Using Loki to Manage k8s Application Logs

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Scaleway Elements Kubernetes Kapsule is not delivered with an embedded logging feature.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to collect your Kubernetes logs using Loki and Grafana. Loki is a log aggregation system inspired by Prometheus.
We believe that it is easy to operate -especially in a Kubernetes environment- as it does not index the content of the logs but set labels for log streams.
As in a cloud-native environment, Prometheus is one of the most common solutions for monitoring. You can re-use the same labels you have already set for Prometheus. For instance, in Kubernetes, the metadata you are using (object labels) can be used in Loki for scraping logs. If you use Grafana for metrics, using Loki will allow you to have a single point of management for both logging and monitoring.

Installing Loki with Helm

The loki application is not is included in the default Helm repositories.

1. Add the Grafana repository to Helm and update it.

   helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts
   helm repo update
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   Which returns

   "grafana" has been added to your repositories
   Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
   ...Successfully got an update from the "loki" chart repository
   ...Successfully got an update from the "grafana" chart repository
   Update Complete. ⎈Happy Helming!⎈
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2. Install the loki-stack with Helm. We install all the stack in a Kubernetes dedicated namespace named loki-stack. We need to deploy it to your cluster and enable persistence (allow Helm to create a Scaleway block device and attach it to the Loki pod to store its data) using a Kubernetes Persistent Volumes to survive a pod re-schedule:

   $ helm install loki-stack grafana/loki-stack \
                                   --create-namespace \
                                   --namespace loki-stack \
                                   --set promtail.enabled=true,loki.persistence.enabled=true,loki.persistence.size=100Gi
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   It will use the Kapsule’s default storage class which is scw-bsdd to create block volumes using Scaleway block storage.

   If you plan to use Loki on a production system be sure that you setup a retention period to avoid filling the filesystems. For instance use these parameters if you want to enable a 30 days retention (logs older than 30 days will be deleted). Please note that you have to choose the size of the persistent volume to fit the amount of volume your deployment will create.

• config.table_manager.retention_deletes_enabled : true

• config.table_manager.retention_period: 720h

  Install Grafana in the loki-stack namespace with Helm. We also want Grafana to survive a re-schedule so we are enabling persistence too :

• persistence.enabled: true

• persistence.type: pvc

• persistence.size: 10Gi

  $ helm install loki-grafana grafana/grafana \
                                --set persistence.enabled=true,persistence.type=pvc,persistence.size=10Gi \
                                --namespace=loki-stack
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  You can check if the block devices were correctly created by Kubernetes:

  $ kubectl get pv,pvc -n loki-stack
  NAME                                                        CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   RECLAIM POLICY   STATUS   CLAIM                             STORAGECLASS   REASON   AGE
  persistentvolume/pvc-88038939-24a5-4383-abe8-f3aab97b7ce7   10Gi       RWO            Delete           Bound    loki-stack/loki-grafana           scw-bssd                18s
  persistentvolume/pvc-c6fce993-a73d-4423-9464-7c10ab009062   100Gi      RWO            Delete           Bound    loki-stack/storage-loki-stack-0   scw-bssd                4m30s
  
  NAME                                         STATUS   VOLUME                                     CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS   AGE
  persistentvolumeclaim/loki-grafana           Bound    pvc-88038939-24a5-4383-abe8-f3aab97b7ce7   10Gi       RWO            scw-bssd       19s
  persistentvolumeclaim/storage-loki-stack-0   Bound    pvc-c6fce993-a73d-4423-9464-7c10ab009062   100Gi      RWO            scw-bssd       5m3s
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  Now that both Loki and Grafana are installed in the cluster, check if the pods are correctly running:

  $ kubectl get pods -n loki-stack
  
  NAME                            READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
  loki-grafana-67994589cc-7jq4t   0/1     Running   0          74s
  loki-stack-0                    1/1     Running   0          5m58s
  loki-stack-promtail-dtf5v       1/1     Running   0          5m42s
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  To be able to connect to Grafana you first have to get the admin password:

  $ kubectl get secret --namespace loki-stack loki-grafana -o jsonpath="{.data.admin-password}" | base64 --decode ; echo
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  Configure a port-forward to reach Grafana from your web browser:

  $ kubectl port-forward --namespace loki-stack service/loki-grafana 3000:80
  Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:3000 -> 3000
  Forwarding from [::1]:3000 -> 3000
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  Access http://localhost:3000 to reach the Grafana interface. Login using the admin user and the password you got above.

  

  Add the Loki source to Grafana (http://loki-stack.loki-stack:3100).

  

  Check you can access your logs using the explore tab in Grafana:

  

  You now have a Loki stack up and running. All your pods logs will be stored in Loki and you will be able to view and query your applications logs in Grafana. Please refer to the Grafana documentation here, if you want to learn more about querying the Loki data source.