Important Components for Kubernetes

The OpenTelemetry Collector supports many different receivers and processors to facilitate monitoring Kubernetes. This section covers the components that are most important for collecting Kubernetes data and enhancing it.

Components covered in this page:

Kubernetes Attributes Processor: adds Kubernetes metadata to incoming application telemetry.
Kubeletstats Receiver: pulls node, pod, and container metrics from the API server on a kubelet.
Filelog Receiver: collects Kubernetes logs and application logs written to stdout/stderr.
Kubernetes Cluster Receiver: collects cluster-level metrics and entity events.
Kubernetes Objects Receiver: collects objects, such as events, from the Kubernetes API server.
Prometheus Receiver: receives metrics in Prometheus format.
Host Metrics Receiver: scrapes host metrics from Kubernetes nodes.

For application traces, metrics, or logs, we recommend the OTLP receiver, but any receiver that fits your data is appropriate.

Kubernetes Attributes Processor

Deployment Pattern	Usable
DaemonSet (agent)	Yes
Deployment (gateway)	Yes
Sidecar	No

The Kubernetes Attributes Processor automatically discovers Kubernetes pods, extracts their metadata, and adds the extracted metadata to spans, metrics, and logs as resource attributes.

The Kubernetes Attributes Processor is one of the most important components for a collector running in Kubernetes. Any collector receiving application data should use it. Because it adds Kubernetes context to your telemetry, the Kubernetes Attributes Processor lets you correlate your application’s traces, metrics, and logs signals with your Kubernetes telemetry, such as pod metrics and traces.

The Kubernetes Attributes Processor uses the Kubernetes API to discover all pods running in a cluster and keeps a record of their IP addresses, pod UIDs, and interesting metadata. By default, data passing through the processor is associated to a pod via the incoming request’s IP address, but different rules can be configured. Since the processor uses the Kubernetes API, it requires special permissions (see example below). If you’re using the OpenTelemetry Collector Helm chart you can use the kubernetesAttributes preset to get started.

The following attributes are added by default:

k8s.namespace.name
k8s.pod.name
k8s.pod.uid
k8s.pod.start_time
k8s.deployment.name
k8s.node.name

The Kubernetes Attributes Processor can also set custom resource attributes for traces, metrics, and logs using the Kubernetes labels and Kubernetes annotations you’ve added to your pods and namespaces.

k8sattributes:
  auth_type: 'serviceAccount'
  extract:
    metadata: # extracted from the pod
      - k8s.namespace.name
      - k8s.pod.name
      - k8s.pod.start_time
      - k8s.pod.uid
      - k8s.deployment.name
      - k8s.node.name
    annotations:
      # Extracts the value of a pod annotation with key `annotation-one` and inserts it as a resource attribute with key `a1`
      - tag_name: a1
        key: annotation-one
        from: pod
      # Extracts the value of a namespaces annotation with key `annotation-two` with regexp and inserts it as a resource  with key `a2`
      - tag_name: a2
        key: annotation-two
        regex: field=(?P<value>.+)
        from: namespace
    labels:
      # Extracts the value of a namespaces label with key `label1` and inserts it as a resource attribute with key `l1`
      - tag_name: l1
        key: label1
        from: namespace
      # Extracts the value of a pod label with key `label2` with regexp and inserts it as a resource attribute with key `l2`
      - tag_name: l2
        key: label2
        regex: field=(?P<value>.+)
        from: pod
  pod_association: # How to associate the data to a pod (order matters)
    - sources: # First try to use the value of the resource attribute k8s.pod.ip
        - from: resource_attribute
          name: k8s.pod.ip
    - sources: # Then try to use the value of the resource attribute k8s.pod.uid
        - from: resource_attribute
          name: k8s.pod.uid
    - sources: # If neither of those work, use the request's connection to get the pod IP.
        - from: connection

There are also special configuration options for when the collector is deployed as a Kubernetes DaemonSet (agent) or as a Kubernetes Deployment (gateway). For details, see Deployment Scenarios

For Kubernetes Attributes Processor configuration details, see Kubernetes Attributes Processor.

Since the processor uses the Kubernetes API, it needs the correct permission to work correctly. For most use cases, you should give the service account running the collector the following permissions via a ClusterRole.

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: collector
  namespace: <OTEL_COL_NAMESPACE>
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
rules:
  - apiGroups:
      - ''
    resources:
      - 'pods'
      - 'namespaces'
    verbs:
      - 'get'
      - 'watch'
      - 'list'
  - apiGroups:
      - 'apps'
    resources:
      - 'replicasets'
    verbs:
      - 'get'
      - 'list'
      - 'watch'
  - apiGroups:
      - 'extensions'
    resources:
      - 'replicasets'
    verbs:
      - 'get'
      - 'list'
      - 'watch'
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: collector
    namespace: <OTEL_COL_NAMESPACE>
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: otel-collector
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

Kubeletstats Receiver

Deployment Pattern	Usable
DaemonSet (agent)	Preferred
Deployment (gateway)	Yes, but will only collect metrics from the node it is deployed on
Sidecar	No

Each Kubernetes node runs a kubelet that includes an API server. The Kubernetes Receiver connects to that kubelet via the API server to collect metrics about the node and the workloads running on the node.

There are different methods for authentication, but typically a service account is used. The service account will also need proper permissions to pull data from the Kubelet (see below). If you’re using the OpenTelemetry Collector Helm chart you can use the kubeletMetrics preset to get started.

By default, metrics will be collected for pods and nodes, but you can configure the receiver to collect container and volume metrics as well. The receiver also allows configuring how often the metrics are collected:

receivers:
  kubeletstats:
    collection_interval: 10s
    auth_type: 'serviceAccount'
    endpoint: '${env:K8S_NODE_NAME}:10250'
    insecure_skip_verify: true
    metric_groups:
      - node
      - pod
      - container

For specific details about which metrics are collected, see Default Metrics. For specific configuration details, see Kubeletstats Receiver.

Since the processor uses the Kubernetes API, it needs the correct permission to work correctly. For most use cases, you should give the service account running the Collector the following permissions via a ClusterRole.

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
rules:
  - apiGroups: ['']
    resources: ['nodes/stats']
    verbs: ['get', 'watch', 'list']
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: otel-collector
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: otel-collector
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: otel-collector
    namespace: default

Filelog Receiver

Deployment Pattern	Usable
DaemonSet (agent)	Preferred
Deployment (gateway)	Yes, but will only collect logs from the node it is deployed on
Sidecar	Yes, but this would be considered advanced configuration

The Filelog Receiver tails and parses logs from files. Although it’s not a Kubernetes-specific receiver, it is still the de facto solution for collecting any logs from Kubernetes.

The Filelog Receiver is composed of Operators that are chained together to process a log. Each Operator performs a simple responsibility, such as parsing a timestamp or JSON. Configuring a Filelog Receiver is not trivial. If you’re using the OpenTelemetry Collector Helm chart you can use the logsCollection preset to get started.

Since Kubernetes logs normally fit a set of standard formats, a typical Filelog Receiver configuration for Kubernetes looks like:

filelog:
  include:
    - /var/log/pods/*/*/*.log
  exclude:
    # Exclude logs from all containers named otel-collector
    - /var/log/pods/*/otel-collector/*.log
  start_at: beginning
  include_file_path: true
  include_file_name: false
  operators:
    # Find out which format is used by kubernetes
    - type: router
      id: get-format
      routes:
        - output: parser-docker
          expr: 'body matches "^\\{"'
        - output: parser-crio
          expr: 'body matches "^[^ Z]+ "'
        - output: parser-containerd
          expr: 'body matches "^[^ Z]+Z"'
    # Parse CRI-O format
    - type: regex_parser
      id: parser-crio
      regex:
        '^(?P<time>[^ Z]+) (?P<stream>stdout|stderr) (?P<logtag>[^ ]*)
        ?(?P<log>.*)$'
      output: extract_metadata_from_filepath
      timestamp:
        parse_from: attributes.time
        layout_type: gotime
        layout: '2006-01-02T15:04:05.999999999Z07:00'
    # Parse CRI-Containerd format
    - type: regex_parser
      id: parser-containerd
      regex:
        '^(?P<time>[^ ^Z]+Z) (?P<stream>stdout|stderr) (?P<logtag>[^ ]*)
        ?(?P<log>.*)$'
      output: extract_metadata_from_filepath
      timestamp:
        parse_from: attributes.time
        layout: '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%LZ'
    # Parse Docker format
    - type: json_parser
      id: parser-docker
      output: extract_metadata_from_filepath
      timestamp:
        parse_from: attributes.time
        layout: '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%LZ'
    - type: move
      from: attributes.log
      to: body
    # Extract metadata from file path
    - type: regex_parser
      id: extract_metadata_from_filepath
      regex: '^.*\/(?P<namespace>[^_]+)_(?P<pod_name>[^_]+)_(?P<uid>[a-f0-9\-]{36})\/(?P<container_name>[^\._]+)\/(?P<restart_count>\d+)\.log$'
      parse_from: attributes["log.file.path"]
      cache:
        size: 128 # default maximum amount of Pods per Node is 110
    # Rename attributes
    - type: move
      from: attributes.stream
      to: attributes["log.iostream"]
    - type: move
      from: attributes.container_name
      to: resource["k8s.container.name"]
    - type: move
      from: attributes.namespace
      to: resource["k8s.namespace.name"]
    - type: move
      from: attributes.pod_name
      to: resource["k8s.pod.name"]
    - type: move
      from: attributes.restart_count
      to: resource["k8s.container.restart_count"]
    - type: move
      from: attributes.uid
      to: resource["k8s.pod.uid"]

For Filelog Receiver configuration details, see Filelog Receiver.

In addition to the Filelog Receiver configuration, your OpenTelemetry Collector installation in Kubernetes will need access to the logs it wants to collect. Typically this means adding some volumes and volumeMounts to your collector manifest:

---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: DaemonSet
...
spec:
  ...
  template:
    ...
    spec:
      ...
      containers:
        - name: opentelemetry-collector
          ...
          volumeMounts:
            ...
            # Mount the volumes to the collector container
            - name: varlogpods
              mountPath: /var/log/pods
              readOnly: true
            - name: varlibdockercontainers
              mountPath: /var/lib/docker/containers
              readOnly: true
            ...
      volumes:
        ...
        # Typically the collector will want access to pod logs and container logs
        - name: varlogpods
          hostPath:
            path: /var/log/pods
        - name: varlibdockercontainers
          hostPath:
            path: /var/lib/docker/containers
        ...

Kubernetes Cluster Receiver

Deployment Pattern	Usable
DaemonSet (agent)	Yes, but will result in duplicate data
Deployment (gateway)	Yes, but more than one replica results in duplicate data
Sidecar	No

The Kubernetes Cluster Receiver collects metrics and entity events about the cluster as a whole using the Kubernetes API server. Use this receiver to answer questions about pod phases, node conditions, and other cluster-wide questions. Since the receiver gathers telemetry for the cluster as a whole, only one instance of the receiver is needed across the cluster in order to collect all the data.

There are different methods for authentication, but typically a service account is used. The service account also needs proper permissions to pull data from the Kubernetes API server (see below). If you’re using the OpenTelemetry Collector Helm chart you can use the clusterMetrics preset to get started.

For node conditions, the receiver only collects Ready by default, but it can be configured to collect more. The receiver can also be configured to report a set of allocatable resources, such as cpu and memory:

k8s_cluster:
  auth_type: serviceAccount
  node_conditions_to_report:
    - Ready
    - MemoryPressure
  allocatable_types_to_report:
    - cpu
    - memory

To learn more about the metrics that are collected, see Default Metrics For configuration details, see Kubernetes Cluster Receiver.

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
rules:
  - apiGroups:
      - ''
    resources:
      - events
      - namespaces
      - namespaces/status
      - nodes
      - nodes/spec
      - pods
      - pods/status
      - replicationcontrollers
      - replicationcontrollers/status
      - resourcequotas
      - services
    verbs:
      - get
      - list
      - watch
  - apiGroups:
      - apps
    resources:
      - daemonsets
      - deployments
      - replicasets
      - statefulsets
    verbs:
      - get
      - list
      - watch
  - apiGroups:
      - extensions
    resources:
      - daemonsets
      - deployments
      - replicasets
    verbs:
      - get
      - list
      - watch
  - apiGroups:
      - batch
    resources:
      - jobs
      - cronjobs
    verbs:
      - get
      - list
      - watch
  - apiGroups:
      - autoscaling
    resources:
      - horizontalpodautoscalers
    verbs:
      - get
      - list
      - watch
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
    namespace: default

Kubernetes Objects Receiver

Deployment Pattern	Usable
DaemonSet (agent)	Yes, but will result in duplicate data
Deployment (gateway)	Yes, but more than one replica results in duplicate data
Sidecar	No

The Kubernetes Objects receiver collects, either by pulling or watching, objects from the Kubernetes API server. The most common use case for this receiver is watching Kubernetes events, but it can be used to collect any type of Kubernetes object. Since the receiver gathers telemetry for the cluster as a whole, only one instance of the receiver is needed across the cluster in order to collect all the data.

Currently only a service account can be used for authentication. The service account also needs proper permissions to pull data from the Kubernetes API server (see below). If you’re using the OpenTelemetry Collector Helm chart and you want to ingest events, you can use the kubernetesEvents preset to get started.

For objects configuring for pulling, the receiver will use the Kubernetes API to periodically list all the objects in the Cluster. Each object will be converted to its own log. For objects configured for watching, the receiver creates a stream with the Kubernetes API and which receives updates as the objects change.

To see which objects are available for collection run in your cluster run kubectl api-resources:

kubectl api-resources
NAME                              SHORTNAMES   APIVERSION                             NAMESPACED   KIND
bindings                                       v1                                     true         Binding
componentstatuses                 cs           v1                                     false        ComponentStatus
configmaps                        cm           v1                                     true         ConfigMap
endpoints                         ep           v1                                     true         Endpoints
events                            ev           v1                                     true         Event
limitranges                       limits       v1                                     true         LimitRange
namespaces                        ns           v1                                     false        Namespace
nodes                             no           v1                                     false        Node
persistentvolumeclaims            pvc          v1                                     true         PersistentVolumeClaim
persistentvolumes                 pv           v1                                     false        PersistentVolume
pods                              po           v1                                     true         Pod
podtemplates                                   v1                                     true         PodTemplate
replicationcontrollers            rc           v1                                     true         ReplicationController
resourcequotas                    quota        v1                                     true         ResourceQuota
secrets                                        v1                                     true         Secret
serviceaccounts                   sa           v1                                     true         ServiceAccount
services                          svc          v1                                     true         Service
mutatingwebhookconfigurations                  admissionregistration.k8s.io/v1        false        MutatingWebhookConfiguration
validatingwebhookconfigurations                admissionregistration.k8s.io/v1        false        ValidatingWebhookConfiguration
customresourcedefinitions         crd,crds     apiextensions.k8s.io/v1                false        CustomResourceDefinition
apiservices                                    apiregistration.k8s.io/v1              false        APIService
controllerrevisions                            apps/v1                                true         ControllerRevision
daemonsets                        ds           apps/v1                                true         DaemonSet
deployments                       deploy       apps/v1                                true         Deployment
replicasets                       rs           apps/v1                                true         ReplicaSet
statefulsets                      sts          apps/v1                                true         StatefulSet
tokenreviews                                   authentication.k8s.io/v1               false        TokenReview
localsubjectaccessreviews                      authorization.k8s.io/v1                true         LocalSubjectAccessReview
selfsubjectaccessreviews                       authorization.k8s.io/v1                false        SelfSubjectAccessReview
selfsubjectrulesreviews                        authorization.k8s.io/v1                false        SelfSubjectRulesReview
subjectaccessreviews                           authorization.k8s.io/v1                false        SubjectAccessReview
horizontalpodautoscalers          hpa          autoscaling/v2                         true         HorizontalPodAutoscaler
cronjobs                          cj           batch/v1                               true         CronJob
jobs                                           batch/v1                               true         Job
certificatesigningrequests        csr          certificates.k8s.io/v1                 false        CertificateSigningRequest
leases                                         coordination.k8s.io/v1                 true         Lease
endpointslices                                 discovery.k8s.io/v1                    true         EndpointSlice
events                            ev           events.k8s.io/v1                       true         Event
flowschemas                                    flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta2   false        FlowSchema
prioritylevelconfigurations                    flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta2   false        PriorityLevelConfiguration
ingressclasses                                 networking.k8s.io/v1                   false        IngressClass
ingresses                         ing          networking.k8s.io/v1                   true         Ingress
networkpolicies                   netpol       networking.k8s.io/v1                   true         NetworkPolicy
runtimeclasses                                 node.k8s.io/v1                         false        RuntimeClass
poddisruptionbudgets              pdb          policy/v1                              true         PodDisruptionBudget
clusterrolebindings                            rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1           false        ClusterRoleBinding
clusterroles                                   rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1           false        ClusterRole
rolebindings                                   rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1           true         RoleBinding
roles                                          rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1           true         Role
priorityclasses                   pc           scheduling.k8s.io/v1                   false        PriorityClass
csidrivers                                     storage.k8s.io/v1                      false        CSIDriver
csinodes                                       storage.k8s.io/v1                      false        CSINode
csistoragecapacities                           storage.k8s.io/v1                      true         CSIStorageCapacity
storageclasses                    sc           storage.k8s.io/v1                      false        StorageClass
volumeattachments                              storage.k8s.io/v1                      false        VolumeAttachment

For specific configuration details, see Kubernetes Objects Receiver.

Since the processor uses the Kubernetes API, it needs the correct permission to work correctly. Since service accounts are the only authentication option you must give the service account the proper access. For any object you want to collect you need to ensure the name is added to the cluster role. For example, if you wanted to collect pods then the cluster role would look like:

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
rules:
  - apiGroups:
      - ''
    resources:
      - pods
    verbs:
      - get
      - list
      - watch
---
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: otel-collector-opentelemetry-collector
    namespace: default

Prometheus Receiver

Deployment Pattern	Usable
DaemonSet (agent)	Yes
Deployment (gateway)	Yes
Sidecar	No

Prometheus is a common metrics format for both Kubernetes and services running on Kubernetes. The Prometheus receiver is a minimal drop-in replacement for the collection of those metrics. It supports the full set of Prometheus scrape_config options.

There are a few advanced Prometheus features that the receiver does not support. The receiver returns an error if the configuration YAML/code contains any of the following:

alert_config.alertmanagers
alert_config.relabel_configs
remote_read
remote_write
rule_files

For specific configuration details, see Prometheus Receiver.

The Prometheus receiver is Stateful, which means there are important details to consider when using it:

The collector cannot auto-scale the scraping process when multiple replicas of the collector are run.
When running multiple replicas of the collector with the same config, it will scrape the targets multiple times.
Users need to configure each replica with a different scraping configuration if they want to manually shard the scraping process.

To make configuring the Prometheus receiver easier, the OpenTelemetry Operator includes an optional component called the Target Allocator. This component can be used to tell a collector which Prometheus endpoints it should scrape.

For more information on the design of the receiver, see Design.

Host Metrics Receiver

Deployment Pattern	Usable
DaemonSet (agent)	Preferred
Deployment (gateway)	Yes, but only collects metrics from the node it is deployed on
Sidecar	No

The Host Metrics Receiver collects metrics from a host using a variety of scrapers. There is some overlap with the Kubeletstats Receiver so if you decide to use both, it may be worth it to disable these duplicate metrics.

In Kubernetes, the receiver needs access to the hostfs volume to work properly. If you’re using the OpenTelemetry Collector Helm chart you can use the hostMetrics preset to get started.

The available scrapers are:

Scraper	Supported OSs	Description
cpu	All except Mac¹	CPU utilization metrics
disk	All except Mac¹	Disk I/O metrics
load	All	CPU load metrics
filesystem	All	File System utilization metrics
memory	All	Memory utilization metrics
network	All	Network interface I/O metrics & TCP connection metrics
paging	All	Paging/Swap space utilization and I/O metrics
processes	Linux, Mac	Process count metrics
process	Linux, Windows, Mac	Per process CPU, Memory, and Disk I/O metrics

For specific details about which metrics are collected and specific configuration details, see Host Metrics Receiver.

If you need to configure the component yourself, make sure to mount the hostfs volume if you want to collect the node’s metrics and not the container’s.

---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: DaemonSet
...
spec:
  ...
  template:
    ...
    spec:
      ...
      containers:
        - name: opentelemetry-collector
          ...
          volumeMounts:
            ...
            - name: hostfs
              mountPath: /hostfs
              readOnly: true
              mountPropagation: HostToContainer
      volumes:
        ...
        - name: hostfs
          hostPath:
            path: /
      ...

and then configure the Host Metrics Receiver to use the volumeMount:

receivers:
  hostmetrics:
    root_path: /hostfs
    collection_interval: 10s
    scrapers:
      cpu:
      load:
      memory:
      disk:
      filesystem:
      network:

For more details about using the receiver in a container, see Collecting host metrics from inside a container (Linux only)

Not supported on Mac when compiled without cgo, which is the default for the images released by the Collector SIG. ↩︎ ↩︎

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