Advanced Features

Advanced features require installing the Kubetail API inside your cluster. Once the Kubetail API is installed, log requests are routed through a dedicated in-cluster service instead of the kube-apiserver, providing access to features that aren’t available in the Kubernetes API.

Installing the Kubetail API

If you’re using the kubetail CLI tool, you can install the Kubetail API using the kubetail cluster command:

kubetail cluster install

This installs the API using the Kubetail Helm chart so you can manage it with Helm independently afterwards if you want. See the cluster command reference for more details.

You can also install the Kubetail API using Helm directly. See the Cluster installation guide for instructions.

Log file metadata

Once the Kubetail API is installed, the workload list will show log file sizes and last event timestamps:

Kubetail home page showing workloads with log file sizes and last event timestamps

This metadata is collected by the Cluster Agent directly from the log files on each node and surfaced through the Cluster API. It is not available through the Kubernetes API alone.

Log search

With the Kubetail API installed, a search input appears in the logging console header where you can enter a plain string or a /regex/ pattern to filter the log stream. Matching happens on each node before any data is sent to the dashboard so only lines that match are transmitted, which keeps bandwidth low even against high-volume workloads.