Logging lets you monitor and troubleshoot applications running in a Kubernetes cluster. A logging strategy is essential for monitoring application health and diagnosing issues when they arise.
Given a pod with multiple containers:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: sample-pod
spec:
containers:
- name: web-app
image: webapp
- name: db
image: webapp-db
# Stream live logs from a pod (single container)
kubectl logs -f <pod-name>
kubectl logs -f sample-pod
# Stream logs from a specific container in a multi-container pod
kubectl logs -f <pod-name> -c <container-name>
kubectl logs -f sample-pod -c webapp-db
Use the -c flag to specify a container name when a pod runs more than one container. Without it, kubectl logs will prompt you to specify a container.