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Introduction

Overview

Kubetail is a logging dashboard for Kubernetes that lets you view multiple log streams simultaneously, in real-time. Using Kubetail you can track requests as they move from one ephemeral container to another across services in a cluster.

The main way to interact with Kubetail is to use the Kubetail Dashboard which is available as a webapp that can run on your desktop or in your cluster. Once the webapp is running you can get a birds-eye view of your cluster’s logging activity and also follow multiple log streams in real-time.

Under the hood, Kubetail uses your cluster’s Kubernetes API to retrieve log data and monitor your cluster workloads so your data stays in your possession the entire time. To enable advanced features such as log file sizes and last event timestamps that aren’t available in the Kubernetes API, you need to install Kubetail cluster resources in your cluster (see Advanced Features). Kubetail’s cluster resources are designed from the ground up to be lightweight, secure and to maintain your data privacy.

The Kubetail backend is written in Go and is very resource efficient. A fully-featured Kubetail deployment under a typical workload will use:

ComponentMemoryCPU
Dashboard~21MB~3.00m
Cluster API~21MB~3.00m
Cluster Agent~13MB~4.00m

Quickstart

Desktop

First, install the Kubetail CLI tool (kubetail) via homebrew:

brew install kubetail

Next, start the web dashboard using the serve subcommand:

kubetail serve

This command will open http://localhost:7500/ in your default browser. Have fun viewing your Kubernetes logs in realtime!

Cluster

First, add the Kubetail org’s chart repository, then install the “kubetail” chart:

helm repo add kubetail https://kubetail-org.github.io/helm-charts/ helm install kubetail kubetail/kubetail --namespace kubetail-system --create-namespace

For more information on how to configure the helm chart, see the chart’s values.yaml file.

To access the web dashboard you can expose it as an ingress using the chart or you can use your usual access methods such as kubectl port-forward:

kubectl port-forward -n kubetail-system svc/kubetail-dashboard 8080:8080

Visit http://localhost:8080

Next Steps

To learn more about each Kubetail component you can view the documentation here:

Help

We hope you enjoy using Kubetail! If you need help or want to make a suggestion:

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