Kubernetes Event Collector

The Kubernetes Event Collector (KEL) watches for Kubernetes events within a namespace and stores them to a buffer which can be stashed. Kubernetes events are useful for monitoring the state of a cluster and applications within a cluster however they are only stored by Kubernetes for a limited period of time and they can also be noisy if multiple applications are running within a namespace. KEL watches events and stores them in a buffer which can be stashed when something goes wrong.

Installation

KEL can be installed into a kubernetes namespace using the provided helm charts in the event-collector/ directory

helm install event-collector charts/event-collector

API

A REST API can be used to communicate with a KEL instance to view event stashes taken as well as trigger new stashes. By default it is served on port 8080

• List all taken stash

  GET /stashes

• Trigger a stash

  POST /stashes

• Get a stash

  GET /stashes/<stash_name>

• Get the current buffer

  GET /buffer

Configuration

The Event Collector is configured using a /etc/eventcollector/config.yaml file.

Stash completion plugins

Stash completion plugins trigger an action when a stash is taken. Currently supported plugins

• KubernetesEvents

In the future we plan to support Slack as-well

Event Filters

Simple filters can be set using the config file to filter events by:

• Involved Object API Version
• Involved Object Kind
• Involved Object Labels

Example

Example Config file

bufferSize: 1000                # The buffer size determines how many events are stored
stashCompletionPlugins:          # Plugins to trigger actions when a stash is taken 
  kubernetesEvent:
    enabled: true               # Enable creating a K8s event when a stash is taken
stashOnWarningEvents: true       # Will trigger a stash when the collector sees an event type warning
eventFilters:                   # Filters for events to be collected, if an event matches any of the filters it will be collected
- apiVersion: couchbase.com/v2  # This filter will collect any events with involvedObjects of "couchbase.com/v2" API version
- labels:                       # This filter will collect any event where the involvedObjects labels have app=couchbase AND couchbase_server=true*
  - key: app
    value: couchbase
  - key: couchbase_server
    value: true
- labels                        # This filter will collect any event where the involvedObjects labels have app=couchbase-operator*
  - key: app
    value: couchbase-operator    

*: Label matching is currently limited only to Pods, Deployments and PersistentVolumeClaims