all times. This helps to avoid Elasticsearch becoming unresponsive during large merge operations.

By default, at 85% Elasticsearch stops allocating new data to the node, at 90% Elasticsearch attempts to relocate existing shards from that node to other nodes if possible. But if no nodes have free capacity below 85%, Elasticsearch effectively rejects creating new indices and becomes RED.

These low and high watermark values are Elasticsearch defaults in the current release. You can modify these values, but you also must apply any modifications to the alerts also. The alerts are based on these defaults.

Additional resources

For more information on installing operators,see Installing Operators from the OperatorHub.