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LAST UPDATED: AUGUST 21, 2021

Setup Fluent Bit with Elasticsearch Authentication enabled in Kubernetes - Part 3

    In this tutorial we will learn how to configure Fluent Bit service for log aggregation with Elasticsearch service, where JSON format logs are stored in Elasticsearch in which authentication is enabled so we will have to configure Fluent Bit to use Elasticsearch username and password while pushing logs to Elasticsearch.

    The main aim of this tutorial is to configure Fluent Bit to user Elasticsearch username and password. This tutorial is a continuation to the series, where we have setup Elasticsearch cluster and Kibana with X-Pack security enabled.

    1. Setup Elasticsearch cluster with X-Pack enabled

    2. Setup Kibana with Elasticsearch with X-Pack enabled

    Here is the complete project with all the YAMLs - EFK setup Github Repository

    Before going ahead with this tutorial, you must follow the first two tutorials of this series, atleast the Elasticsearch setup because we created Kubernetes secret in that tutorial, which we will be using in this tutorial to get the password of the Elasticsearch username.

    Setup Fluent Bit Service

    Fluent bit will start as a daemonset which will run on every node of your Kubernetes cluster.

    We will define a configmap for fluent bit service to configure INPUT, PARSER, OUTPUT, etc for Fluent Bit so that it tails logs from log files, and then save it into Elasticsearch.

    For allowing fluent bit to access pods in the Kubernetes cluster, we will define clusterrole, a service account for fluent bit and then a cluster role binding between the cluster role and the service account. So let's get started.

    fb-role.yaml

    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
    kind: ClusterRole
    metadata:
      name: fluent-bit-read
    rules:
    - apiGroups: [""]
      resources:
      - namespaces
      - pods
      verbs: ["get", "list", "watch"]

    fb-service.yaml

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: ServiceAccount
    metadata:
      name: fluent-bit
      namespace: logging

    fb-rolebind.yaml

    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
    kind: ClusterRoleBinding
    metadata:
      name: fluent-bit-read
    roleRef:
      apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
      kind: ClusterRole
      name: fluent-bit-read
    subjects:
    - kind: ServiceAccount
      name: fluent-bit
      namespace: logging

    Now we will define the configmap with all the configurations.

    fb-configmap.yaml

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: ConfigMap
    metadata:
      name: fluent-bit-config
      namespace: logging
      labels:
        k8s-app: fluent-bit
    data:
      # Configuration files: server, input, filters and output
      # ======================================================
      fluent-bit.conf: |
        [SERVICE]
            Flush         1
            Log_Level     info
            Daemon        off
            Parsers_File  parsers.conf
            HTTP_Server   On
            HTTP_Listen   0.0.0.0
            HTTP_Port     2020
        @INCLUDE input-kubernetes.conf
        @INCLUDE filter-kubernetes.conf
        @INCLUDE output-elasticsearch.conf
      input-kubernetes.conf: |
        [INPUT]
            Name              tail
            Tag               kube.*
            Path              /var/log/containers/*.log
            Parser            json
            DB                /var/log/flb_kube.db
            Mem_Buf_Limit     5MB
            Skip_Long_Lines   Off
            Refresh_Interval  10
      output-elasticsearch.conf: |
        [OUTPUT]
            Name            es
            Match           *
            Host            ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_HOST}
            Port            ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_PORT}
            HTTP_User       ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_USER}
            HTTP_Passwd     ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_PASSWD}
            Logstash_Format On
            Logstash_Prefix myindex
            Replace_Dots    On
            Retry_Limit     False
      parsers.conf: |
        [PARSER]
            Name   json
            Format json
            Time_Key instant
            Time_Format %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%L
            Time_Keep On

    As you can see in the OUTPUT configuration, we have used the elasticsearch plugin and there we have used the ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_HOST}, ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_PORT}, ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_USER} and ${FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_PASSWD} which we will define in the daemonset for fluent bit.

    fb-ds.yaml

    apiVersion: apps/v1
    kind: DaemonSet
    metadata:
      name: fluent-bit
      namespace: logging
      labels:
        k8s-app: fluent-bit-logging
        version: v1
        kubernetes.io/cluster-service: "true"
    spec:
      selector:
        matchLabels:
          k8s-app: fluent-bit-logging
      template:
        metadata:
          labels:
            k8s-app: fluent-bit-logging
            version: v1
            kubernetes.io/cluster-service: "true"
          annotations:
            prometheus.io/scrape: "true"
            prometheus.io/port: "2020"
            prometheus.io/path: /api/v1/metrics/prometheus
        spec:
          containers:
          - name: fluent-bit
            image: fluent/fluent-bit:1.3.9
            imagePullPolicy: Always
            ports:
              - containerPort: 2020
            env:
            - name: FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_HOST
              value: "elasticsearch-client"
            - name: FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_PORT
              value: "9200"
            - name: FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_USER
              value: "elastic"
            - name: FLUENT_ELASTICSEARCH_PASSWD
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: elasticsearch-pw-elastic
                  key: password
            volumeMounts:
            - name: varlog
              mountPath: /var/log
            - name: varlibdockercontainers
              mountPath: /var/lib/docker/containers
              readOnly: true
            - name: fluent-bit-config
              mountPath: /fluent-bit/etc/
          terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 10
          volumes:
          - name: varlog
            hostPath:
              path: /var/log
          - name: varlibdockercontainers
            hostPath:
              path: /var/lib/docker/containers
          - name: fluent-bit-config
            configMap:
              name: fluent-bit-config
          serviceAccountName: fluent-bit
          tolerations:
          - key: node-role.kubernetes.io/master
            operator: Exists
            effect: NoSchedule
          - operator: "Exists"
            effect: "NoExecute"
          - operator: "Exists"
            effect: "NoSchedule"

    In the above YAML we have specified the docker image URL, its version, various environment variables, etc.

    Now that we have all the YAMLs ready, all we have to do is apply them all. Just run the following command for it:

    kubectl apply  -f fb-role.yaml \
    -f fb-rolebind.yaml \
    -f fb-service.yaml \
    -f fb-configmap.yaml \
    -f fb-ds.yaml

    This will start fluent bit service as daemonset in all the nodes of the Kubernetes cluster.

    If you have followed all the steps then your EFK setup should start working with Fluent Bit collecting and storing logs in Elasticsearch and Kibana using the Elasticsearch data and showing it on the Kibana UI.

    Conclusion:

    EFK stands for Elasticsearch, Kibana and Fluent Bit or Fluentd, while we also have more services for log collection and aggregation, these two are the most popular ones. In this three-part series, we learned how to setup Elasticsearch cluster with X-Pack security, along with Kibana UI and Fluent Bit service for log collection.

    Also Read:

    I like writing content about C/C++, DBMS, Java, Docker, general How-tos, Linux, PHP, Java, Go lang, Cloud, and Web development. I have 10 years of diverse experience in software development. Founder @ Studytonight
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