Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) integrates with Log Service. You can use ACK
to collect access logs of clusters on the data plane of an Alibaba Cloud Service Mesh
(ASM) instance. This topic describes how to enable and configure log collection and
view the collected logs.
Background information
After you add a Kubernetes cluster to an ASM instance, Envoy proxies that are deployed
on the data plane of the ASM instance can export all access logs of the cluster. For
more information, see Access logging. You can run the kubectl logs command to view the Envoy access logs. Log Service allows you to view logs in a convenient
manner. In addition, you can collect and retrieve logs and create log dashboards.
Step 1: Install Logtail for the Kubernetes cluster
To create a Kubernetes cluster, perform the following steps:
- Log on to the ACK console.
- In the left-side navigation pane of the ACK console, click Clusters.
- On the Clusters page, click Create Kubernetes Cluster in the upper-right corner. For more information, see Create a managed Kubernetes cluster.
- In the Component Configurations step, select Enable Log Service to install Logtail for the Kubernetes cluster to be created.
- Click Select Project and select an existing project to manage collected logs.

- Click Create Project. By default, the system names the project in the format of k8s-log-{ClusterID}. ClusterID
indicates the unique ID of the cluster to be created.

- Set other parameters as required and click Create Cluster to create a cluster.
To install Logtail in a Kubernetes cluster, perform the following steps:
- Log on to the ACK console.
- In the left-side navigation pane of the ACK console, click Clusters.
- On the Clusters page, find the cluster that you want to manage and click the name of the cluster
or click Details in the Actions column. The details page of the cluster appears.
- In the left-side navigation pane, choose .
- Find logtail-ds in the Optional Add-ons list and click Install.
- In the Note dialog box, click OK.
To upgrade Logtail whose version is earlier than V0.16.24.0-1fa7551-aliyun for a Kubernetes
cluster, perform the following steps:
- Log on to the ACK console.
- In the left-side navigation pane of the ACK console, click Clusters.
- On the Clusters page, find the cluster that you want to manage and click the name of the cluster
or click Details in the Actions column. The details page of the cluster appears.
- In the left-side navigation pane, choose .
- Find logtail-ds in the Optional Add-ons list and click Upgrade.
- In the Note dialog box, click OK.
Step 2: Configure log collection
To use Logtail to collect Envoy access logs, you must configure the log collection
feature in the configuration file of the Kubernetes cluster.
If the Istio version of your ASM instance is V1.7.5.26-gd318a562-aliyun or later,
perform the following steps:
- Log on to the ASM console.
- In the left-side navigation pane, choose .
- On the Mesh Management page, find the ASM instance that you want to configure. Click the name of the ASM
instance or click Manage in the Actions column.
- On the details page of the ASM instance, choose in the left-side navigation pane. On the Basic Information page, click Settings.
- In the Settings Update panel, select Enable Access Log Collection and click OK.
If the Istio version of your ASM instance is earlier than V1.7.5.26-gd318a562-aliyun,
perform the following steps:
- Create a YAML file by using the following template:
apiVersion: log.alibabacloud.com/v1alpha1
kind: AliyunLogConfig
metadata:
# your config name, must be unique in you k8s cluster
name: mesh-access-log-config
namespace: kube-system
spec:
# must use same project with k8s cluster
project: k8s-log-${K8SClusterID}
# logstore name to upload log
logstore: mesh-access-log
# product code always been mesh-access-log
productCode: mesh-access-log
# logtail config detail
logtailConfig:
# docker stdout's input type is 'plugin'
inputType: plugin
# logtail config name, should be same with [metadata.name]
configName: mesh-access-log-config
inputDetail:
plugin:
inputs:
- type: service_docker_stdout
detail:
# collect stdout and stderr
Stdout: true
Stderr: true
IncludeEnv:
ISTIO_META_POD_NAME: ""
IncludeLabel:
io.kubernetes.container.name: "istio-proxy"
processors:
- type: processor_json
detail:
# By default, the key of the data that is collected from Dockers is content.
SourceKey: content
ExpandConnector: ""
KeepSource: true
NoKeyError: true
Note
- Replace ${K8SClusterID} in the YAML template with the ID of your Kubernetes cluster.
- You must prepare a configuration file for each Kubernetes cluster.
- Set the project field in the YAML file in the format of k8s-log-${K8SClusterID}. Do
not modify the value of the logstore field. Otherwise, the control plane of the ASM
instance may not be normally displayed.
- After you edit the YAML file, deploy the file for the Kubernetes cluster.
kubectl apply -f [The path of the YAML file]
Step 3: View logs
After you configure the log collection feature, Logtail uses the specified project
to collect Envoy access logs and stores the logs in the specified Logstore. To view
the logs, perform the following steps:
- Log on to the ASM console.
- In the left-side navigation pane, choose .
- On the Mesh Management page, find the ASM instance that you want to view. Click the name of the ASM instance
or click Manage in the Actions column of the ASM instance.
- On the details page of the ASM instance, choose in the left-side navigation pane.
- Choose Data Plane (Service Discovery) > Kubernetes Clusters. On the Kubernetes Clusters page, find the cluster of the ingress gateway for which you want to view logs. Click
View Reports and then Detailed Access Logs or Access Log Monitoring in the Observability column.
- If you click Access Log Monitoring, you can view multi-dimensional statistics on access logs.
- If you click Detailed Access Logs, you can view original access logs in a sorted manner.