Add Kubernetes metadataedit

Inputs that collect logs and metrics use this processor by default, so you do not need to configure it explicitly.

The add_kubernetes_metadata processor annotates each event with relevant metadata based on which Kubernetes Pod the event originated from. At startup it detects an in_cluster environment and caches the Kubernetes-related metadata.

For events to be annotated with Kubernetes-related metadata, the Kubernetes configuration must be valid.

Each event is annotated with:

  • Pod Name
  • Pod UID
  • Namespace
  • Labels

In addition, the node and namespace metadata are added to the Pod metadata.

The add_kubernetes_metadata processor has two basic building blocks:

  • Indexers
  • Matchers

Indexers use Pod metadata to create unique identifiers for each one of the Pods. These identifiers help to correlate the metadata of the observed Pods with actual events. For example, the ip_port indexer can take a Kubernetes Pod and create identifiers for it based on all its pod_ip:container_port combinations.

Matchers use information in events to construct lookup keys that match the identifiers created by the indexers. For example, when the fields matcher takes ["metricset.host"] as a lookup field, it constructs a lookup key with the value of the field metricset.host. When one of these lookup keys matches with one of the identifiers, the event is enriched with the metadata of the identified Pod.

For more information about available indexers and matchers, plus some examples, refer to Indexers and matchers.

Examplesedit

This configuration enables the processor when Elastic Agent is run as a Pod in Kubernetes.

  - add_kubernetes_metadata:
      # Defining indexers and matchers manually is required for {beatname_lc}, for instance:
      #indexers:
      #  - ip_port:
      #matchers:
      #  - fields:
      #      lookup_fields: ["metricset.host"]
      #labels.dedot: true
      #annotations.dedot: true

This configuration enables the processor on an Elastic Agent running as a process on the Kubernetes node:

  - add_kubernetes_metadata:
      host: <hostname>
      # If kube_config is not set, KUBECONFIG environment variable will be checked
      # and if not present it will fall back to InCluster
      kube_config: $Fleet and Elastic Agent Guide [8.6]/.kube/config
      # Defining indexers and matchers manually is required for {beatname_lc}, for instance:
      #indexers:
      #  - ip_port:
      #matchers:
      #  - fields:
      #      lookup_fields: ["metricset.host"]
      #labels.dedot: true
      #annotations.dedot: true

This configuration disables the default indexers and matchers, and then enables different indexers and matchers:

  - add_kubernetes_metadata:
      host: <hostname>
      # If kube_config is not set, KUBECONFIG environment variable will be checked
      # and if not present it will fall back to InCluster
      kube_config: ~/.kube/config
      default_indexers.enabled: false
      default_matchers.enabled: false
      indexers:
        - ip_port:
      matchers:
        - fields:
            lookup_fields: ["metricset.host"]
      #labels.dedot: true
      #annotations.dedot: true

Configuration settingsedit

Elastic Agent processors execute before ingest pipelines, which means that they process the raw event data rather than the final event sent to Elasticsearch. For related limitations, refer to What are some limitations of using processors?

Name Required Default Description

host

No

Node to scope Elastic Agent to in case it cannot be accurately detected, as when running Elastic Agent in host network mode.

scope

No

node

Whether the processor should have visibility at the node level (node) or at the entire cluster level (cluster).

namespace

No

Namespace to collect the metadata from. If no namespaces is specified, collects metadata from all namespaces.

add_resource_metadata

No

Filters and configuration for adding extra metadata to the event. This setting accepts the following settings:

  • node or namespace: Labels and annotations filters for the extra metadata coming from node and namespace. By default all labels are included, but annotations are not. To change the default behavior, you can set include_labels, exclude_labels, and include_annotations. These settings are useful when storing labels and annotations that require special handling to avoid overloading the storage output. Note that wildcards are not supported in these settings. To turn off enrichment of node or namespace metadata individually, set enabled: false.
  • deployment: If the resource is pod and it is created from a deployment, the deployment name is added by default. To disable this behavior, set deployment: false.
  • cronjob: If the resource is pod and it is created from a cronjob, the cronjob name is added by default. To disable this behavior, set cronjob: false.
Expand this to see an example
      add_resource_metadata:
        namespace:
          include_labels: ["namespacelabel1"]
          #labels.dedot: true
          #annotations.dedot: true
        node:
          include_labels: ["nodelabel2"]
          include_annotations: ["nodeannotation1"]
          #labels.dedot: true
          #annotations.dedot: true
        deployment: false
        cronjob: false

kube_config

No

KUBECONFIG environment variable, if present

Config file to use as the configuration for the Kubernetes client.

kube_client_options

No

Additional configuration options for the Kubernetes client. Currently client QPS and burst are supported. If this setting is not configured, the Kubernetes client’s default QPS and burst is used.

Expand this to see an example
      kube_client_options:
        qps: 5
        burst: 10

cleanup_timeout

No

60s

Time of inactivity before stopping the running configuration for a container.

sync_period

No

Timeout for listing historical resources.

labels.dedot

No

true

Whether to replace dots (.) in labels with underscores (_).

annotations.dedot

Indexers and matchersedit

The add_kubernetes_metadata processor has two basic building blocks:

  • Indexers
  • Matchers
Indexersedit

Indexers use Pod metadata to create unique identifiers for each one of the Pods.

Available indexers are:

container
Identifies the Pod metadata using the IDs of its containers.
ip_port
Identifies the Pod metadata using combinations of its IP and its exposed ports. When using this indexer, metadata is identified using the combination of ip:port for each of the ports exposed by all containers of the pod. The ip is the IP of the pod.
pod_name
Identifies the Pod metadata using its namespace and its name as namespace/pod_name.
pod_uid
Identifies the Pod metadata using the UID of the Pod.
Matchersedit

Matchers are used to construct the lookup keys that match with the identifiers created by indexes.

Available matchers are:

field_format

Looks up Pod metadata using a key created with a string format that can include event fields.

This matcher has an option format to define the string format. This string format can contain placeholders for any field in the event.

For example, the following configuration uses the ip_port indexer to identify the Pod metadata by combinations of the Pod IP and its exposed ports, and uses the destination IP and port in events as match keys:

- add_kubernetes_metadata:
    ...
    default_indexers.enabled: false
    default_matchers.enabled: false
    indexers:
      - ip_port:
    matchers:
      - field_format:
          format: '%{[destination.ip]}:%{[destination.port]}'
fields

Looks up Pod metadata using as key the value of some specific fields. When multiple fields are defined, the first one included in the event is used.

This matcher has an option lookup_fields to define the files whose value will be used for lookup.

For example, the following configuration uses the ip_port indexer to identify Pods, and defines a matcher that uses the destination IP or the server IP for the lookup, the first it finds in the event:

- add_kubernetes_metadata:
    ...
    default_indexers.enabled: false
    default_matchers.enabled: false
    indexers:
      - ip_port:
    matchers:
      - fields:
          lookup_fields: ['destination.ip', 'server.ip']
logs_path

Looks up Pod metadata using identifiers extracted from the log path stored in the log.file.path field.

This matcher has the following configuration settings:

logs_path
(Optional) Base path of container logs. If not specified, it uses the default logs path of the platform where Agent is running: for Linux - /var/lib/docker/containers/, Windows - C:\\ProgramData\\Docker\\containers. To change the default value: container ID must follow right after the logs_path - <log_path>/<container_id>, where container_id is a 64-character-long hexadecimal string.
resource_type

(Optional) Type of the resource to obtain the ID of. Valid resource_type:

  • pod: to make the lookup based on the Pod UID. When resource_type is set to pod, logs_path must be set as well, supported path in this case:

    • /var/lib/kubelet/pods/ used to read logs from mounted into the Pod volumes, those logs end up under /var/lib/kubelet/pods/<pod UID>/volumes/<volume name>/... To use /var/lib/kubelet/pods/ as a log_path, /var/lib/kubelet/pods must be mounted into the filebeat Pods.
    • /var/log/pods/ Note: when using resource_type: 'pod' logs will be enriched only with Pod metadata: Pod id, Pod name, etc., not container metadata.
  • container: to make the lookup based on the container ID, logs_path must be set to /var/log/containers/. It defaults to container.

To be able to use logs_path matcher agent’s input path must be a subdirectory of directory defined in logs_path configuration setting.

The default configuration is able to lookup the metadata using the container ID when the logs are collected from the default docker logs path (/var/lib/docker/containers/<container ID>/... on Linux).

For example the following configuration would use the Pod UID when the logs are collected from /var/lib/kubelet/pods/<pod UID>/....

- add_kubernetes_metadata:
    ...
    default_indexers.enabled: false
    default_matchers.enabled: false
    indexers:
      - pod_uid:
    matchers:
      - logs_path:
          logs_path: '/var/lib/kubelet/pods'
          resource_type: 'pod'