Filtering CloudWatch logs for EKS containers

If you run containers in EKS Kubernetes you are probably using Fluentd/FluentBit to send logs from pods to Cloudwatch. One issue many encounter with this approach is a steep increase in logging costs due to the way that the cwagent and fluentbit kubernetes plugin send all logs from all containers. Excluding logs based on namespace or containers is difficult and poorly documented but by tweaking your input configuration you can save on logging costs and reduce log noise.

What is FluentBit and how does it relate to Kubernetes logging

FluentBit is the successor to Fluentd - the defacto logging agent for kubernetes clusters. When running containers in kubernetes FluentBit can mount container logs into /var/log and aggregate the results. It can then export logs to a number of logging clients such as Cloudwatch.

Installation and setup

Assuming you have already installed fluentbit on your AWS EKS kubernetes cluster following the workshop instructions we can inspect the configuration and customize the outputs. The standard config file is probably stored in a ConfigMap YAML file with the name like fluent-bit.conf. Here is the config from the MailSlurp cluster we run our disposable email account services on.

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: fluent-bit-config
  namespace: amazon-cloudwatch
  labels:
    k8s-app: fluent-bit
data:
  fluent-bit.conf: |
    [SERVICE]
        Flush                     5
        Log_Level                 info
        Daemon                    off
        Parsers_File              parsers.conf
        HTTP_Server               ${HTTP_SERVER}
        HTTP_Listen               0.0.0.0
        HTTP_Port                 ${HTTP_PORT}
        storage.path              /var/fluent-bit/state/flb-storage/
        storage.sync              normal
        storage.checksum          off
        storage.backlog.mem_limit 5M

    @INCLUDE application-log.conf

  application-log.conf: |
    [INPUT]
        Name                tail
        Tag                 application.*
        Exclude_Path        /var/log/containers/cloudwatch-agent*, /var/log/containers/fluent-bit*, /var/log/containers/aws-node*, /var/log/containers/kube-proxy*
        Path                /var/log/containers/*
        Docker_Mode         On
        Docker_Mode_Flush   5
        Docker_Mode_Parser  container_firstline
        Parser              docker
        DB                  /var/fluent-bit/state/flb_container.db
        Mem_Buf_Limit       50MB
        Skip_Long_Lines     On
        Refresh_Interval    10
        Rotate_Wait         30
        storage.type        filesystem
        Read_from_Head      ${READ_FROM_HEAD}

    [FILTER]
        Name                kubernetes
        Match               application.*
        Kube_URL            https://kubernetes.default.svc:443
        Kube_Tag_Prefix     application.var.log.containers.
        Merge_Log           On
        Merge_Log_Key       log_processed
        K8S-Logging.Parser  On
        K8S-Logging.Exclude On
        Labels              Off
        Annotations         Off

    [OUTPUT]
        Name                cloudwatch_logs
        Match               application.*
        region              ${AWS_REGION}
        log_group_name      /aws/containerinsights/${CLUSTER_NAME}/application
        log_stream_prefix   ${HOST_NAME}-
        auto_create_group   true
        extra_user_agent    container-insights

  parsers.conf: |
    [PARSER]
        Name                docker
        Format              json
        Time_Key            time
        Time_Format         %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%LZ

    [PARSER]
        Name                syslog
        Format              regex
        Regex               ^(?<time>[^ ]* {1,2}[^ ]* [^ ]*) (?<host>[^ ]*) (?<ident>[a-zA-Z0-9_\/\.\-]*)(?:\[(?<pid>[0-9]+)\])?(?:[^\:]*\:)? *(?<message>.*)$
        Time_Key            time
        Time_Format         %b %d %H:%M:%S

    [PARSER]
        Name                container_firstline
        Format              regex
        Regex               (?<log>(?<="log":")\S(?!\.).*?)(?<!\\)".*(?<stream>(?<="stream":").*?)".*(?<time>\d{4}-\d{1,2}-\d{1,2}T\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\.\w*).*(?=})
        Time_Key            time
        Time_Format         %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%LZ

    [PARSER]
        Name                cwagent_firstline
        Format              regex
        Regex               (?<log>(?<="log":")\d{4}[\/-]\d{1,2}[\/-]\d{1,2}[ T]\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}(?!\.).*?)(?<!\\)".*(?<stream>(?<="stream":").*?)".*(?<time>\d{4}-\d{1,2}-\d{1,2}T\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\.\w*).*(?=})
        Time_Key            time
        Time_Format         %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%LZ

Take note of the application.conf [INPUT] section. Notice the following line:

Path    /var/log/containers/*

This standard setup uses a wildcard pattern to match all container logs mounted inside the FluentBit agent at the /var/log/ directory. In the next section we can modify the Path field or the Exclude_Path property to filter containers for logging and exclude namespaces or pods.

Excluding containers

The easiest way to exclude everything and only include the pods you wish is to change the Path property in your input configuration to include a comma separated list of container patterns that you want to include in the logging pipeline. Here is an example:

  application-log.conf: |
    [INPUT]
        Name                tail
        Tag                 application.*
        Exclude_Path        /var/log/containers/cloudwatch-agent*, /var/log/containers/fluent-bit*, /var/log/containers/aws-node*, /var/log/containers/kube-proxy*
        Path                /var/log/containers/my-container.log, /var/log/containers/my-other-container.log
        Docker_Mode         On
        Docker_Mode_Flush   5
        Docker_Mode_Parser  container_firstline
        Parser              docker
        DB                  /var/fluent-bit/state/flb_container.db
        Mem_Buf_Limit       50MB
        Skip_Long_Lines     On
        Refresh_Interval    10
        Rotate_Wait         30
        storage.type        filesystem
        Read_from_Head      ${READ_FROM_HEAD}

Note that the Path field now matches containers that we wish.