If you are using Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), your GCP identity must have the cluster-admin role. If it isn’t assigned already, you can assign the role by running:

kubectl create clusterrolebinding cluster-admin-binding --clusterrole=cluster-admin --user=$(gcloud info --format='value(config.account)')

Clone the kube-state-metrics repository to a local directory:

git clone git@github.com:kubernetes/kube-state-metrics.git

Change directories into the cloned repository:

cd kube-state-metrics

Deploy the project to your Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl apply -f examples/standard

The results should be like the following:

clusterrolebinding.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kube-state-metrics created
clusterrole.rbac.authorization.k8s.io/kube-state-metrics created
deployment.apps/kube-state-metrics created
serviceaccount/kube-state-metrics created
service/kube-state-metrics created

To test that the KSM service is running, run the following command to expose the service:

kubectl port-forward svc/kube-state-metrics -n kube-system 8080:8080

The result should be:

Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8080 -> 8080
Forwarding from [::1]:8080 -> 8080

Now, open up a web browser to address localhost:8080/metrics. If things are working properly, you will see a flow of metrics data from your cluster.

Enter your email address and a password.

After you’ve logged in, you can create a deployment. Give your deployment a name and select Create deployment.

Choose the Monitor Kubernetes clusters card. The guide opens on the first step.

In the guide, on the Add data tab, select Start. The Elastic Kubernetes integration page opens.

Select Add Kubernetes, and you’re ready to add your first integration.

Follow the steps in the guide to configure and enroll Elastic Agent in Fleet:

In the integration setup guide, wait for confirmation that Elastic Agent is enrolled in Fleet. This can take a few minutes.

You can also view the status of your Elastic Agents at any time by navigating in Kibana to the Fleet page. Our test Kubernetes cluster has three nodes, so three Elastic Agents are configured.

You can also check the status of your the Elastic Agents in your Kubernetes cluster by running the get pods command:

kubectl -n kube-system get pods -l app=elastic-agent

Once the Elastic Agents are up and running, the result should be:

NAME                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
elastic-agent-b72dp   1/1     Running   0          3m35s
elastic-agent-p2t39   1/1     Running   0          3m35s
elastic-agent-xmfhg   1/1     Running   0          3m35s

Your Kubernetes cluster logs should also show that the Elastic Agent pods were created successfully. Filter by elastic-agent to see just the applicable logs:

Choose the type of metrics and logs that you want to monitor. If you like, you can leave all of the defaults for now and adjust these settings later to suit your needs.

Select Confirm incoming data. Wait a moment for the Elastic Agent policy to save, and then the Kubernetes integration setup guide opens on the second step.

In the guide, on the Explore Kubernetes metrics and logs tab, select Start. The Kibana [Metrics Kubernetes] Cluster Overview dashboard opens.

You can use the dashboard filters to drill down to a specific cluster or namespace. You can also filter the time period for the metrics to any range, either absolute or relative to the current time.

On the Kubernetes Dashboards [Metrics Kubernetes] card, try out some of the other dashboards that are available.

For example, on the Kubernetes Pods dashboard, the default visualizations capture the pods status, CPU usage, memory usage, and network traffic:

On the Kubernetes Deployments dashboard, you can view all deployments and replicas: desired, available, unavailable, and updated.

On the Elastic banner, select Setup guide: step 2. The guide opens on the second step.