Configuring oTEL to collect OpenShift Logs
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OpenShift’s Cluster Log Forwarder (CLF) is the traditional way to collect the cluster’s Audit, Infrastructure, and Application logs and forward them to a SIEMs or other central system for log aggregation and visibility. However the oTEL Operator is a bit more flexible, especially when it comes to the output options, for instance the CLF system does not support exporting to AWS S3.
In this guide we’ll explore configuring the oTEL Operator to collect these three log streams. For the sake of brevity, we’ll be using the debug exporter, which simply prints details on the logs to the collector’s own logs. Future guides will add various exporters such as AWS S3 or OCP’s LokiStack.
Prerequisites
- A ROSA HCP cluster with Cluster Admin access (ROSA Classic or OCP on AWS should also work, but this is only tested on HCP).
Deploy Operators
Deploy the OTEL Operator
Deploy the operator
Wait a few moments and then validate the operator is installed
Create and Configure the oTEL Collector
If you are familiar with Helm, we recommend you go with Option 1 below, if you are not familiar with helm, or you are unable to use it due to company policy, you can use Option 2 below to get just the manifests to apply.
Option 1 using Helm Locally
Add the MOBB chart repository to your Helm
Update your local Helm repositories
Create a values file
Create an OTEL Collector
Skip to Validate oTEL
Option 2: Using Kubernetes manifests
Create a manifest locally that we can apply by using the MOBB’s Helm-it service.
Inspect the resultant OpenShift manifests at
/tmp/otel.yamlApply the manifests
Validate oTEL
Verify the Pods are running
daemon set “ocp-otel-logging-collector” successfully rolled out
Check the collector is collecting logs
Conclusion
Logs are being pulled from the worker nodes, both for the Applications and Infrastructure tenants. Of course apart from showing some debug messages the logs are not flowing anywhere.
Next steps are to pick a destination such as the OpenShift LokiStack system, or AWS S3 (or both!). Examples of deploying these are coming soon!
