Kubetail
Bash script that enables you to aggregate (tail/follow) logs from multiple pods into one stream. This is the same as running "kubectl logs -f " but for multiple pods.
Installation
Just download the kubetail file (or any of the releases) and you're good to go.
Homebrew
You can also install kubetail using brew:
$ brew tap johanhaleby/kubetail && brew install kubetail
Use brew install --HEAD kubetail
to install the latest (unreleased) version.
Usage
First find the names of all your pods:
$ kubectl get pods
This will return a list looking something like this:
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
app1-v1-aba8y 1/1 Running 0 1d
app1-v1-gc4st 1/1 Running 0 1d
app1-v1-m8acl 1/1 Running 0 6d
app1-v1-s20d0 1/1 Running 0 1d
app2-v31-9pbpn 1/1 Running 0 1d
app2-v31-q74wg 1/1 Running 0 1d
my-demo-v5-0fa8o 1/1 Running 0 3h
my-demo-v5-yhren 1/1 Running 0 2h
To tail the logs of the two "app2" pods in one go simply do:
$ kubetail app2
To tail only a specific container from multiple pods specify the container like this:
$ kubetail app2 -c container1
You can repeat -c
to tail multiple specific containers:
$ kubetail app2 -c container1 -c contianer2
Supply -h
for help and addtional options:
$ kubetail -h
Colors
By using the -k
argument you can specifiy how kubetail makes use of colors (only applicable when tailing multiple pods).
Value | Description |
---|---|
pod | Only the pod name is colorized but the logged text is using the terminal default color |
line | The entire line is colorized (default) |
false | Don't colorize the output at all |
Example:
$ kubetail app2 -k false
Filtering / Highlighting etc
kubetail itself doesn't have filitering or highlighting capabilities built-in. If you're on MacOSX I recommend using iTerm2 which allows for continuous highlighting of search terms, good scrolling capabilities and multitab arrangements. Another useful feature of iTerm2 is the "timeline" (cmd
+ shift
+ e
) which lets you display a timeline in your own local timezone next to the logs (that are typically in UTC).
If you're not using iTerm2 or think that kubetail is lacking in features there's a fork of kubetail made by Alan Stebbens that allows for richer configuration and uses multitail and bash-lib. Alan has been kind enough to provide a pull request but my current thinking is that I'd like kubetail to stay simple and small and not use any dependencies.
Known issues
When you press "ctrl+c" to end the log session you may end up with errors like this:
error: write /dev/stdout: broken pipe
I'm not quite sure why this happens, pull requests are welcome :)
See also: http://code.haleby.se/2015/11/13/tail-logs-from-multiple-pods-simultaneously-in-kubernetes/