logtail-ds is the log collection agent that Log Service deploys in Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) clusters. It enables high-performance log collection with low resource overhead. It runs as a DaemonSet — one pod per node — so every container's logs are captured regardless of where workloads are scheduled.
How it works
When logtail-ds is installed in the kube-system namespace, the system automatically creates three resources:
A CustomResourceDefinition (CRD) named
aliyunlogconfigs, which registers the log configuration schema with the Kubernetes API.A Deployment named
alibaba-log-controller, which is used to manage CRDs.A DaemonSet running Logtail on every node to collect log data.
The DaemonSet model ensures log collection scales automatically as nodes join or leave the cluster — no manual agent provisioning required.
What logtail-ds collects
Out of the box, logtail-ds supports three log data types:
Standard output — container logs written to stdout
Files — log files written to container paths
Syslog — system-level log streams
It also supports dynamic container filtering, so you can scope collection to the specific containers whose logs you want to collect. Multiple log parsing methods are available for structured and unstructured log formats.
For the full list of collection features, see Logtail overview.
Usage notes
For prerequisites, configuration requirements, and known limitations, see Collect log files from containers by using Log Service.
Release notes
For version history and changelogs, see logtail-ds release notes.