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OpenShift Container Platform 4.13

Configuring and using the Network Observability Operator in OpenShift Container Platform

Red Hat OpenShift Documentation Team

Abstract

Use the Network Observability Operator to observe and analyze network traffic flows for OpenShift Container Platform clusters.

Chapter 1. Network Observability Operator release notes

The Network Observability Operator enables administrators to observe and analyze network traffic flows for OpenShift Container Platform clusters.

These release notes track the development of the Network Observability Operator in the OpenShift Container Platform.

For an overview of the Network Observability Operator, see About Network Observability Operator.

1.1. Network Observability Operator 1.6.1

The following advisory is available for the Network Observability Operator 1.6.1:

1.1.1. CVEs

1.1.2. Bug fixes

  • Previously, information about packet drops, such as the cause and TCP state, was only available in the Loki datastore and not in Prometheus. For that reason, the drop statistics in the OpenShift web console plugin Overview was only available with Loki. With this fix, information about packet drops is also added to metrics, so you can view drops statistics when Loki is disabled. (NETOBSERV-1649)
  • When the eBPF agent PacketDrop feature was enabled, and sampling was configured to a value greater than 1, reported dropped bytes and dropped packets ignored the sampling configuration. While this was done on purpose, so as not to miss any drops, a side effect was that the reported proportion of drops compared with non-drops became biased. For example, at a very high sampling rate, such as 1:1000, it was likely that almost all the traffic appears to be dropped when observed from the console plugin. With this fix, the sampling configuration is honored with dropped bytes and packets. (NETOBSERV-1676)
  • Previously, the SR-IOV secondary interface was not detected if the interface was created first and then the eBPF agent was deployed. It was only detected if the agent was deployed first and then the SR-IOV interface was created. With this fix, the SR-IOV secondary interface is detected no matter the sequence of the deployments. (NETOBSERV-1697)
  • Previously, when Loki was disabled, the Topology view in the OpenShift web console displayed the Cluster and Zone aggregation options in the slider beside the network topology diagram, even when the related features were not enabled. With this fix, the slider now only displays options according to the enabled features. (NETOBSERV-1705)
  • Previously, when Loki was disabled, and the OpenShift web console was first loading, an error would occur: Request failed with status code 400 Loki is disabled. With this fix, the errors no longer occur. (NETOBSERV-1706)
  • Previously, in the Topology view of the OpenShift web console, when clicking on the Step into icon next to any graph node, the filters were not applied as required in order to set the focus to the selected graph node, resulting in showing a wide view of the Topology view in the OpenShift web console. With this fix, the filters are correctly set, effectively narrowing down the Topology. As part of this change, clicking the Step into icon on a Node now brings you to the Resource scope instead of the Namespaces scope. (NETOBSERV-1720)
  • Previously, when Loki was disabled, in the Topology view of the OpenShift web console with the Scope set to Owner, clicking on the Step into icon next to any graph node would bring the Scope to Resource, which is not available without Loki, so an error message was shown. With this fix, the Step into icon is hidden in the Owner scope when Loki is disabled, so this scenario no longer occurs.(NETOBSERV-1721)
  • Previously, when Loki was disabled, an error was displayed in the Topology view of the OpenShift web console when a group was set, but then the scope was changed so that the group becomes invalid. With this fix, the invalid group is removed, preventing the error. (NETOBSERV-1722)
  • When creating a FlowCollector resource from the OpenShift web console Form view, as opposed to the YAML view, the following settings were incorrectly managed by the web console: agent.ebpf.metrics.enable and processor.subnetLabels.openShiftAutoDetect. These settings can only be disabled in the YAML view, not in the Form view. To avoid any confusion, these settings have been removed from the Form view. They are still accessible in the YAML view. (NETOBSERV-1731)
  • Previously, the eBPF agent was unable to clean up traffic control flows installed before an ungraceful crash, for example a crash due to a SIGTERM signal. This led to the creation of multiple traffic control flow filters with the same name, since the older ones were not removed. With this fix, all previously installed traffic control flows are cleaned up when the agent starts, before installing new ones. (NETOBSERV-1732)
  • Previously, when configuring custom subnet labels and keeping the OpenShift subnets auto-detection enabled, OpenShift subnets would take precedence over the custom ones, preventing the definition of custom labels for in cluster subnets. With this fix, custom defined subnets take precedence, allowing the definition of custom labels for in cluster subnets. (NETOBSERV-1734)

1.2. Network Observability Operator 1.6.0

The following advisory is available for the Network Observability Operator 1.6.0:

Important

Before upgrading to the latest version of the Network Observability Operator, you must Migrate removed stored versions of the FlowCollector CRD. An automated solution to this workaround is planned with NETOBSERV-1747.

1.2.1. New features and enhancements

1.2.1.1. Enhanced use of Network Observability Operator without Loki

You can now use Prometheus metrics and rely less on Loki for storage when using the Network Observability Operator. For more information, see Network Observability without Loki.

1.2.1.2. Custom metrics API

You can create custom metrics out of flowlogs data by using the FlowMetrics API. Flowlogs data can be used with Prometheus labels to customize cluster information on your dashboards. You can add custom labels for any subnet that you want to identify in your flows and metrics. This enhancement can also be used to more easily identify external traffic by using the new labels SrcSubnetLabel and DstSubnetLabel, which exists both in flow logs and in metrics. Those fields are empty when there is external traffic, which gives a way to identify it. For more information, see Custom metrics and FlowMetric API reference.

1.2.1.3. eBPF performance enhancements

Experience improved performances of the eBPF agent, in terms of CPU and memory, with the following updates:

  • The eBPF agent now uses TCX webhooks instead of TC.
  • The NetObserv / Health dashboard has a new section that shows eBPF metrics.

    • Based on the new eBPF metrics, an alert notifies you when the eBPF agent is dropping flows.
  • Loki storage demand decreases significantly now that duplicated flows are removed. Instead of having multiple, individual duplicated flows per network interface, there is one de-duplicated flow with a list of related network interfaces.
Important

With the duplicated flows update, the Interface and Interface Direction fields in the Network Traffic table are renamed to Interfaces and Interface Directions, so any bookmarked Quick filter queries using these fields need to be updated to interfaces and ifdirections.

For more information, see Using the eBPF agent alert and Quick filters.

1.2.1.4. eBPF collection rule-based filtering

You can use rule-based filtering to reduce the volume of created flows. When this option is enabled, the Netobserv / Health dashboard for eBPF agent statistics has the Filtered flows rate view. For more information, see eBPF flow rule filter.

1.2.2. Technology Preview features

Some features in this release are currently in Technology Preview. These experimental features are not intended for production use. Note the following scope of support on the Red Hat Customer Portal for these features:

Technology Preview Features Support Scope

1.2.2.1. Network Observability CLI
Warning

The Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) is temporarily unavailable and is expected to resolve with OCPBUGS-36146.

You can debug and troubleshoot network traffic issues without needing to install the Network Observability Operator by using the Network Observability CLI. Capture and visualize flow and packet data in real-time with no persistent storage requirement during the capture. For more information, see Network Observability CLI and Network Observability CLI 1.6.0

1.2.3. Bug fixes

  • Previously, a dead link to the OpenShift containter platform documentation was displayed in the Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) form for the FlowMetrics API creation. Now the link has been updated to point to a valid page. (NETOBSERV-1607)
  • Previously, the Network Observability Operator description in the Operator Hub displayed a broken link to the documentation. With this fix, this link is restored. (NETOBSERV-1544)
  • Previously, if Loki was disabled and the Loki Mode was set to LokiStack, or if Loki manual TLS configuration was configured, the Network Observability Operator still tried to read the Loki CA certificates. With this fix, when Loki is disabled, the Loki certificates are not read, even if there are settings in the Loki configuration. (NETOBSERV-1647)
  • Previously, the oc must-gather plugin for the Network Observability Operator was only working on the amd64 architecture and failing on all others because the plugin was using amd64 for the oc binary. Now, the Network Observability Operator oc must-gather plugin collects logs on any architecture platform.
  • Previously, when filtering on IP addresses using not equal to, the Network Observability Operator would return a request error. Now, the IP filtering works in both equal and not equal to cases for IP addresses and ranges. (NETOBSERV-1630)
  • Previously, when a user was not an admin, the error messages were not consistent with the selected tab of the Network Traffic view in the web console. Now, the user not admin error displays on any tab with improved display.(NETOBSERV-1621)

1.2.4. Known issues

  • When the eBPF agent PacketDrop feature is enabled, and sampling is configured to a value greater than 1, reported dropped bytes and dropped packets ignore the sampling configuration. While this is done on purpose to not miss any drops, a side effect is that the reported proportion of drops compared to non-drops becomes biased. For example, at a very high sampling rate, such as 1:1000, it is likely that almost all the traffic appears to be dropped when observed from the console plugin. (NETOBSERV-1676)
  • In the Manage panels pop-up window in the Overview tab, filtering on total, bar, donut, or line does not show any result. (NETOBSERV-1540)
  • The SR-IOV secondary interface is not detected if the interface was created first and then the eBPF agent was deployed. It is only detected if the agent was deployed first and then the SR-IOV interface is created. (NETOBSERV-1697)
  • When Loki is disabled, the Topology view in the OpenShift web console always shows the Cluster and Zone aggregation options in the slider beside the network topology diagram, even when the related features are not enabled. There is no specific workaround, besides ignoring these slider options. (NETOBSERV-1705)
  • When Loki is disabled, and the OpenShift web console first loads, it might display an error: Request failed with status code 400 Loki is disabled. As a workaround, you can continue switching content on the Network Traffic page, such as clicking between the Topology and the Overview tabs. The error should disappear. (NETOBSERV-1706)

1.3. Network Observability Operator 1.5.0

The following advisory is available for the Network Observability Operator 1.5.0:

1.3.1. New features and enhancements

1.3.1.1. DNS tracking enhancements

In 1.5, the TCP protocol is now supported in addition to UDP. New dashboards are also added to the Overview view of the Network Traffic page. For more information, see Configuring DNS tracking and Working with DNS tracking.

1.3.1.2. Round-trip time (RTT)

You can use TCP handshake Round-Trip Time (RTT) captured from the fentry/tcp_rcv_established Extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) hookpoint to read smoothed round-trip time (SRTT) and analyze network flows. In the Overview, Network Traffic, and Topology pages in web console, you can monitor network traffic and troubleshoot with RTT metrics, filtering, and edge labeling. For more information, see RTT Overview and Working with RTT.

1.3.1.3. Metrics, dashboards, and alerts enhancements

The Network Observability metrics dashboards in ObserveDashboardsNetObserv have new metrics types you can use to create Prometheus alerts. You can now define available metrics in the includeList specification. In previous releases, these metrics were defined in the ignoreTags specification. For a complete list of these metrics, see Network Observability Metrics.

1.3.1.4. Improvements for Network Observability without Loki

You can create Prometheus alerts for the Netobserv dashboard using DNS, Packet drop, and RTT metrics, even if you don’t use Loki. In the previous version of Network Observability, 1.4, these metrics were only available for querying and analysis in the Network Traffic, Overview, and Topology views, which are not available without Loki. For more information, see Network Observability Metrics.

1.3.1.5. Availability zones

You can configure the FlowCollector resource to collect information about the cluster availability zones. This configuration enriches the network flow data with the topology.kubernetes.io/zone label value applied to the nodes. For more information, see Working with availability zones.

1.3.1.6. Notable enhancements

The 1.5 release of the Network Observability Operator adds improvements and new capabilities to the OpenShift Container Platform web console plugin and the Operator configuration.

Performance enhancements
  • The spec.agent.ebpf.kafkaBatchSize default is changed from 10MB to 1MB to enhance eBPF performance when using Kafka.

    Important

    When upgrading from an existing installation, this new value is not set automatically in the configuration. If you monitor a performance regression with the eBPF Agent memory consumption after upgrading, you might consider reducing the kafkaBatchSize to the new value.

Web console enhancements:
  • There are new panels added to the Overview view for DNS and RTT: Min, Max, P90, P99.
  • There are new panel display options added:

    • Focus on one panel while keeping others viewable but with smaller focus.
    • Switch graph type.
    • Show Top and Overall.
  • A collection latency warning is shown in the Custom time range pop-up window.
  • There is enhanced visibility for the contents of the Manage panels and Manage columns pop-up windows.
  • The Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) field for egress QoS is available for filtering QoS DSCP in the web console Network Traffic page.
Configuration enhancements:
  • The LokiStack mode in the spec.loki.mode specification simplifies installation by automatically setting URLs, TLS, cluster roles and a cluster role binding, as well as the authToken value. The Manual mode allows more control over configuration of these settings.
  • The API version changes from flows.netobserv.io/v1beta1 to flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2.

1.3.2. Bug fixes

  • Previously, it was not possible to register the console plugin manually in the web console interface if the automatic registration of the console plugin was disabled. If the spec.console.register value was set to false in the FlowCollector resource, the Operator would override and erase the plugin registration. With this fix, setting the spec.console.register value to false does not impact the console plugin registration or registration removal. As a result, the plugin can be safely registered manually. (NETOBSERV-1134)
  • Previously, using the default metrics settings, the NetObserv/Health dashboard was showing an empty graph named Flows Overhead. This metric was only available by removing "namespaces-flows" and "namespaces" from the ignoreTags list. With this fix, this metric is visible when you use the default metrics setting. (NETOBSERV-1351)
  • Previously, the node on which the eBPF Agent was running would not resolve with a specific cluster configuration. This resulted in cascading consequences that culminated in a failure to provide some of the traffic metrics. With this fix, the eBPF agent’s node IP is safely provided by the Operator, inferred from the pod status. Now, the missing metrics are restored. (NETOBSERV-1430)
  • Previously, the Loki error 'Input size too long' error for the Loki Operator did not include additional information to troubleshoot the problem. With this fix, help is directly displayed in the web console next to the error with a direct link for more guidance. (NETOBSERV-1464)
  • Previously, the console plugin read timeout was forced to 30s. With the FlowCollector v1beta2 API update, you can configure the spec.loki.readTimeout specification to update this value according to the Loki Operator queryTimeout limit. (NETOBSERV-1443)
  • Previously, the Operator bundle did not display some of the supported features by CSV annotations as expected, such as features.operators.openshift.io/…​ With this fix, these annotations are set in the CSV as expected. (NETOBSERV-1305)
  • Previously, the FlowCollector status sometimes oscillated between DeploymentInProgress and Ready states during reconciliation. With this fix, the status only becomes Ready when all of the underlying components are fully ready. (NETOBSERV-1293)

1.3.3. Known issues

  • When trying to access the web console, cache issues on OCP 4.14.10 prevent access to the Observe view. The web console shows the error message: Failed to get a valid plugin manifest from /api/plugins/monitoring-plugin/. The recommended workaround is to update the cluster to the latest minor version. If this does not work, you need to apply the workarounds described in this Red Hat Knowledgebase article.(NETOBSERV-1493)
  • Since the 1.3.0 release of the Network Observability Operator, installing the Operator causes a warning kernel taint to appear. The reason for this error is that the Network Observability eBPF agent has memory constraints that prevent preallocating the entire hashmap table. The Operator eBPF agent sets the BPF_F_NO_PREALLOC flag so that pre-allocation is disabled when the hashmap is too memory expansive.

1.4. Network Observability Operator 1.4.2

The following advisory is available for the Network Observability Operator 1.4.2:

1.4.1. CVEs

1.5. Network Observability Operator 1.4.1

The following advisory is available for the Network Observability Operator 1.4.1:

1.5.1. CVEs

1.5.2. Bug fixes

  • In 1.4, there was a known issue when sending network flow data to Kafka. The Kafka message key was ignored, causing an error with connection tracking. Now the key is used for partitioning, so each flow from the same connection is sent to the same processor. (NETOBSERV-926)
  • In 1.4, the Inner flow direction was introduced to account for flows between pods running on the same node. Flows with the Inner direction were not taken into account in the generated Prometheus metrics derived from flows, resulting in under-evaluated bytes and packets rates. Now, derived metrics are including flows with the Inner direction, providing correct bytes and packets rates. (NETOBSERV-1344)

1.6. Network Observability Operator 1.4.0

The following advisory is available for the Network Observability Operator 1.4.0:

1.6.1. Channel removal

You must switch your channel from v1.0.x to stable to receive the latest Operator updates. The v1.0.x channel is now removed.

1.6.2. New features and enhancements

1.6.2.1. Notable enhancements

The 1.4 release of the Network Observability Operator adds improvements and new capabilities to the OpenShift Container Platform web console plugin and the Operator configuration.

Web console enhancements:
  • In the Query Options, the Duplicate flows checkbox is added to choose whether or not to show duplicated flows.
  • You can now filter source and destination traffic with arrow up long solid One-way, arrow up long solid arrow down long solid Back-and-forth, and Swap filters.
  • The Network Observability metrics dashboards in ObserveDashboardsNetObserv and NetObserv / Health are modified as follows:

    • The NetObserv dashboard shows top bytes, packets sent, packets received per nodes, namespaces, and workloads. Flow graphs are removed from this dashboard.
    • The NetObserv / Health dashboard shows flows overhead as well as top flow rates per nodes, namespaces, and workloads.
    • Infrastructure and Application metrics are shown in a split-view for namespaces and workloads.

For more information, see Network Observability metrics and Quick filters.

Configuration enhancements:
  • You now have the option to specify different namespaces for any configured ConfigMap or Secret reference, such as in certificates configuration.
  • The spec.processor.clusterName parameter is added so that the name of the cluster appears in the flows data. This is useful in a multi-cluster context. When using OpenShift Container Platform, leave empty to make it automatically determined.

For more information, see Flow Collector sample resource and Flow Collector API Reference.

1.6.2.2. Network Observability without Loki

The Network Observability Operator is now functional and usable without Loki. If Loki is not installed, it can only export flows to KAFKA or IPFIX format and provide metrics in the Network Observability metrics dashboards. For more information, see Network Observability without Loki.

1.6.2.3. DNS tracking

In 1.4, the Network Observability Operator makes use of eBPF tracepoint hooks to enable DNS tracking. You can monitor your network, conduct security analysis, and troubleshoot DNS issues in the Network Traffic and Overview pages in the web console.

For more information, see Configuring DNS tracking and Working with DNS tracking.

1.6.2.4. SR-IOV support

You can now collect traffic from a cluster with Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) device. For more information, see Configuring the monitoring of SR-IOV interface traffic.

1.6.2.5. IPFIX exporter support

You can now export eBPF-enriched network flows to the IPFIX collector. For more information, see Export enriched network flow data.

1.6.2.6. Packet drops

In the 1.4 release of the Network Observability Operator, eBPF tracepoint hooks are used to enable packet drop tracking. You can now detect and analyze the cause for packet drops and make decisions to optimize network performance. In OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 and later, both host drops and OVS drops are detected. In OpenShift Container Platform 4.13, only host drops are detected. For more information, see Configuring packet drop tracking and Working with packet drops.

1.6.2.7. s390x architecture support

Network Observability Operator can now run on s390x architecture. Previously it ran on amd64, ppc64le, or arm64.

1.6.3. Bug fixes

  • Previously, the Prometheus metrics exported by Network Observability were computed out of potentially duplicated network flows. In the related dashboards, from ObserveDashboards, this could result in potentially doubled rates. Note that dashboards from the Network Traffic view were not affected. Now, network flows are filtered to eliminate duplicates before metrics calculation, which results in correct traffic rates displayed in the dashboards. (NETOBSERV-1131)
  • Previously, the Network Observability Operator agents were not able to capture traffic on network interfaces when configured with Multus or SR-IOV, non-default network namespaces. Now, all available network namespaces are recognized and used for capturing flows, allowing capturing traffic for SR-IOV. There are configurations needed for the FlowCollector and SRIOVnetwork custom resource to collect traffic. (NETOBSERV-1283)
  • Previously, in the Network Observability Operator details from OperatorsInstalled Operators, the FlowCollector Status field might have reported incorrect information about the state of the deployment. The status field now shows the proper conditions with improved messages. The history of events is kept, ordered by event date. (NETOBSERV-1224)
  • Previously, during spikes of network traffic load, certain eBPF pods were OOM-killed and went into a CrashLoopBackOff state. Now, the eBPF agent memory footprint is improved, so pods are not OOM-killed and entering a CrashLoopBackOff state. (NETOBSERV-975)
  • Previously when processor.metrics.tls was set to PROVIDED the insecureSkipVerify option value was forced to be true. Now you can set insecureSkipVerify to true or false, and provide a CA certificate if needed. (NETOBSERV-1087)

1.6.4. Known issues

  • Since the 1.2.0 release of the Network Observability Operator, using Loki Operator 5.6, a Loki certificate change periodically affects the flowlogs-pipeline pods and results in dropped flows rather than flows written to Loki. The problem self-corrects after some time, but it still causes temporary flow data loss during the Loki certificate change. This issue has only been observed in large-scale environments of 120 nodes or greater. (NETOBSERV-980)
  • Currently, when spec.agent.ebpf.features includes DNSTracking, larger DNS packets require the eBPF agent to look for DNS header outside of the 1st socket buffer (SKB) segment. A new eBPF agent helper function needs to be implemented to support it. Currently, there is no workaround for this issue. (NETOBSERV-1304)
  • Currently, when spec.agent.ebpf.features includes DNSTracking, DNS over TCP packets requires the eBPF agent to look for DNS header outside of the 1st SKB segment. A new eBPF agent helper function needs to be implemented to support it. Currently, there is no workaround for this issue. (NETOBSERV-1245)
  • Currently, when using a KAFKA deployment model, if conversation tracking is configured, conversation events might be duplicated across Kafka consumers, resulting in inconsistent tracking of conversations, and incorrect volumetric data. For that reason, it is not recommended to configure conversation tracking when deploymentModel is set to KAFKA. (NETOBSERV-926)
  • Currently, when the processor.metrics.server.tls.type is configured to use a PROVIDED certificate, the operator enters an unsteady state that might affect its performance and resource consumption. It is recommended to not use a PROVIDED certificate until this issue is resolved, and instead using an auto-generated certificate, setting processor.metrics.server.tls.type to AUTO. (NETOBSERV-1293
  • Since the 1.3.0 release of the Network Observability Operator, installing the Operator causes a warning kernel taint to appear. The reason for this error is that the Network Observability eBPF agent has memory constraints that prevent preallocating the entire hashmap table. The Operator eBPF agent sets the BPF_F_NO_PREALLOC flag so that pre-allocation is disabled when the hashmap is too memory expansive.

1.7. Network Observability Operator 1.3.0

The following advisory is available for the Network Observability Operator 1.3.0:

1.7.1. Channel deprecation

You must switch your channel from v1.0.x to stable to receive future Operator updates. The v1.0.x channel is deprecated and planned for removal in the next release.

1.7.2. New features and enhancements

1.7.2.1. Multi-tenancy in Network Observability
1.7.2.2. Flow-based metrics dashboard
  • This release adds a new dashboard, which provides an overview of the network flows in your OpenShift Container Platform cluster. For more information, see Network Observability metrics.
1.7.2.3. Troubleshooting with the must-gather tool
  • Information about the Network Observability Operator can now be included in the must-gather data for troubleshooting. For more information, see Network Observability must-gather.
1.7.2.4. Multiple architectures now supported
  • Network Observability Operator can now run on an amd64, ppc64le, or arm64 architectures. Previously, it only ran on amd64.

1.7.3. Deprecated features

1.7.3.1. Deprecated configuration parameter setting

The release of Network Observability Operator 1.3 deprecates the spec.Loki.authToken HOST setting. When using the Loki Operator, you must now only use the FORWARD setting.

1.7.4. Bug fixes

  • Previously, when the Operator was installed from the CLI, the Role and RoleBinding that are necessary for the Cluster Monitoring Operator to read the metrics were not installed as expected. The issue did not occur when the operator was installed from the web console. Now, either way of installing the Operator installs the required Role and RoleBinding. (NETOBSERV-1003)
  • Since version 1.2, the Network Observability Operator can raise alerts when a problem occurs with the flows collection. Previously, due to a bug, the related configuration to disable alerts, spec.processor.metrics.disableAlerts was not working as expected and sometimes ineffectual. Now, this configuration is fixed so that it is possible to disable the alerts. (NETOBSERV-976)
  • Previously, when Network Observability was configured with spec.loki.authToken set to DISABLED, only a kubeadmin cluster administrator was able to view network flows. Other types of cluster administrators received authorization failure. Now, any cluster administrator is able to view network flows. (NETOBSERV-972)
  • Previously, a bug prevented users from setting spec.consolePlugin.portNaming.enable to false. Now, this setting can be set to false to disable port-to-service name translation. (NETOBSERV-971)
  • Previously, the metrics exposed by the console plugin were not collected by the Cluster Monitoring Operator (Prometheus), due to an incorrect configuration. Now the configuration has been fixed so that the console plugin metrics are correctly collected and accessible from the OpenShift Container Platform web console. (NETOBSERV-765)
  • Previously, when processor.metrics.tls was set to AUTO in the FlowCollector, the flowlogs-pipeline servicemonitor did not adapt the appropriate TLS scheme, and metrics were not visible in the web console. Now the issue is fixed for AUTO mode. (NETOBSERV-1070)
  • Previously, certificate configuration, such as used for Kafka and Loki, did not allow specifying a namespace field, implying that the certificates had to be in the same namespace where Network Observability is deployed. Moreover, when using Kafka with TLS/mTLS, the user had to manually copy the certificate(s) to the privileged namespace where the eBPF agent pods are deployed and manually manage certificate updates, such as in the case of certificate rotation. Now, Network Observability setup is simplified by adding a namespace field for certificates in the FlowCollector resource. As a result, users can now install Loki or Kafka in different namespaces without needing to manually copy their certificates in the Network Observability namespace. The original certificates are watched so that the copies are automatically updated when needed. (NETOBSERV-773)
  • Previously, the SCTP, ICMPv4 and ICMPv6 protocols were not covered by the Network Observability agents, resulting in a less comprehensive network flows coverage. These protocols are now recognized to improve the flows coverage. (NETOBSERV-934)

1.7.5. Known issues

  • When processor.metrics.tls is set to PROVIDED in the FlowCollector, the flowlogs-pipeline servicemonitor is not adapted to the TLS scheme. (NETOBSERV-1087)
  • Since the 1.2.0 release of the Network Observability Operator, using Loki Operator 5.6, a Loki certificate change periodically affects the flowlogs-pipeline pods and results in dropped flows rather than flows written to Loki. The problem self-corrects after some time, but it still causes temporary flow data loss during the Loki certificate change. This issue has only been observed in large-scale environments of 120 nodes or greater.(NETOBSERV-980)
  • When you install the Operator, a warning kernel taint can appear. The reason for this error is that the Network Observability eBPF agent has memory constraints that prevent preallocating the entire hashmap table. The Operator eBPF agent sets the BPF_F_NO_PREALLOC flag so that pre-allocation is disabled when the hashmap is too memory expansive.

1.8. Network Observability Operator 1.2.0

The following advisory is available for the Network Observability Operator 1.2.0:

1.8.1. Preparing for the next update

The subscription of an installed Operator specifies an update channel that tracks and receives updates for the Operator. Until the 1.2 release of the Network Observability Operator, the only channel available was v1.0.x. The 1.2 release of the Network Observability Operator introduces the stable update channel for tracking and receiving updates. You must switch your channel from v1.0.x to stable to receive future Operator updates. The v1.0.x channel is deprecated and planned for removal in a following release.

1.8.2. New features and enhancements

1.8.2.1. Histogram in Traffic Flows view
  • You can now choose to show a histogram bar chart of flows over time. The histogram enables you to visualize the history of flows without hitting the Loki query limit. For more information, see Using the histogram.
1.8.2.2. Conversation tracking
  • You can now query flows by Log Type, which enables grouping network flows that are part of the same conversation. For more information, see Working with conversations.
1.8.2.3. Network Observability health alerts
  • The Network Observability Operator now creates automatic alerts if the flowlogs-pipeline is dropping flows because of errors at the write stage or if the Loki ingestion rate limit has been reached. For more information, see Health dashboards.

1.8.3. Bug fixes

  • Previously, after changing the namespace value in the FlowCollector spec, eBPF agent pods running in the previous namespace were not appropriately deleted. Now, the pods running in the previous namespace are appropriately deleted. (NETOBSERV-774)
  • Previously, after changing the caCert.name value in the FlowCollector spec (such as in Loki section), FlowLogs-Pipeline pods and Console plug-in pods were not restarted, therefore they were unaware of the configuration change. Now, the pods are restarted, so they get the configuration change. (NETOBSERV-772)
  • Previously, network flows between pods running on different nodes were sometimes not correctly identified as being duplicates because they are captured by different network interfaces. This resulted in over-estimated metrics displayed in the console plug-in. Now, flows are correctly identified as duplicates, and the console plug-in displays accurate metrics. (NETOBSERV-755)
  • The "reporter" option in the console plug-in is used to filter flows based on the observation point of either source node or destination node. Previously, this option mixed the flows regardless of the node observation point. This was due to network flows being incorrectly reported as Ingress or Egress at the node level. Now, the network flow direction reporting is correct. The "reporter" option filters for source observation point, or destination observation point, as expected. (NETOBSERV-696)
  • Previously, for agents configured to send flows directly to the processor as gRPC+protobuf requests, the submitted payload could be too large and is rejected by the processors' GRPC server. This occurred under very-high-load scenarios and with only some configurations of the agent. The agent logged an error message, such as: grpc: received message larger than max. As a consequence, there was information loss about those flows. Now, the gRPC payload is split into several messages when the size exceeds a threshold. As a result, the server maintains connectivity. (NETOBSERV-617)

1.8.4. Known issue

  • In the 1.2.0 release of the Network Observability Operator, using Loki Operator 5.6, a Loki certificate transition periodically affects the flowlogs-pipeline pods and results in dropped flows rather than flows written to Loki. The problem self-corrects after some time, but it still causes temporary flow data loss during the Loki certificate transition. (NETOBSERV-980)

1.8.5. Notable technical changes

  • Previously, you could install the Network Observability Operator using a custom namespace. This release introduces the conversion webhook which changes the ClusterServiceVersion. Because of this change, all the available namespaces are no longer listed. Additionally, to enable Operator metrics collection, namespaces that are shared with other Operators, like the openshift-operators namespace, cannot be used. Now, the Operator must be installed in the openshift-netobserv-operator namespace. You cannot automatically upgrade to the new Operator version if you previously installed the Network Observability Operator using a custom namespace. If you previously installed the Operator using a custom namespace, you must delete the instance of the Operator that was installed and re-install your operator in the openshift-netobserv-operator namespace. It is important to note that custom namespaces, such as the commonly used netobserv namespace, are still possible for the FlowCollector, Loki, Kafka, and other plug-ins. (NETOBSERV-907)(NETOBSERV-956)

1.9. Network Observability Operator 1.1.0

The following advisory is available for the Network Observability Operator 1.1.0:

The Network Observability Operator is now stable and the release channel is upgraded to v1.1.0.

1.9.1. Bug fix

  • Previously, unless the Loki authToken configuration was set to FORWARD mode, authentication was no longer enforced, allowing any user who could connect to the OpenShift Container Platform console in an OpenShift Container Platform cluster to retrieve flows without authentication. Now, regardless of the Loki authToken mode, only cluster administrators can retrieve flows. (BZ#2169468)

Chapter 2. About Network Observability

Red Hat offers cluster administrators the Network Observability Operator to observe the network traffic for OpenShift Container Platform clusters. The Network Observability Operator uses the eBPF technology to create network flows. The network flows are then enriched with OpenShift Container Platform information. They are available as Prometheus metrics or as logs in Loki. You can view and analyze the stored network flows information in the OpenShift Container Platform console for further insight and troubleshooting.

2.1. Optional dependencies of the Network Observability Operator

  • Loki Operator: Loki is the backend that can be used to store all collected flows with a maximal level of details. You can choose to use Network Observability without Loki, but there are some considerations for doing this, as described in the linked section. If you choose to install Loki, it is recommended to use the Loki Operator, which is supported by Red Hat.
  • AMQ Streams Operator: Kafka provides scalability, resiliency and high availability in the OpenShift Container Platform cluster for large scale deployments. If you choose to use Kafka, it is recommended to use the AMQ Streams Operator, because it is supported by Red Hat.

2.2. Network Observability Operator

The Network Observability Operator provides the Flow Collector API custom resource definition. A Flow Collector instance is a cluster-scoped resource that enables configuration of network flow collection. The Flow Collector instance deploys pods and services that form a monitoring pipeline where network flows are then collected and enriched with the Kubernetes metadata before storing in Loki or generating Prometheus metrics. The eBPF agent, which is deployed as a daemonset object, creates the network flows.

2.3. OpenShift Container Platform console integration

OpenShift Container Platform console integration offers overview, topology view and traffic flow tables.

2.3.1. Network Observability metrics dashboards

On the Overview tab in the OpenShift Container Platform console, you can view the overall aggregated metrics of the network traffic flow on the cluster. You can choose to display the information by zone, node, namespace, owner, pod, and service. Filters and display options can further refine the metrics. For more information, see Observing the network traffic from the Overview view.

In ObserveDashboards, the Netobserv dashboards provide a quick overview of the network flows in your OpenShift Container Platform cluster. The Netobserv/Health dashboard provides metrics about the health of the Operator. For more information, see Network Observability Metrics and Viewing health information.

2.3.2. Network Observability topology views

The OpenShift Container Platform console offers the Topology tab which displays a graphical representation of the network flows and the amount of traffic. The topology view represents traffic between the OpenShift Container Platform components as a network graph. You can refine the graph by using the filters and display options. You can access the information for zone, node, namespace, owner, pod, and service.

2.3.3. Traffic flow tables

The traffic flow table view provides a view for raw flows, non aggregated filtering options, and configurable columns. The OpenShift Container Platform console offers the Traffic flows tab which displays the data of the network flows and the amount of traffic.

2.4. Network Observability CLI

You can quickly debug and troubleshoot networking issues with Network Observability by using the Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv). The Network Observability CLI is a flow and packet visualization tool that relies on eBPF agents to stream collected data to an ephemeral collector pod. It requires no persistent storage during the capture. After the run, the output is transferred to your local machine. This enables quick, live insight into packets and flow data without installing the Network Observability Operator.

Chapter 3. Installing the Network Observability Operator

Installing Loki is a recommended prerequisite for using the Network Observability Operator. You can choose to use Network Observability without Loki, but there are some considerations for doing this, described in the previously linked section.

The Loki Operator integrates a gateway that implements multi-tenancy and authentication with Loki for data flow storage. The LokiStack resource manages Loki, which is a scalable, highly-available, multi-tenant log aggregation system, and a web proxy with OpenShift Container Platform authentication. The LokiStack proxy uses OpenShift Container Platform authentication to enforce multi-tenancy and facilitate the saving and indexing of data in Loki log stores.

Note

The Loki Operator can also be used for configuring the LokiStack log store. The Network Observability Operator requires a dedicated LokiStack separate from the logging.

3.1. Network Observability without Loki

You can use Network Observability without Loki by not performing the Loki installation steps and skipping directly to "Installing the Network Observability Operator". If you only want to export flows to a Kafka consumer or IPFIX collector, or you only need dashboard metrics, then you do not need to install Loki or provide storage for Loki. The following table compares available features with and without Loki.

Table 3.1. Comparison of feature availability with and without Loki
 With LokiWithout Loki

Exporters

check solid

check solid

Multi-tenancy

check solid

x solid

Complete filtering and aggregations capabilities [1]

check solid

x solid

Partial filtering and aggregations capabilities [2]

check solid

check solid

Flow-based metrics and dashboards

check solid

check solid

Traffic flows view overview [3]

check solid

check solid

Traffic flows view table

check solid

x solid

Topology view

check solid

check solid

OpenShift Container Platform console Network Traffic tab integration

check solid

check solid

  1. Such as per pod.
  2. Such as per workload or namespace.
  3. Statistics on packet drops are only available with Loki.

Additional resources

3.2. Installing the Loki Operator

The Loki Operator versions 5.7+ are the supported Loki Operator versions for Network Observability; these versions provide the ability to create a LokiStack instance using the openshift-network tenant configuration mode and provide fully-automatic, in-cluster authentication and authorization support for Network Observability. There are several ways you can install Loki. One way is by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console Operator Hub.

Prerequisites

  • Supported Log Store (AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure, Swift, Minio, OpenShift Data Foundation)
  • OpenShift Container Platform 4.10+
  • Linux Kernel 4.18+

Procedure

  1. In the OpenShift Container Platform web console, click OperatorsOperatorHub.
  2. Choose Loki Operator from the list of available Operators, and click Install.
  3. Under Installation Mode, select All namespaces on the cluster.

Verification

  1. Verify that you installed the Loki Operator. Visit the OperatorsInstalled Operators page and look for Loki Operator.
  2. Verify that Loki Operator is listed with Status as Succeeded in all the projects.
Important

To uninstall Loki, refer to the uninstallation process that corresponds with the method you used to install Loki. You might have remaining ClusterRoles and ClusterRoleBindings, data stored in object store, and persistent volume that must be removed.

3.2.1. Creating a secret for Loki storage

The Loki Operator supports a few log storage options, such as AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure, Swift, Minio, OpenShift Data Foundation. The following example shows how to create a secret for AWS S3 storage. The secret created in this example, loki-s3, is referenced in "Creating a LokiStack resource". You can create this secret in the web console or CLI.

  1. Using the web console, navigate to the ProjectAll Projects dropdown and select Create Project. Name the project netobserv and click Create.
  2. Navigate to the Import icon, +, in the top right corner. Paste your YAML file into the editor.

    The following shows an example secret YAML file for S3 storage:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Secret
    metadata:
      name: loki-s3
      namespace: netobserv   1
    stringData:
      access_key_id: QUtJQUlPU0ZPRE5ON0VYQU1QTEUK
      access_key_secret: d0phbHJYVXRuRkVNSS9LN01ERU5HL2JQeFJmaUNZRVhBTVBMRUtFWQo=
      bucketnames: s3-bucket-name
      endpoint: https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com
      region: eu-central-1
    1
    The installation examples in this documentation use the same namespace, netobserv, across all components. You can optionally use a different namespace for the different components

Verification

  • Once you create the secret, you should see it listed under WorkloadsSecrets in the web console.

3.2.2. Creating a LokiStack custom resource

You can deploy a LokiStack custom resource (CR) by using the web console or OpenShift CLI (oc) to create a namespace, or new project.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators, viewing All projects from the Project dropdown.
  2. Look for Loki Operator. In the details, under Provided APIs, select LokiStack.
  3. Click Create LokiStack.
  4. Ensure the following fields are specified in either Form View or YAML view:

    apiVersion: loki.grafana.com/v1
    kind: LokiStack
    metadata:
      name: loki
      namespace: netobserv 1
    spec:
      size: 1x.small 2
      storage:
        schemas:
        - version: v12
          effectiveDate: '2022-06-01'
        secret:
          name: loki-s3
          type: s3
      storageClassName: gp3 3
      tenants:
        mode: openshift-network
    1
    The installation examples in this documentation use the same namespace, netobserv, across all components. You can optionally use a different namespace.
    2
    Specify the deployment size. In the Loki Operator 5.8 and later versions, the supported size options for production instances of Loki are 1x.extra-small, 1x.small, or 1x.medium.
    Important

    It is not possible to change the number 1x for the deployment size.

    3
    Use a storage class name that is available on the cluster for ReadWriteOnce access mode. You can use oc get storageclasses to see what is available on your cluster.
    Important

    You must not reuse the same LokiStack CR that is used for logging.

  5. Click Create.

3.2.3. Creating a new group for the cluster-admin user role

Important

Querying application logs for multiple namespaces as a cluster-admin user, where the sum total of characters of all of the namespaces in the cluster is greater than 5120, results in the error Parse error: input size too long (XXXX > 5120). For better control over access to logs in LokiStack, make the cluster-admin user a member of the cluster-admin group. If the cluster-admin group does not exist, create it and add the desired users to it.

Use the following procedure to create a new group for users with cluster-admin permissions.

Procedure

  1. Enter the following command to create a new group:

    $ oc adm groups new cluster-admin
  2. Enter the following command to add the desired user to the cluster-admin group:

    $ oc adm groups add-users cluster-admin <username>
  3. Enter the following command to add cluster-admin user role to the group:

    $ oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-group cluster-admin cluster-admin

3.2.4. Custom admin group access

If you need to see cluster-wide logs without necessarily being an administrator, or if you already have any group defined that you want to use here, you can specify a custom group using the adminGroup field. Users who are members of any group specified in the adminGroups field of the LokiStack custom resource (CR) have the same read access to logs as administrators.

Administrator users have access to all application logs in all namespaces, if they also get assigned the cluster-logging-application-view role.

Administrator users have access to all network logs across the cluster.

Example LokiStack CR

apiVersion: loki.grafana.com/v1
kind: LokiStack
metadata:
  name: loki
  namespace: netobserv
spec:
  tenants:
    mode: openshift-network 1
    openshift:
      adminGroups: 2
      - cluster-admin
      - custom-admin-group 3

1
Custom admin groups are only available in this mode.
2
Entering an empty list [] value for this field disables admin groups.
3
Overrides the default groups (system:cluster-admins, cluster-admin, dedicated-admin)

3.2.5. Loki deployment sizing

Sizing for Loki follows the format of 1x.<size> where the value 1x is number of instances and <size> specifies performance capabilities.

Important

It is not possible to change the number 1x for the deployment size.

Table 3.2. Loki sizing
 1x.demo1x.extra-small1x.small1x.medium

Data transfer

Demo use only

100GB/day

500GB/day

2TB/day

Queries per second (QPS)

Demo use only

1-25 QPS at 200ms

25-50 QPS at 200ms

25-75 QPS at 200ms

Replication factor

None

2

2

2

Total CPU requests

None

14 vCPUs

34 vCPUs

54 vCPUs

Total memory requests

None

31Gi

67Gi

139Gi

Total disk requests

40Gi

430Gi

430Gi

590Gi

3.2.6. LokiStack ingestion limits and health alerts

The LokiStack instance comes with default settings according to the configured size. It is possible to override some of these settings, such as the ingestion and query limits. You might want to update them if you get Loki errors showing up in the Console plugin, or in flowlogs-pipeline logs. An automatic alert in the web console notifies you when these limits are reached.

Here is an example of configured limits:

spec:
  limits:
    global:
      ingestion:
        ingestionBurstSize: 40
        ingestionRate: 20
        maxGlobalStreamsPerTenant: 25000
      queries:
        maxChunksPerQuery: 2000000
        maxEntriesLimitPerQuery: 10000
        maxQuerySeries: 3000

For more information about these settings, see the LokiStack API reference.

3.2.7. Enabling multi-tenancy in Network Observability

Multi-tenancy in the Network Observability Operator allows and restricts individual user access, or group access, to the flows stored in Loki. Access is enabled for project admins. Project admins who have limited access to some namespaces can access flows for only those namespaces.

Prerequisite

Procedure

  1. Authorize reading permission to user1 by running the following command:

    $ oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user netobserv-reader user1

    Now, the data is restricted to only allowed user namespaces. For example, a user that has access to a single namespace can see all the flows internal to this namespace, as well as flows going from and to this namespace. Project admins have access to the Administrator perspective in the OpenShift Container Platform console to access the Network Flows Traffic page.

3.3. Installing the Network Observability Operator

You can install the Network Observability Operator using the OpenShift Container Platform web console Operator Hub. When you install the Operator, it provides the FlowCollector custom resource definition (CRD). You can set specifications in the web console when you create the FlowCollector.

Important

The actual memory consumption of the Operator depends on your cluster size and the number of resources deployed. Memory consumption might need to be adjusted accordingly. For more information refer to "Network Observability controller manager pod runs out of memory" in the "Important Flow Collector configuration considerations" section.

Prerequisites

  • If you choose to use Loki, install the Loki Operator version 5.7+.
  • You must have cluster-admin privileges.
  • One of the following supported architectures is required: amd64, ppc64le, arm64, or s390x.
  • Any CPU supported by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.
  • Must be configured with OVN-Kubernetes or OpenShift SDN as the main network plugin, and optionally using secondary interfaces with Multus and SR-IOV.
Note

Additionally, this installation example uses the netobserv namespace, which is used across all components. You can optionally use a different namespace.

Procedure

  1. In the OpenShift Container Platform web console, click OperatorsOperatorHub.
  2. Choose Network Observability Operator from the list of available Operators in the OperatorHub, and click Install.
  3. Select the checkbox Enable Operator recommended cluster monitoring on this Namespace.
  4. Navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators. Under Provided APIs for Network Observability, select the Flow Collector link.
  5. Navigate to the Flow Collector tab, and click Create FlowCollector. Make the following selections in the form view:

    1. spec.agent.ebpf.Sampling: Specify a sampling size for flows. Lower sampling sizes will have higher impact on resource utilization. For more information, see the "FlowCollector API reference", spec.agent.ebpf.
    2. If you are not using Loki, click Loki client settings and change Enable to False. The setting is True by default.
    3. If you are using Loki, set the following specifications:

      1. spec.loki.mode: Set this to the LokiStack mode, which automatically sets URLs, TLS, cluster roles and a cluster role binding, as well as the authToken value. Alternatively, the Manual mode allows more control over configuration of these settings.
      2. spec.loki.lokistack.name: Set this to the name of your LokiStack resource. In this documentation, loki is used.
    4. Optional: If you are in a large-scale environment, consider configuring the FlowCollector with Kafka for forwarding data in a more resilient, scalable way. See "Configuring the Flow Collector resource with Kafka storage" in the "Important Flow Collector configuration considerations" section.
    5. Optional: Configure other optional settings before the next step of creating the FlowCollector. For example, if you choose not to use Loki, then you can configure exporting flows to Kafka or IPFIX. See "Export enriched network flow data to Kafka and IPFIX" and more in the "Important Flow Collector configuration considerations" section.
  6. Click Create.

Verification

To confirm this was successful, when you navigate to Observe you should see Network Traffic listed in the options.

In the absence of Application Traffic within the OpenShift Container Platform cluster, default filters might show that there are "No results", which results in no visual flow. Beside the filter selections, select Clear all filters to see the flow.

3.4. Important Flow Collector configuration considerations

Once you create the FlowCollector instance, you can reconfigure it, but the pods are terminated and recreated again, which can be disruptive. Therefore, you can consider configuring the following options when creating the FlowCollector for the first time:

Additional resources

For more general information about Flow Collector specifications and the Network Observability Operator architecture and resource use, see the following resources:

3.4.1. Migrating removed stored versions of the FlowCollector CRD

Network Observability Operator version 1.6 removes the old and deprecated v1alpha1 version of the FlowCollector API. If you previously installed this version on your cluster, it might still be referenced in the storedVersion of the FlowCollector CRD, even if it is removed from the etcd store, which blocks the upgrade process. These references need to be manually removed.

There are two options to remove stored versions:

  1. Use the Storage Version Migrator Operator.
  2. Uninstall and reinstall the Network Observability Operator, ensuring that the installation is in a clean state.

Prerequisites

  • You have an older version of the Operator installed, and you want to prepare your cluster to install the latest version of the Operator. Or you have attempted to install the Network Observability Operator 1.6 and run into the error: Failed risk of data loss updating "flowcollectors.flows.netobserv.io": new CRD removes version v1alpha1 that is listed as a stored version on the existing CRD.

Procedure

  1. Verify that the old FlowCollector CRD version is still referenced in the storedVersion:

    $ oc get crd flowcollectors.flows.netobserv.io -ojsonpath='{.status.storedVersions}'
  2. If v1alpha1 appears in the list of results, proceed with Step a to use the Kubernetes Storage Version Migrator or Step b to uninstall and reinstall the CRD and the Operator.

    1. Option 1: Kubernetes Storage Version Migrator: Create a YAML to define the StorageVersionMigration object, for example migrate-flowcollector-v1alpha1.yaml:

      apiVersion: migration.k8s.io/v1alpha1
      kind: StorageVersionMigration
      metadata:
        name: migrate-flowcollector-v1alpha1
      spec:
        resource:
          group: flows.netobserv.io
          resource: flowcollectors
          version: v1alpha1
      1. Save the file.
      2. Apply the StorageVersionMigration by running the following command:

        $ oc apply -f migrate-flowcollector-v1alpha1.yaml
      3. Update the FlowCollector CRD to manually remove v1alpha1 from the storedVersion:

        $ oc edit crd flowcollectors.flows.netobserv.io
    2. Option 2: Reinstall: Save the Network Observability Operator 1.5 version of the FlowCollector CR to a file, for example flowcollector-1.5.yaml.

      $ oc get flowcollector cluster -o yaml > flowcollector-1.5.yaml
      1. Follow the steps in "Uninstalling the Network Observability Operator", which uninstalls the Operator and removes the existing FlowCollector CRD.
      2. Install the Network Observability Operator latest version, 1.6.0.
      3. Create the FlowCollector using backup that was saved in Step b.

Verification

  • Run the following command:

    $ oc get crd flowcollectors.flows.netobserv.io -ojsonpath='{.status.storedVersions}'

    The list of results should no longer show v1alpha1 and only show the latest version, v1beta1.

3.5. Installing Kafka (optional)

The Kafka Operator is supported for large scale environments. Kafka provides high-throughput and low-latency data feeds for forwarding network flow data in a more resilient, scalable way. You can install the Kafka Operator as Red Hat AMQ Streams from the Operator Hub, just as the Loki Operator and Network Observability Operator were installed. Refer to "Configuring the FlowCollector resource with Kafka" to configure Kafka as a storage option.

Note

To uninstall Kafka, refer to the uninstallation process that corresponds with the method you used to install.

3.6. Uninstalling the Network Observability Operator

You can uninstall the Network Observability Operator using the OpenShift Container Platform web console Operator Hub, working in the OperatorsInstalled Operators area.

Procedure

  1. Remove the FlowCollector custom resource.

    1. Click Flow Collector, which is next to the Network Observability Operator in the Provided APIs column.
    2. Click the options menu kebab for the cluster and select Delete FlowCollector.
  2. Uninstall the Network Observability Operator.

    1. Navigate back to the OperatorsInstalled Operators area.
    2. Click the options menu kebab next to the Network Observability Operator and select Uninstall Operator.
    3. HomeProjects and select openshift-netobserv-operator
    4. Navigate to Actions and select Delete Project
  3. Remove the FlowCollector custom resource definition (CRD).

    1. Navigate to AdministrationCustomResourceDefinitions.
    2. Look for FlowCollector and click the options menu kebab .
    3. Select Delete CustomResourceDefinition.

      Important

      The Loki Operator and Kafka remain if they were installed and must be removed separately. Additionally, you might have remaining data stored in an object store, and a persistent volume that must be removed.

Chapter 4. Network Observability Operator in OpenShift Container Platform

Network Observability is an OpenShift operator that deploys a monitoring pipeline to collect and enrich network traffic flows that are produced by the Network Observability eBPF agent.

4.1. Viewing statuses

The Network Observability Operator provides the Flow Collector API. When a Flow Collector resource is created, it deploys pods and services to create and store network flows in the Loki log store, as well as to display dashboards, metrics, and flows in the OpenShift Container Platform web console.

Procedure

  1. Run the following command to view the state of FlowCollector:

    $ oc get flowcollector/cluster

    Example output

    NAME      AGENT   SAMPLING (EBPF)   DEPLOYMENT MODEL   STATUS
    cluster   EBPF    50                DIRECT             Ready

  2. Check the status of pods running in the netobserv namespace by entering the following command:

    $ oc get pods -n netobserv

    Example output

    NAME                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
    flowlogs-pipeline-56hbp           1/1     Running   0          147m
    flowlogs-pipeline-9plvv           1/1     Running   0          147m
    flowlogs-pipeline-h5gkb           1/1     Running   0          147m
    flowlogs-pipeline-hh6kf           1/1     Running   0          147m
    flowlogs-pipeline-w7vv5           1/1     Running   0          147m
    netobserv-plugin-cdd7dc6c-j8ggp   1/1     Running   0          147m

flowlogs-pipeline pods collect flows, enriches the collected flows, then send flows to the Loki storage. netobserv-plugin pods create a visualization plugin for the OpenShift Container Platform Console.

  1. Check the status of pods running in the namespace netobserv-privileged by entering the following command:

    $ oc get pods -n netobserv-privileged

    Example output

    NAME                         READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
    netobserv-ebpf-agent-4lpp6   1/1     Running   0          151m
    netobserv-ebpf-agent-6gbrk   1/1     Running   0          151m
    netobserv-ebpf-agent-klpl9   1/1     Running   0          151m
    netobserv-ebpf-agent-vrcnf   1/1     Running   0          151m
    netobserv-ebpf-agent-xf5jh   1/1     Running   0          151m

netobserv-ebpf-agent pods monitor network interfaces of the nodes to get flows and send them to flowlogs-pipeline pods.

  1. If you are using the Loki Operator, check the status of pods running in the openshift-operators-redhat namespace by entering the following command:

    $ oc get pods -n openshift-operators-redhat

    Example output

    NAME                                                READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
    loki-operator-controller-manager-5f6cff4f9d-jq25h   2/2     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-compactor-0                               1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-distributor-654f87c5bc-qhkhv              1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-distributor-654f87c5bc-skxgm              1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-gateway-796dc6ff7-c54gz                   2/2     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-index-gateway-0                           1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-index-gateway-1                           1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-ingester-0                                1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-ingester-1                                1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-ingester-2                                1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-querier-66747dc666-6vh5x                  1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-querier-66747dc666-cjr45                  1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-querier-66747dc666-xh8rq                  1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-query-frontend-85c6db4fbd-b2xfb           1/1     Running   0          18h
    lokistack-query-frontend-85c6db4fbd-jm94f           1/1     Running   0          18h

4.2. Network Observablity Operator architecture

The Network Observability Operator provides the FlowCollector API, which is instantiated at installation and configured to reconcile the eBPF agent, the flowlogs-pipeline, and the netobserv-plugin components. Only a single FlowCollector per cluster is supported.

The eBPF agent runs on each cluster node with some privileges to collect network flows. The flowlogs-pipeline receives the network flows data and enriches the data with Kubernetes identifiers. If you choose to use Loki, the flowlogs-pipeline sends flow logs data to Loki for storing and indexing. The netobserv-plugin, which is a dynamic OpenShift Container Platform web console plugin, queries Loki to fetch network flows data. Cluster-admins can view the data in the web console.

If you do not use Loki, you can generate metrics with Prometheus. Those metrics and their related dashboards are accessible in the web console. For more information, see "Network Observability without Loki".

Network Observability eBPF export architecture

If you are using the Kafka option, the eBPF agent sends the network flow data to Kafka, and the flowlogs-pipeline reads from the Kafka topic before sending to Loki, as shown in the following diagram.

Network Observability using Kafka

4.3. Viewing Network Observability Operator status and configuration

You can inspect the status and view the details of the FlowCollector using the oc describe command.

Procedure

  1. Run the following command to view the status and configuration of the Network Observability Operator:

    $ oc describe flowcollector/cluster

Chapter 5. Configuring the Network Observability Operator

You can update the FlowCollector API resource to configure the Network Observability Operator and its managed components. The FlowCollector is explicitly created during installation. Since this resource operates cluster-wide, only a single FlowCollector is allowed, and it must be named cluster. For more information, see the FlowCollector API reference.

5.1. View the FlowCollector resource

You can view and edit YAML directly in the OpenShift Container Platform web console.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster then select the YAML tab. There, you can modify the FlowCollector resource to configure the Network Observability operator.

The following example shows a sample FlowCollector resource for OpenShift Container Platform Network Observability operator:

Sample FlowCollector resource

apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
kind: FlowCollector
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  namespace: netobserv
  deploymentModel: Direct
  agent:
    type: eBPF                                1
    ebpf:
      sampling: 50                            2
      logLevel: info
      privileged: false
      resources:
        requests:
          memory: 50Mi
          cpu: 100m
        limits:
          memory: 800Mi
  processor:               3
    logLevel: info
    resources:
      requests:
        memory: 100Mi
        cpu: 100m
      limits:
        memory: 800Mi
    logTypes: Flows
    advanced:
      conversationEndTimeout: 10s
      conversationHeartbeatInterval: 30s
  loki:                     4
    mode: LokiStack         5
  consolePlugin:
    register: true
    logLevel: info
    portNaming:
      enable: true
      portNames:
        "3100": loki
    quickFilters:            6
    - name: Applications
      filter:
        src_namespace!: 'openshift-,netobserv'
        dst_namespace!: 'openshift-,netobserv'
      default: true
    - name: Infrastructure
      filter:
        src_namespace: 'openshift-,netobserv'
        dst_namespace: 'openshift-,netobserv'
    - name: Pods network
      filter:
        src_kind: 'Pod'
        dst_kind: 'Pod'
      default: true
    - name: Services network
      filter:
        dst_kind: 'Service'

1
The Agent specification, spec.agent.type, must be EBPF. eBPF is the only OpenShift Container Platform supported option.
2
You can set the Sampling specification, spec.agent.ebpf.sampling, to manage resources. Lower sampling values might consume a large amount of computational, memory and storage resources. You can mitigate this by specifying a sampling ratio value. A value of 100 means 1 flow every 100 is sampled. A value of 0 or 1 means all flows are captured. The lower the value, the increase in returned flows and the accuracy of derived metrics. By default, eBPF sampling is set to a value of 50, so 1 flow every 50 is sampled. Note that more sampled flows also means more storage needed. It is recommend to start with default values and refine empirically, to determine which setting your cluster can manage.
3
The Processor specification spec.processor. can be set to enable conversation tracking. When enabled, conversation events are queryable in the web console. The spec.processor.logTypes value is Flows. The spec.processor.advanced values are Conversations, EndedConversations, or ALL. Storage requirements are highest for All and lowest for EndedConversations.
4
The Loki specification, spec.loki, specifies the Loki client. The default values match the Loki install paths mentioned in the Installing the Loki Operator section. If you used another installation method for Loki, specify the appropriate client information for your install.
5
The LokiStack mode automatically sets a few configurations: querierUrl, ingesterUrl and statusUrl, tenantID, and corresponding TLS configuration. Cluster roles and a cluster role binding are created for reading and writing logs to Loki. And authToken is set to Forward. You can set these manually using the Manual mode.
6
The spec.quickFilters specification defines filters that show up in the web console. The Application filter keys,src_namespace and dst_namespace, are negated (!), so the Application filter shows all traffic that does not originate from, or have a destination to, any openshift- or netobserv namespaces. For more information, see Configuring quick filters below.

5.2. Configuring the Flow Collector resource with Kafka

You can configure the FlowCollector resource to use Kafka for high-throughput and low-latency data feeds. A Kafka instance needs to be running, and a Kafka topic dedicated to OpenShift Container Platform Network Observability must be created in that instance. For more information, see Kafka documentation with AMQ Streams.

Prerequisites

  • Kafka is installed. Red Hat supports Kafka with AMQ Streams Operator.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the Network Observability Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select the cluster and then click the YAML tab.
  4. Modify the FlowCollector resource for OpenShift Container Platform Network Observability Operator to use Kafka, as shown in the following sample YAML:

Sample Kafka configuration in FlowCollector resource

apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
kind: FlowCollector
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  deploymentModel: Kafka                                    1
  kafka:
    address: "kafka-cluster-kafka-bootstrap.netobserv"      2
    topic: network-flows                                    3
    tls:
      enable: false                                         4

1
Set spec.deploymentModel to Kafka instead of Direct to enable the Kafka deployment model.
2
spec.kafka.address refers to the Kafka bootstrap server address. You can specify a port if needed, for instance kafka-cluster-kafka-bootstrap.netobserv:9093 for using TLS on port 9093.
3
spec.kafka.topic should match the name of a topic created in Kafka.
4
spec.kafka.tls can be used to encrypt all communications to and from Kafka with TLS or mTLS. When enabled, the Kafka CA certificate must be available as a ConfigMap or a Secret, both in the namespace where the flowlogs-pipeline processor component is deployed (default: netobserv) and where the eBPF agents are deployed (default: netobserv-privileged). It must be referenced with spec.kafka.tls.caCert. When using mTLS, client secrets must be available in these namespaces as well (they can be generated for instance using the AMQ Streams User Operator) and referenced with spec.kafka.tls.userCert.

5.3. Export enriched network flow data

You can send network flows to Kafka, IPFIX, or both at the same time. Any processor or storage that supports Kafka or IPFIX input, such as Splunk, Elasticsearch, or Fluentd, can consume the enriched network flow data.

Prerequisites

  • Your Kafka or IPFIX collector endpoint(s) are available from Network Observability flowlogs-pipeline pods.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster and then select the YAML tab.
  4. Edit the FlowCollector to configure spec.exporters as follows:

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      exporters:
      - type: Kafka                         1
          kafka:
            address: "kafka-cluster-kafka-bootstrap.netobserv"
            topic: netobserv-flows-export   2
            tls:
              enable: false                 3
      - type: IPFIX                         4
          ipfix:
            targetHost: "ipfix-collector.ipfix.svc.cluster.local"
            targetPort: 4739
            transport: tcp or udp           5
    2
    The Network Observability Operator exports all flows to the configured Kafka topic.
    3
    You can encrypt all communications to and from Kafka with SSL/TLS or mTLS. When enabled, the Kafka CA certificate must be available as a ConfigMap or a Secret, both in the namespace where the flowlogs-pipeline processor component is deployed (default: netobserv). It must be referenced with spec.exporters.tls.caCert. When using mTLS, client secrets must be available in these namespaces as well (they can be generated for instance using the AMQ Streams User Operator) and referenced with spec.exporters.tls.userCert.
    1 4
    You can export flows to IPFIX instead of or in conjunction with exporting flows to Kafka.
    5
    You have the option to specify transport. The default value is tcp but you can also specify udp.
  5. After configuration, network flows data can be sent to an available output in a JSON format. For more information, see Network flows format reference.

Additional resources

5.4. Updating the Flow Collector resource

As an alternative to editing YAML in the OpenShift Container Platform web console, you can configure specifications, such as eBPF sampling, by patching the flowcollector custom resource (CR):

Procedure

  1. Run the following command to patch the flowcollector CR and update the spec.agent.ebpf.sampling value:

    $ oc patch flowcollector cluster --type=json -p "[{"op": "replace", "path": "/spec/agent/ebpf/sampling", "value": <new value>}] -n netobserv"

5.5. Configuring quick filters

You can modify the filters in the FlowCollector resource. Exact matches are possible using double-quotes around values. Otherwise, partial matches are used for textual values. The bang (!) character, placed at the end of a key, means negation. See the sample FlowCollector resource for more context about modifying the YAML.

Note

The filter matching types "all of" or "any of" is a UI setting that the users can modify from the query options. It is not part of this resource configuration.

Here is a list of all available filter keys:

Table 5.1. Filter keys
Universal*SourceDestinationDescription

namespace

src_namespace

dst_namespace

Filter traffic related to a specific namespace.

name

src_name

dst_name

Filter traffic related to a given leaf resource name, such as a specific pod, service, or node (for host-network traffic).

kind

src_kind

dst_kind

Filter traffic related to a given resource kind. The resource kinds include the leaf resource (Pod, Service or Node), or the owner resource (Deployment and StatefulSet).

owner_name

src_owner_name

dst_owner_name

Filter traffic related to a given resource owner; that is, a workload or a set of pods. For example, it can be a Deployment name, a StatefulSet name, etc.

resource

src_resource

dst_resource

Filter traffic related to a specific resource that is denoted by its canonical name, that identifies it uniquely. The canonical notation is kind.namespace.name for namespaced kinds, or node.name for nodes. For example, Deployment.my-namespace.my-web-server.

address

src_address

dst_address

Filter traffic related to an IP address. IPv4 and IPv6 are supported. CIDR ranges are also supported.

mac

src_mac

dst_mac

Filter traffic related to a MAC address.

port

src_port

dst_port

Filter traffic related to a specific port.

host_address

src_host_address

dst_host_address

Filter traffic related to the host IP address where the pods are running.

protocol

N/A

N/A

Filter traffic related to a protocol, such as TCP or UDP.

  • Universal keys filter for any of source or destination. For example, filtering name: 'my-pod' means all traffic from my-pod and all traffic to my-pod, regardless of the matching type used, whether Match all or Match any.

5.6. Configuring monitoring for SR-IOV interface traffic

In order to collect traffic from a cluster with a Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) device, you must set the FlowCollector spec.agent.ebpf.privileged field to true. Then, the eBPF agent monitors other network namespaces in addition to the host network namespaces, which are monitored by default. When a pod with a virtual functions (VF) interface is created, a new network namespace is created. With SRIOVNetwork policy IPAM configurations specified, the VF interface is migrated from the host network namespace to the pod network namespace.

Prerequisites

  • Access to an OpenShift Container Platform cluster with a SR-IOV device.
  • The SRIOVNetwork custom resource (CR) spec.ipam configuration must be set with an IP address from the range that the interface lists or from other plugins.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster and then select the YAML tab.
  4. Configure the FlowCollector custom resource. A sample configuration is as follows:

Configure FlowCollector for SR-IOV monitoring

apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
kind: FlowCollector
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  namespace: netobserv
  deploymentModel: Direct
  agent:
    type: eBPF
    ebpf:
      privileged: true   1

1
The spec.agent.ebpf.privileged field value must be set to true to enable SR-IOV monitoring.

5.7. Resource management and performance considerations

The amount of resources required by Network Observability depends on the size of your cluster and your requirements for the cluster to ingest and store observability data. To manage resources and set performance criteria for your cluster, consider configuring the following settings. Configuring these settings might meet your optimal setup and observability needs.

The following settings can help you manage resources and performance from the outset:

eBPF Sampling
You can set the Sampling specification, spec.agent.ebpf.sampling, to manage resources. Smaller sampling values might consume a large amount of computational, memory and storage resources. You can mitigate this by specifying a sampling ratio value. A value of 100 means 1 flow every 100 is sampled. A value of 0 or 1 means all flows are captured. Smaller values result in an increase in returned flows and the accuracy of derived metrics. By default, eBPF sampling is set to a value of 50, so 1 flow every 50 is sampled. Note that more sampled flows also means more storage needed. Consider starting with the default values and refine empirically, in order to determine which setting your cluster can manage.
Restricting or excluding interfaces
Reduce the overall observed traffic by setting the values for spec.agent.ebpf.interfaces and spec.agent.ebpf.excludeInterfaces. By default, the agent fetches all the interfaces in the system, except the ones listed in excludeInterfaces and lo (local interface). Note that the interface names might vary according to the Container Network Interface (CNI) used.

The following settings can be used to fine-tune performance after the Network Observability has been running for a while:

Resource requirements and limits
Adapt the resource requirements and limits to the load and memory usage you expect on your cluster by using the spec.agent.ebpf.resources and spec.processor.resources specifications. The default limits of 800MB might be sufficient for most medium-sized clusters.
Cache max flows timeout
Control how often flows are reported by the agents by using the eBPF agent’s spec.agent.ebpf.cacheMaxFlows and spec.agent.ebpf.cacheActiveTimeout specifications. A larger value results in less traffic being generated by the agents, which correlates with a lower CPU load. However, a larger value leads to a slightly higher memory consumption, and might generate more latency in the flow collection.

5.7.1. Resource considerations

The following table outlines examples of resource considerations for clusters with certain workload sizes.

Important

The examples outlined in the table demonstrate scenarios that are tailored to specific workloads. Consider each example only as a baseline from which adjustments can be made to accommodate your workload needs.

Table 5.2. Resource recommendations
 Extra small (10 nodes)Small (25 nodes)Medium (65 nodes) [2]Large (120 nodes) [2]

Worker Node vCPU and memory

4 vCPUs| 16GiB mem [1]

16 vCPUs| 64GiB mem [1]

16 vCPUs| 64GiB mem [1]

16 vCPUs| 64GiB Mem [1]

LokiStack size

1x.extra-small

1x.small

1x.small

1x.medium

Network Observability controller memory limit

400Mi (default)

400Mi (default)

400Mi (default)

400Mi (default)

eBPF sampling rate

50 (default)

50 (default)

50 (default)

50 (default)

eBPF memory limit

800Mi (default)

800Mi (default)

800Mi (default)

1600Mi

FLP memory limit

800Mi (default)

800Mi (default)

800Mi (default)

800Mi (default)

FLP Kafka partitions

N/A

48

48

48

Kafka consumer replicas

N/A

24

24

24

Kafka brokers

N/A

3 (default)

3 (default)

3 (default)

  1. Tested with AWS M6i instances.
  2. In addition to this worker and its controller, 3 infra nodes (size M6i.12xlarge) and 1 workload node (size M6i.8xlarge) were tested.

5.7.2. Total average memory and CPU usage

The following table outlines averages of total resource usage for clusters with a sampling value of 1, 50, and 400 for 3 different tests: Test 1, Test 2, and Test 3. The tests differ in the following ways:

  • Test 1 takes into account the total number of namespace, pods and services in an OpenShift Container Platform cluster, places load on the eBPF agent, and represents use cases with a high number of workloads for a given cluster size. For example, Test 1 consists of 76 Namespaces, 5153 Pods, and 2305 Services.
  • Test 2 takes into account a high ingress traffic volume.
  • Test 3 takes into account the total number of namespace, pods and services in an OpenShift Container Platform cluster, places load on the eBPF agent on a larger scale than Test 1, and represents use cases with a high number of workloads for a given cluster size. For example, Test 3 consists of 553 Namespaces, 6998 Pods, and 2508 Services.

Since different types of cluster use cases are exemplified in the different tests, the numbers in this table cannot be linearly compared side-by-side, but instead are intended to be used as a benchmark for evaluating your personal cluster usage. The examples outlined in the table demonstrate scenarios that are tailored to specific workloads. Consider each example only as a baseline from which adjustments can be made to accommodate your workload needs.

Note

Metrics exported to Prometheus can impact the resource usage. Cardinality values for the metrics can help determine how much resources are impacted. For more information, see "Network Flows format" in the Additional resources section.

Table 5.3. Total average resource usage
Sampling valueParametersTest 1 (25 nodes)Test 2 (65 nodes)Test 3 (120 nodes)

Sampling = 1

With Loki

 

Total NetObserv CPU Usage

3.24

3.42

7.30

Total NetObserv RSS (Memory) Usage

14.09 GB

22.56 GB

36.46 GB

Without Loki

 

Total NetObserv CPU Usage

2.40

2.43

5.59

Total NetObserv RSS (Memory) Usage

6.85 GB

10.39 GB

13.92 GB

Sampling = 50

With Loki

 

Total NetObserv CPU Usage

2.04

2.36

3.31

Total NetObserv RSS (Memory) Usage

8.79 GB

19.14 GB

21.07 GB

Without Loki

 

Total NetObserv CPU Usage

1.55

1.64

2.70

Total NetObserv RSS (Memory) Usage

6.71 GB

10.15 GB

14.82 GB

Sampling = 400

With Loki

 

Total NetObserv CPU Usage

1.71

1.44

2.36

Total NetObserv RSS (Memory) Usage

8.21 GB

16.02 GB

17.44 GB

Without Loki

 

Total NetObserv CPU Usage

1.31

1.06

1.83

Total NetObserv RSS (Memory) Usage

7.01 GB

10.70 GB

13.26 GB

Summary: This table shows average total resource usage of Network Observability (Agents+FLP+Kafka+Loki).

Additional resources

Chapter 6. Network Policy

As a user with the admin role, you can create a network policy for the netobserv namespace to secure inbound access to the Network Observability Operator.

6.1. Creating a network policy for Network Observability

You might need to create a network policy to secure ingress traffic to the netobserv namespace. In the web console, you can create a network policy using the form view.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to NetworkingNetworkPolicies.
  2. Select the netobserv project from the Project dropdown menu.
  3. Name the policy. For this example, the policy name is allow-ingress.
  4. Click Add ingress rule three times to create three ingress rules.
  5. Specify the following in the form:

    1. Make the following specifications for the first Ingress rule:

      1. From the Add allowed source dropdown menu, select Allow pods from the same namespace.
    2. Make the following specifications for the second Ingress rule:

      1. From the Add allowed source dropdown menu, select Allow pods from inside the cluster.
      2. Click + Add namespace selector.
      3. Add the label, kubernetes.io/metadata.name, and the selector, openshift-console.
    3. Make the following specifications for the third Ingress rule:

      1. From the Add allowed source dropdown menu, select Allow pods from inside the cluster.
      2. Click + Add namespace selector.
      3. Add the label, kubernetes.io/metadata.name, and the selector, openshift-monitoring.

Verification

  1. Navigate to ObserveNetwork Traffic.
  2. View the Traffic Flows tab, or any tab, to verify that the data is displayed.
  3. Navigate to ObserveDashboards. In the NetObserv/Health selection, verify that the flows are being ingested and sent to Loki, which is represented in the first graph.

6.2. Example network policy

The following annotates an example NetworkPolicy object for the netobserv namespace:

Sample network policy

kind: NetworkPolicy
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: allow-ingress
  namespace: netobserv
spec:
  podSelector: {}            1
  ingress:
    - from:
        - podSelector: {}    2
          namespaceSelector: 3
            matchLabels:
              kubernetes.io/metadata.name: openshift-console
        - podSelector: {}
          namespaceSelector:
            matchLabels:
              kubernetes.io/metadata.name: openshift-monitoring
  policyTypes:
    - Ingress
status: {}

1
A selector that describes the pods to which the policy applies. The policy object can only select pods in the project that defines the NetworkPolicy object. In this documentation, it would be the project in which the Network Observability Operator is installed, which is the netobserv project.
2
A selector that matches the pods from which the policy object allows ingress traffic. The default is that the selector matches pods in the same namespace as the NetworkPolicy.
3
When the namespaceSelector is specified, the selector matches pods in the specified namespace.

Chapter 7. Observing the network traffic

As an administrator, you can observe the network traffic in the OpenShift Container Platform console for detailed troubleshooting and analysis. This feature helps you get insights from different graphical representations of traffic flow. There are several available views to observe the network traffic.

7.1. Observing the network traffic from the Overview view

The Overview view displays the overall aggregated metrics of the network traffic flow on the cluster. As an administrator, you can monitor the statistics with the available display options.

7.1.1. Working with the Overview view

As an administrator, you can navigate to the Overview view to see the graphical representation of the flow rate statistics.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to ObserveNetwork Traffic.
  2. In the Network Traffic page, click the Overview tab.

You can configure the scope of each flow rate data by clicking the menu icon.

7.1.2. Configuring advanced options for the Overview view

You can customize the graphical view by using advanced options. To access the advanced options, click Show advanced options. You can configure the details in the graph by using the Display options drop-down menu. The options available are as follows:

  • Scope: Select to view the components that network traffic flows between. You can set the scope to Node, Namespace, Owner, Zones, Cluster or Resource. Owner is an aggregation of resources. Resource can be a pod, service, node, in case of host-network traffic, or an unknown IP address. The default value is Namespace.
  • Truncate labels: Select the required width of the label from the drop-down list. The default value is M.
7.1.2.1. Managing panels and display

You can select the required panels to be displayed, reorder them, and focus on a specific panel. To add or remove panels, click Manage panels.

The following panels are shown by default:

  • Top X average bytes rates
  • Top X bytes rates stacked with total

Other panels can be added in Manage panels:

  • Top X average packets rates
  • Top X packets rates stacked with total

Query options allows you to choose whether to show the Top 5, Top 10, or Top 15 rates.

7.1.3. Packet drop tracking

You can configure graphical representation of network flow records with packet loss in the Overview view. By employing eBPF tracepoint hooks, you can gain valuable insights into packet drops for TCP, UDP, SCTP, ICMPv4, and ICMPv6 protocols, which can result in the following actions:

  • Identification: Pinpoint the exact locations and network paths where packet drops are occurring. Determine whether specific devices, interfaces, or routes are more prone to drops.
  • Root cause analysis: Examine the data collected by the eBPF program to understand the causes of packet drops. For example, are they a result of congestion, buffer issues, or specific network events?
  • Performance optimization: With a clearer picture of packet drops, you can take steps to optimize network performance, such as adjust buffer sizes, reconfigure routing paths, or implement Quality of Service (QoS) measures.

When packet drop tracking is enabled, you can see the following panels in the Overview by default:

  • Top X packet dropped state stacked with total
  • Top X packet dropped cause stacked with total
  • Top X average dropped packets rates
  • Top X dropped packets rates stacked with total

Other packet drop panels are available to add in Manage panels:

  • Top X average dropped bytes rates
  • Top X dropped bytes rates stacked with total
7.1.3.1. Types of packet drops

See the Additional resources of this section for more information about enabling and working with packet drop tracking.

7.1.4. DNS tracking

You can configure graphical representation of Domain Name System (DNS) tracking of network flows in the Overview view. Using DNS tracking with extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) tracepoint hooks can serve various purposes:

  • Network Monitoring: Gain insights into DNS queries and responses, helping network administrators identify unusual patterns, potential bottlenecks, or performance issues.
  • Security Analysis: Detect suspicious DNS activities, such as domain name generation algorithms (DGA) used by malware, or identify unauthorized DNS resolutions that might indicate a security breach.
  • Troubleshooting: Debug DNS-related issues by tracing DNS resolution steps, tracking latency, and identifying misconfigurations.

By default, when DNS tracking is enabled, you can see the following non-empty metrics represented in a donut or line chart in the Overview:

  • Top X DNS Response Code
  • Top X average DNS latencies with overall
  • Top X 90th percentile DNS latencies

Other DNS tracking panels can be added in Manage panels:

  • Bottom X minimum DNS latencies
  • Top X maximum DNS latencies
  • Top X 99th percentile DNS latencies

This feature is supported for IPv4 and IPv6 UDP and TCP protocols.

See the Additional resources in this section for more information about enabling and working with this view.

7.1.5. Round-Trip Time

You can use TCP smoothed Round-Trip Time (sRTT) to analyze network flow latencies. You can use RTT captured from the fentry/tcp_rcv_established eBPF hookpoint to read sRTT from the TCP socket to help with the following:

  • Network Monitoring: Gain insights into TCP latencies, helping network administrators identify unusual patterns, potential bottlenecks, or performance issues.
  • Troubleshooting: Debug TCP-related issues by tracking latency and identifying misconfigurations.

By default, when RTT is enabled, you can see the following TCP RTT metrics represented in the Overview:

  • Top X 90th percentile TCP Round Trip Time with overall
  • Top X average TCP Round Trip Time with overall
  • Bottom X minimum TCP Round Trip Time with overall

Other RTT panels can be added in Manage panels:

  • Top X maximum TCP Round Trip Time with overall
  • Top X 99th percentile TCP Round Trip Time with overall

See the Additional resources in this section for more information about enabling and working with this view.

Additional resources

7.1.6. eBPF flow rule filter

You can use rule-based filtering to control the volume of packets cached in the eBPF flow table. For example, a filter can specify that only packets coming from port 100 should be recorded. Then only the packets that match the filter are cached and the rest are not cached.

7.1.6.1. Ingress and egress traffic filtering

CIDR notation efficiently represents IP address ranges by combining the base IP address with a prefix length. For both ingress and egress traffic, the source IP address is first used to match filter rules configured with CIDR notation. If there is a match, then the filtering proceeds. If there is no match, then the destination IP is used to match filter rules configured with CIDR notation.

After matching either the source IP or the destination IP CIDR, you can pinpoint specific endpoints using the peerIP to differentiate the destination IP address of the packet. Based on the provisioned action, the flow data is either cached in the eBPF flow table or not cached.

7.1.6.2. Dashboard and metrics integrations

When this option is enabled, the Netobserv/Health dashboard for eBPF agent statistics now has the Filtered flows rate view. Additionally, in ObserveMetrics you can query netobserv_agent_filtered_flows_total to observe metrics with the reason in FlowFilterAcceptCounter, FlowFilterNoMatchCounter or FlowFilterRecjectCounter.

7.1.6.3. Flow filter configuration parameters

The flow filter rules consist of required and optional parameters.

Table 7.1. Required configuration parameters
ParameterDescription

enable

Set enable to true to enable the eBPF flow filtering feature.

cidr

Provides the IP address and CIDR mask for the flow filter rule. Supports both IPv4 and IPv6 address format. If you want to match against any IP, you can use 0.0.0.0/0 for IPv4 or ::/0 for IPv6.

action

Describes the action that is taken for the flow filter rule. The possible values are Accept or Reject.

  • For the Accept action matching rule, the flow data is cached in the eBPF table and updated with the global metric, FlowFilterAcceptCounter.
  • For the Reject action matching rule, the flow data is dropped and not cached in the eBPF table. The flow data is updated with the global metric, FlowFilterRejectCounter.
  • If the rule is not matched, the flow is cached in the eBPF table and updated with the global metric, FlowFilterNoMatchCounter.
Table 7.2. Optional configuration parameters
ParameterDescription

direction

Defines the direction of the flow filter rule. Possible values are Ingress or Egress.

protocol

Defines the protocol of the flow filter rule. Possible values are TCP, UDP, SCTP, ICMP, and ICMPv6.

ports

Defines the ports to use for filtering flows. It can be used for either source or destination ports. To filter a single port, set a single port as an integer value. For example ports: 80. To filter a range of ports, use a "start-end" range in string format. For example ports: "80-100"

sourcePorts

Defines the source port to use for filtering flows. To filter a single port, set a single port as an integer value, for example sourcePorts: 80. To filter a range of ports, use a "start-end" range, string format, for example sourcePorts: "80-100".

destPorts

DestPorts defines the destination ports to use for filtering flows. To filter a single port, set a single port as an integer value, for example destPorts: 80. To filter a range of ports, use a "start-end" range in string format, for example destPorts: "80-100".

icmpType

Defines the ICMP type to use for filtering flows.

icmpCode

Defines the ICMP code to use for filtering flows.

peerIP

Defines the IP address to use for filtering flows, for example: 10.10.10.10.

7.2. Observing the network traffic from the Traffic flows view

The Traffic flows view displays the data of the network flows and the amount of traffic in a table. As an administrator, you can monitor the amount of traffic across the application by using the traffic flow table.

7.2.1. Working with the Traffic flows view

As an administrator, you can navigate to Traffic flows table to see network flow information.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to ObserveNetwork Traffic.
  2. In the Network Traffic page, click the Traffic flows tab.

You can click on each row to get the corresponding flow information.

7.2.2. Configuring advanced options for the Traffic flows view

You can customize and export the view by using Show advanced options. You can set the row size by using the Display options drop-down menu. The default value is Normal.

7.2.2.1. Managing columns

You can select the required columns to be displayed, and reorder them. To manage columns, click Manage columns.

7.2.2.2. Exporting the traffic flow data

You can export data from the Traffic flows view.

Procedure

  1. Click Export data.
  2. In the pop-up window, you can select the Export all data checkbox to export all the data, and clear the checkbox to select the required fields to be exported.
  3. Click Export.

7.2.3. Working with conversation tracking

As an administrator, you can group network flows that are part of the same conversation. A conversation is defined as a grouping of peers that are identified by their IP addresses, ports, and protocols, resulting in an unique Conversation Id. You can query conversation events in the web console. These events are represented in the web console as follows:

  • Conversation start: This event happens when a connection is starting or TCP flag intercepted
  • Conversation tick: This event happens at each specified interval defined in the FlowCollector spec.processor.conversationHeartbeatInterval parameter while the connection is active.
  • Conversation end: This event happens when the FlowCollector spec.processor.conversationEndTimeout parameter is reached or the TCP flag is intercepted.
  • Flow: This is the network traffic flow that occurs within the specified interval.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster then select the YAML tab.
  4. Configure the FlowCollector custom resource so that spec.processor.logTypes, conversationEndTimeout, and conversationHeartbeatInterval parameters are set according to your observation needs. A sample configuration is as follows:

    Configure FlowCollector for conversation tracking

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
     processor:
      logTypes: Flows                              1
      advanced:
       conversationEndTimeout: 10s                 2
       conversationHeartbeatInterval: 30s          3

    1
    When logTypes is set to Flows, only the Flow event is exported. If you set the value to All, both conversation and flow events are exported and visible in the Network Traffic page. To focus only on conversation events, you can specify Conversations which exports the Conversation start, Conversation tick and Conversation end events; or EndedConversations exports only the Conversation end events. Storage requirements are highest for All and lowest for EndedConversations.
    2
    The Conversation end event represents the point when the conversationEndTimeout is reached or the TCP flag is intercepted.
    3
    The Conversation tick event represents each specified interval defined in the FlowCollector conversationHeartbeatInterval parameter while the network connection is active.
    Note

    If you update the logType option, the flows from the previous selection do not clear from the console plugin. For example, if you initially set logType to Conversations for a span of time until 10 AM and then move to EndedConversations, the console plugin shows all conversation events before 10 AM and only ended conversations after 10 AM.

  5. Refresh the Network Traffic page on the Traffic flows tab. Notice there are two new columns, Event/Type and Conversation Id. All the Event/Type fields are Flow when Flow is the selected query option.
  6. Select Query Options and choose the Log Type, Conversation. Now the Event/Type shows all of the desired conversation events.
  7. Next you can filter on a specific conversation ID or switch between the Conversation and Flow log type options from the side panel.

7.2.4. Working with packet drops

Packet loss occurs when one or more packets of network flow data fail to reach their destination. You can track these drops by editing the FlowCollector to the specifications in the following YAML example.

Important

CPU and memory usage increases when this feature is enabled.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster, and then select the YAML tab.
  4. Configure the FlowCollector custom resource for packet drops, for example:

    Example FlowCollector configuration

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      namespace: netobserv
      agent:
        type: eBPF
        ebpf:
          features:
           - PacketDrop            1
          privileged: true       2

    1
    You can start reporting the packet drops of each network flow by listing the PacketDrop parameter in the spec.agent.ebpf.features specification list.
    2
    The spec.agent.ebpf.privileged specification value must be true for packet drop tracking.

Verification

  • When you refresh the Network Traffic page, the Overview, Traffic Flow, and Topology views display new information about packet drops:

    1. Select new choices in Manage panels to choose which graphical visualizations of packet drops to display in the Overview.
    2. Select new choices in Manage columns to choose which packet drop information to display in the Traffic flows table.

      1. In the Traffic Flows view, you can also expand the side panel to view more information about packet drops.
    3. In the Topology view, red lines are displayed where drops are present.

7.2.5. Working with DNS tracking

Using DNS tracking, you can monitor your network, conduct security analysis, and troubleshoot DNS issues. You can track DNS by editing the FlowCollector to the specifications in the following YAML example.

Important

CPU and memory usage increases are observed in the eBPF agent when this feature is enabled.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for Network Observability, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster then select the YAML tab.
  4. Configure the FlowCollector custom resource. A sample configuration is as follows:

    Configure FlowCollector for DNS tracking

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      namespace: netobserv
      agent:
        type: eBPF
        ebpf:
          features:
           - DNSTracking           1
          sampling: 1              2

    1
    You can set the spec.agent.ebpf.features parameter list to enable DNS tracking of each network flow in the web console.
    2
    You can set sampling to a value of 1 for more accurate metrics and to capture DNS latency. For a sampling value greater than 1, you can observe flows with DNS Response Code and DNS Id, and it is unlikely that DNS Latency can be observed.
  5. When you refresh the Network Traffic page, there are new DNS representations you can choose to view in the Overview and Traffic Flow views and new filters you can apply.

    1. Select new DNS choices in Manage panels to display graphical visualizations and DNS metrics in the Overview.
    2. Select new choices in Manage columns to add DNS columns to the Traffic Flows view.
    3. Filter on specific DNS metrics, such as DNS Id, DNS Error DNS Latency and DNS Response Code, and see more information from the side panel. The DNS Latency and DNS Response Code columns are shown by default.
Note

TCP handshake packets do not have DNS headers. TCP protocol flows without DNS headers are shown in the traffic flow data with DNS Latency, ID, and Response code values of "n/a". You can filter out flow data to view only flows that have DNS headers using the Common filter "DNSError" equal to "0".

7.2.6. Working with RTT tracing

You can track RTT by editing the FlowCollector to the specifications in the following YAML example.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. In the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster, and then select the YAML tab.
  4. Configure the FlowCollector custom resource for RTT tracing, for example:

    Example FlowCollector configuration

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      namespace: netobserv
      agent:
        type: eBPF
        ebpf:
          features:
           - FlowRTT   1

    1
    You can start tracing RTT network flows by listing the FlowRTT parameter in the spec.agent.ebpf.features specification list.

Verification

When you refresh the Network Traffic page, the Overview, Traffic Flow, and Topology views display new information about RTT:

  1. In the Overview, select new choices in Manage panels to choose which graphical visualizations of RTT to display.
  2. In the Traffic flows table, the Flow RTT column can be seen, and you can manage display in Manage columns.
  3. In the Traffic Flows view, you can also expand the side panel to view more information about RTT.

    Example filtering

    1. Click the Common filters → Protocol.
    2. Filter the network flow data based on TCP, Ingress direction, and look for FlowRTT values greater than 10,000,000 nanoseconds (10ms).
    3. Remove the Protocol filter.
    4. Filter for Flow RTT values greater than 0 in the Common filters.
  4. In the Topology view, click the Display option dropdown. Then click RTT in the edge labels drop-down list.
7.2.6.1. Using the histogram

You can click Show histogram to display a toolbar view for visualizing the history of flows as a bar chart. The histogram shows the number of logs over time. You can select a part of the histogram to filter the network flow data in the table that follows the toolbar.

7.2.7. Working with availability zones

You can configure the FlowCollector to collect information about the cluster availability zones. This allows you to enrich network flow data with the topology.kubernetes.io/zone label value applied to the nodes.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, go to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster then select the YAML tab.
  4. Configure the FlowCollector custom resource so that the spec.processor.addZone parameter is set to true. A sample configuration is as follows:

    Configure FlowCollector for availability zones collection

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
    # ...
     processor:
       addZone: true
    # ...

Verification

When you refresh the Network Traffic page, the Overview, Traffic Flow, and Topology views display new information about availability zones:

  1. In the Overview tab, you can see Zones as an available Scope.
  2. In Network TrafficTraffic flows, Zones are viewable under the SrcK8S_Zone and DstK8S_Zone fields.
  3. In the Topology view, you can set Zones as Scope or Group.

7.2.8. Filtering eBPF flow data using a global rule

You can configure the FlowCollector to filter eBPF flows using a global rule to control the flow of packets cached in the eBPF flow table.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for Network Observability, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster, then select the YAML tab.
  4. Configure the FlowCollector custom resource, similar to the following sample configurations:

    Example 7.1. Filter Kubernetes service traffic to a specific Pod IP endpoint

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      namespace: netobserv
      deploymentModel: Direct
      agent:
        type: eBPF
        ebpf:
          flowFilter:
            action: Accept  1
            cidr: 172.210.150.1/24 2
            protocol: SCTP
            direction: Ingress
            destPortRange: 80-100
            peerIP: 10.10.10.10
            enable: true    3
    1
    The required action parameter describes the action that is taken for the flow filter rule. Possible values are Accept or Reject.
    2
    The required cidr parameter provides the IP address and CIDR mask for the flow filter rule and supports IPv4 and IPv6 address formats. If you want to match against any IP address, you can use 0.0.0.0/0 for IPv4 or ::/0 for IPv6.
    3
    You must set spec.agent.ebpf.flowFilter.enable to true to enable this feature.

    Example 7.2. See flows to any addresses outside the cluster

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      namespace: netobserv
      deploymentModel: Direct
      agent:
        type: eBPF
        ebpf:
          flowFilter:
            action: Accept  1
            cidr: 0.0.0.0/0 2
            protocol: TCP
            direction: Egress
            sourcePort: 100
            peerIP: 192.168.127.12 3
            enable: true    4
    1
    You can Accept flows based on the criteria in the flowFilter specification.
    2
    The cidr value of 0.0.0.0/0 matches against any IP address.
    3
    See flows after peerIP is configured with 192.168.127.12.
    4
    You must set spec.agent.ebpf.flowFilter.enable to true to enable the feature.

7.3. Observing the network traffic from the Topology view

The Topology view provides a graphical representation of the network flows and the amount of traffic. As an administrator, you can monitor the traffic data across the application by using the Topology view.

7.3.1. Working with the Topology view

As an administrator, you can navigate to the Topology view to see the details and metrics of the component.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to ObserveNetwork Traffic.
  2. In the Network Traffic page, click the Topology tab.

You can click each component in the Topology to view the details and metrics of the component.

7.3.2. Configuring the advanced options for the Topology view

You can customize and export the view by using Show advanced options. The advanced options view has the following features:

  • Find in view: To search the required components in the view.
  • Display options: To configure the following options:

    • Edge labels: To show the specified measurements as edge labels. The default is to show the Average rate in Bytes.
    • Scope: To select the scope of components between which the network traffic flows. The default value is Namespace.
    • Groups: To enhance the understanding of ownership by grouping the components. The default value is None.
    • Layout: To select the layout of the graphical representation. The default value is ColaNoForce.
    • Show: To select the details that need to be displayed. All the options are checked by default. The options available are: Edges, Edges label, and Badges.
    • Truncate labels: To select the required width of the label from the drop-down list. The default value is M.
    • Collapse groups: To expand or collapse the groups. The groups are expanded by default. This option is disabled if Groups has the value of None.
7.3.2.1. Exporting the topology view

To export the view, click Export topology view. The view is downloaded in PNG format.

7.4. Filtering the network traffic

By default, the Network Traffic page displays the traffic flow data in the cluster based on the default filters configured in the FlowCollector instance. You can use the filter options to observe the required data by changing the preset filter.

Query Options

You can use Query Options to optimize the search results, as listed below:

  • Log Type: The available options Conversation and Flows provide the ability to query flows by log type, such as flow log, new conversation, completed conversation, and a heartbeat, which is a periodic record with updates for long conversations. A conversation is an aggregation of flows between the same peers.
  • Match filters: You can determine the relation between different filter parameters selected in the advanced filter. The available options are Match all and Match any. Match all provides results that match all the values, and Match any provides results that match any of the values entered. The default value is Match all.
  • Datasource: You can choose the datasource to use for queries: Loki, Prometheus, or Auto. Notable performance improvements can be realized when using Prometheus as a datasource rather than Loki, but Prometheus supports a limited set of filters and aggregations. The default datasource is Auto, which uses Prometheus on supported queries or uses Loki if the query does not support Prometheus.
  • Drops filter: You can view different levels of dropped packets with the following query options:

    • Fully dropped shows flow records with fully dropped packets.
    • Containing drops shows flow records that contain drops but can be sent.
    • Without drops shows records that contain sent packets.
    • All shows all the aforementioned records.
  • Limit: The data limit for internal backend queries. Depending upon the matching and the filter settings, the number of traffic flow data is displayed within the specified limit.
Quick filters
The default values in Quick filters drop-down menu are defined in the FlowCollector configuration. You can modify the options from console.
Advanced filters
You can set the advanced filters, Common, Source, or Destination, by selecting the parameter to be filtered from the dropdown list. The flow data is filtered based on the selection. To enable or disable the applied filter, you can click on the applied filter listed below the filter options.

You can toggle between arrow up long solid One way and arrow up long solid arrow down long solid Back and forth filtering. The arrow up long solid One way filter shows only Source and Destination traffic according to your filter selections. You can use Swap to change the directional view of the Source and Destination traffic. The arrow up long solid arrow down long solid Back and forth filter includes return traffic with the Source and Destination filters. The directional flow of network traffic is shown in the Direction column in the Traffic flows table as Ingress`or `Egress for inter-node traffic and `Inner`for traffic inside a single node.

You can click Reset defaults to remove the existing filters, and apply the filter defined in FlowCollector configuration.

Note

To understand the rules of specifying the text value, click Learn More.

Alternatively, you can access the traffic flow data in the Network Traffic tab of the Namespaces, Services, Routes, Nodes, and Workloads pages which provide the filtered data of the corresponding aggregations.

Additional resources

For more information about configuring quick filters in the FlowCollector, see Configuring Quick Filters and the Flow Collector sample resource.

Chapter 8. Using metrics with dashboards and alerts

The Network Observability Operator uses the flowlogs-pipeline to generate metrics from flow logs. You can utilize these metrics by setting custom alerts and viewing dashboards.

8.1. Viewing Network Observability metrics dashboards

On the Overview tab in the OpenShift Container Platform console, you can view the overall aggregated metrics of the network traffic flow on the cluster. You can choose to display the information by node, namespace, owner, pod, and service. You can also use filters and display options to further refine the metrics.

Procedure

  1. In the web console ObserveDashboards, select the Netobserv dashboard.
  2. View network traffic metrics in the following categories, with each having the subset per node, namespace, source, and destination:

    • Byte rates
    • Packet drops
    • DNS
    • RTT
  3. Select the Netobserv/Health dashboard.
  4. View metrics about the health of the Operator in the following categories, with each having the subset per node, namespace, source, and destination.

    • Flows
    • Flows Overhead
    • Flow rates
    • Agents
    • Processor
    • Operator

Infrastructure and Application metrics are shown in a split-view for namespace and workloads.

8.2. Predefined metrics

Metrics generated by the flowlogs-pipeline are configurable in the spec.processor.metrics.includeList of the FlowCollector custom resource to add or remove metrics.

8.3. Network Observability metrics

You can also create alerts by using the includeList metrics in Prometheus rules, as shown in the example "Creating alerts".

When looking for these metrics in Prometheus, such as in the Console through ObserveMetrics, or when defining alerts, all the metrics names are prefixed with netobserv_. For example, netobserv_namespace_flows_total. Available metrics names are as follows:

includeList metrics names

Names followed by an asterisk * are enabled by default.

  • namespace_egress_bytes_total
  • namespace_egress_packets_total
  • namespace_ingress_bytes_total
  • namespace_ingress_packets_total
  • namespace_flows_total *
  • node_egress_bytes_total
  • node_egress_packets_total
  • node_ingress_bytes_total *
  • node_ingress_packets_total
  • node_flows_total
  • workload_egress_bytes_total
  • workload_egress_packets_total
  • workload_ingress_bytes_total *
  • workload_ingress_packets_total
  • workload_flows_total
PacketDrop metrics names

When the PacketDrop feature is enabled in spec.agent.ebpf.features (with privileged mode), the following additional metrics are available:

  • namespace_drop_bytes_total
  • namespace_drop_packets_total *
  • node_drop_bytes_total
  • node_drop_packets_total
  • workload_drop_bytes_total
  • workload_drop_packets_total
DNS metrics names

When the DNSTracking feature is enabled in spec.agent.ebpf.features, the following additional metrics are available:

  • namespace_dns_latency_seconds *
  • node_dns_latency_seconds
  • workload_dns_latency_seconds
FlowRTT metrics names

When the FlowRTT feature is enabled in spec.agent.ebpf.features, the following additional metrics are available:

  • namespace_rtt_seconds *
  • node_rtt_seconds
  • workload_rtt_seconds

8.4. Custom metrics

You can create custom metrics out of the flowlogs data using the FlowMetric API. In every flowlogs data that is collected, there are a number of fields labeled per log, such as source name and destination name. These fields can be leveraged as Prometheus labels to enable the customization of cluster information on your dashboard.

8.5. Configuring custom metrics by using FlowMetric API

You can configure the FlowMetric API to create custom metrics by using flowlogs data fields as Prometheus labels. You can add multiple FlowMetric resources to a project to see multiple dashboard views.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. In the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select FlowMetric.
  3. In the Project: dropdown list, select the project of the Network Observability Operator instance.
  4. Click Create FlowMetric.
  5. Configure the FlowMetric resource, similar to the following sample configurations:

    Example 8.1. Generate a metric that tracks ingress bytes received from cluster external sources

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1alpha1
    kind: FlowMetric
    metadata:
      name: flowmetric-cluster-external-ingress-traffic
      namespace: netobserv                              1
    spec:
      metricName: cluster_external_ingress_bytes_total  2
      type: Counter                                     3
      valueField: Bytes
      direction: Ingress                                4
      labels: [DstK8S_HostName,DstK8S_Namespace,DstK8S_OwnerName,DstK8S_OwnerType] 5
      filters:                                          6
      - field: SrcSubnetLabel
        matchType: Absence
    1
    The FlowMetric resources need to be created in the namespace defined in the FlowCollector spec.namespace, which is netobserv by default.
    2
    The name of the Prometheus metric, which in the web console appears with the prefix netobserv-<metricName>.
    3
    The type specifies the type of metric. The Counter type is useful for counting bytes or packets.
    4
    The direction of traffic to capture. If not specified, both ingress and egress are captured, which can lead to duplicated counts.
    5
    Labels define what the metrics look like and the relationship between the different entities and also define the metrics cardinality. For example, SrcK8S_Name is a high cardinality metric.
    6
    Refines results based on the listed criteria. In this example, selecting only the cluster external traffic is done by matching only flows where SrcSubnetLabel is absent. This assumes the subnet labels feature is enabled (via spec.processor.subnetLabels), which is done by default.

    Verification

    1. Once the pods refresh, navigate to ObserveMetrics.
    2. In the Expression field, type the metric name to view the corresponding result. You can also enter an expression, such as topk(5, sum(rate(netobserv_cluster_external_ingress_bytes_total{DstK8S_Namespace="my-namespace"}[2m])) by (DstK8S_HostName, DstK8S_OwnerName, DstK8S_OwnerType))

    Example 8.2. Show RTT latency for cluster external ingress traffic

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1alpha1
    kind: FlowMetric
    metadata:
      name: flowmetric-cluster-external-ingress-rtt
      namespace: netobserv    1
    spec:
      metricName: cluster_external_ingress_rtt_seconds
      type: Histogram                 2
      valueField: TimeFlowRttNs
      direction: Ingress
      labels: [DstK8S_HostName,DstK8S_Namespace,DstK8S_OwnerName,DstK8S_OwnerType]
      filters:
      - field: SrcSubnetLabel
        matchType: Absence
      - field: TimeFlowRttNs
        matchType: Presence
      divider: "1000000000"      3
      buckets: [".001", ".005", ".01", ".02", ".03", ".04", ".05", ".075", ".1", ".25", "1"]  4
    1
    The FlowMetric resources need to be created in the namespace defined in the FlowCollector spec.namespace, which is netobserv by default.
    2
    The type specifies the type of metric. The Histogram type is useful for a latency value (TimeFlowRttNs).
    3
    Since the Round-trip time (RTT) is provided as nanos in flows, use a divider of 1 billion to convert into seconds, which is standard in Prometheus guidelines.
    4
    The custom buckets specify precision on RTT, with optimal precision ranging between 5ms and 250ms.

    Verification

    1. Once the pods refresh, navigate to ObserveMetrics.
    2. In the Expression field, you can type the metric name to view the corresponding result.
Important

High cardinality can affect the memory usage of Prometheus. You can check whether specific labels have high cardinality in the Network Flows format reference.

8.6. Configuring custom charts using FlowMetric API

You can generate charts for dashboards in the OpenShift Container Platform web console, which you can view as an administrator in the Dashboard menu by defining the charts section of the FlowMetric resource.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. In the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select FlowMetric.
  3. In the Project: dropdown list, select the project of the Network Observability Operator instance.
  4. Click Create FlowMetric.
  5. Configure the FlowMetric resource, similar to the following sample configurations:

Example 8.3. Chart for tracking ingress bytes received from cluster external sources

apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1alpha1
kind: FlowMetric
metadata:
  name: flowmetric-cluster-external-ingress-traffic
  namespace: netobserv   1
# ...
  charts:
  - dashboardName: Main  2
    title: External ingress traffic
    unit: Bps
    type: SingleStat
    queries:
    - promQL: "sum(rate($METRIC[2m]))"
      legend: ""
  - dashboardName: Main  3
    sectionName: External
    title: Top external ingress traffic per workload
    unit: Bps
    type: StackArea
    queries:
    - promQL: "sum(rate($METRIC{DstK8S_Namespace!=\"\"}[2m])) by (DstK8S_Namespace, DstK8S_OwnerName)"
      legend: "{{DstK8S_Namespace}} / {{DstK8S_OwnerName}}"
# ...
1
The FlowMetric resources need to be created in the namespace defined in the FlowCollector spec.namespace, which is netobserv by default.

Verification

  1. Once the pods refresh, navigate to ObserveDashboards.
  2. Search for the NetObserv / Main dashboard. View two panels under the NetObserv / Main dashboard, or optionally a dashboard name that you create:

    • A textual single statistic showing the global external ingress rate summed across all dimensions
    • A timeseries graph showing the same metric per destination workload

For more information about the query language, refer to the Prometheus documentation.

Example 8.4. Chart for RTT latency for cluster external ingress traffic

apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1alpha1
kind: FlowMetric
metadata:
  name: flowmetric-cluster-external-ingress-traffic
  namespace: netobserv   1
# ...
  charts:
  - dashboardName: Main  2
    title: External ingress TCP latency
    unit: seconds
    type: SingleStat
    queries:
    - promQL: "histogram_quantile(0.99, sum(rate($METRIC_bucket[2m])) by (le)) > 0"
      legend: "p99"
  - dashboardName: Main  3
    sectionName: External
    title: "Top external ingress sRTT per workload, p50 (ms)"
    unit: seconds
    type: Line
    queries:
    - promQL: "histogram_quantile(0.5, sum(rate($METRIC_bucket{DstK8S_Namespace!=\"\"}[2m])) by (le,DstK8S_Namespace,DstK8S_OwnerName))*1000 > 0"
      legend: "{{DstK8S_Namespace}} / {{DstK8S_OwnerName}}"
  - dashboardName: Main  4
    sectionName: External
    title: "Top external ingress sRTT per workload, p99 (ms)"
    unit: seconds
    type: Line
    queries:
    - promQL: "histogram_quantile(0.99, sum(rate($METRIC_bucket{DstK8S_Namespace!=\"\"}[2m])) by (le,DstK8S_Namespace,DstK8S_OwnerName))*1000 > 0"
      legend: "{{DstK8S_Namespace}} / {{DstK8S_OwnerName}}"
# ...
1
The FlowMetric resources need to be created in the namespace defined in the FlowCollector spec.namespace, which is netobserv by default.
2 3 4
Using a different dashboardName creates a new dashboard that is prefixed with Netobserv. For example, Netobserv / <dashboard_name>.

This example uses the histogram_quantile function to show p50 and p99.

You can show averages of histograms by dividing the metric, $METRIC_sum, by the metric, $METRIC_count, which are automatically generated when you create a histogram. With the preceding example, the Prometheus query to do this is as follows:

promQL: "(sum(rate($METRIC_sum{DstK8S_Namespace!=\"\"}[2m])) by (DstK8S_Namespace,DstK8S_OwnerName) / sum(rate($METRIC_count{DstK8S_Namespace!=\"\"}[2m])) by (DstK8S_Namespace,DstK8S_OwnerName))*1000"

Verification

  1. Once the pods refresh, navigate to ObserveDashboards.
  2. Search for the NetObserv / Main dashboard. View the new panel under the NetObserv / Main dashboard, or optionally a dashboard name that you create.

For more information about the query language, refer to the Prometheus documentation.

Chapter 9. Monitoring the Network Observability Operator

You can use the web console to monitor alerts related to the health of the Network Observability Operator.

9.1. Health dashboards

Metrics about health and resource usage of the Network Observability Operator are located in the ObserveDashboards page in the web console. You can view metrics about the health of the Operator in the following categories:

  • Flows per second
  • Sampling
  • Errors last minute
  • Dropped flows per second
  • Flowlogs-pipeline statistics
  • Flowlogs-pipleine statistics views
  • eBPF agent statistics views
  • Operator statistics
  • Resource usage

9.2. Health alerts

A health alert banner that directs you to the dashboard can appear on the Network Traffic and Home pages if an alert is triggered. Alerts are generated in the following cases:

  • The NetObservLokiError alert occurs if the flowlogs-pipeline workload is dropping flows because of Loki errors, such as if the Loki ingestion rate limit has been reached.
  • The NetObservNoFlows alert occurs if no flows are ingested for a certain amount of time.
  • The NetObservFlowsDropped alert occurs if the Network Observability eBPF agent hashmap table is full, and the eBPF agent processes flows with degraded performance, or when the capacity limiter is triggered.

9.3. Viewing health information

You can access metrics about health and resource usage of the Network Observability Operator from the Dashboards page in the web console.

Prerequisites

  • You have the Network Observability Operator installed.
  • You have access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role or with view permissions for all projects.

Procedure

  1. From the Administrator perspective in the web console, navigate to ObserveDashboards.
  2. From the Dashboards dropdown, select Netobserv/Health.
  3. View the metrics about the health of the Operator that are displayed on the page.

9.3.1. Disabling health alerts

You can opt out of health alerting by editing the FlowCollector resource:

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster then select the YAML tab.
  4. Add spec.processor.metrics.disableAlerts to disable health alerts, as in the following YAML sample:

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      processor:
        metrics:
          disableAlerts: [NetObservLokiError, NetObservNoFlows] 1
    1
    You can specify one or a list with both types of alerts to disable.

9.4. Using the eBPF agent alert

An alert, NetObservAgentFlowsDropped, is triggered when the Network Observability eBPF agent hashmap table is full or when the capacity limiter is triggered. If you see this alert, consider increasing the cacheMaxFlows in the FlowCollector, as shown in the following example.

Note

Increasing the cacheMaxFlows might increase the memory usage of the eBPF agent.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators.
  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the Network Observability Operator, select Flow Collector.
  3. Select cluster, and then select the YAML tab.
  4. Increase the spec.agent.ebpf.cacheMaxFlows value, as shown in the following YAML sample:
apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
kind: FlowCollector
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  namespace: netobserv
  deploymentModel: Direct
  agent:
    type: eBPF
    ebpf:
      cacheMaxFlows: 200000 1
1
Increase the cacheMaxFlows value from its value at the time of the NetObservAgentFlowsDropped alert.

Chapter 10. Scheduling resources

Taints and tolerations allow the node to control which pods should (or should not) be scheduled on them.

A node selector specifies a map of key/value pairs that are defined using custom labels on nodes and selectors specified in pods.

For the pod to be eligible to run on a node, the pod must have the same key/value node selector as the label on the node.

10.1. Network Observability deployment in specific nodes

You can configure the FlowCollector to control the deployment of Network Observability components in specific nodes. The spec.agent.ebpf.advanced.scheduling, spec.processor.advanced.scheduling, and spec.consolePlugin.advanced.scheduling specifications have the following configurable settings:

  • NodeSelector
  • Tolerations
  • Affinity
  • PriorityClassName

Sample FlowCollector resource for spec.<component>.advanced.scheduling

apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
kind: FlowCollector
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
# ...
advanced:
  scheduling:
    tolerations:
    - key: "<taint key>"
      operator: "Equal"
      value: "<taint value>"
      effect: "<taint effect>"
      nodeSelector:
        <key>: <value>
      affinity:
        nodeAffinity:
        requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
          nodeSelectorTerms:
          - matchExpressions:
            - key: name
              operator: In
              values:
              - app-worker-node
      priorityClassName: """
# ...

Additional resources

Chapter 11. Network Observability CLI

11.1. Installing the Network Observability CLI

Warning

The Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) is temporarily unavailable and is expected to resolve with OCPBUGS-36146.

The Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) is deployed separately from the Network Observability Operator. The CLI is available as an OpenShift CLI (oc) plugin. It provides a lightweight way to quickly debug and troubleshoot with network observability.

Important

Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) is a Technology Preview feature only. Technology Preview features are not supported with Red Hat production service level agreements (SLAs) and might not be functionally complete. Red Hat does not recommend using them in production. These features provide early access to upcoming product features, enabling customers to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process.

For more information about the support scope of Red Hat Technology Preview features, see Technology Preview Features Support Scope.

11.1.1. About the Network Observability CLI

You can quickly debug and troubleshoot networking issues by using the Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv). The Network Observability CLI is a flow and packet visualization tool that relies on eBPF agents to stream collected data to an ephemeral collector pod. It requires no persistent storage during the capture. After the run, the output is transferred to your local machine. This enables quick, live insight into packets and flow data without installing the Network Observability Operator.

Important

CLI capture is meant to run only for short durations, such as 8-10 minutes. If it runs for too long, it can be difficult to delete the running process.

11.1.2. Installing the Network Observability CLI

Installing the Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) is a separate procedure from the Network Observability Operator installation. This means that, even if you have the Operator installed from OperatorHub, you need to install the CLI separately.

Note

You can optionally use Krew to install the netobserv CLI plugin. For more information, see "Installing a CLI plugin with Krew".

Prerequisites

  • You must install the OpenShift CLI (oc).
  • You must have a macOS or Linux operating system.

Procedure

  1. Download the oc netobserv CLI tar file.
  2. Unpack the archive:

    $ tar xvf netobserv-cli.tar.gz
  3. Make the file executable:

    $ chmod +x ./build/oc-netobserv
  4. Move the extracted netobserv-cli binary to a directory that is on your PATH, such as /usr/local/bin/:

    $ sudo mv ./build/oc-netobserv /usr/local/bin/

Verification

  • Verify that oc netobserv is available:

    $ oc netobserv version

    Example output

    Netobserv CLI version <version>

11.2. Using the Network Observability CLI

You can visualize and filter the flows and packets data directly in the terminal to see specific usage, such as identifying who is using a specific port. The Network Observability CLI collects flows as JSON and database files or packets as a PCAP file, which you can use with third-party tools.

11.2.1. Capturing flows

You can capture flows and filter on any resource or zone in the data to solve use cases, such as displaying Round-Trip Time (RTT) between two zones. Table visualization in the CLI provides viewing and flow search capabilities.

Prerequisites

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).
  • Install the Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) plugin.

Procedure

  1. Capture flows with filters enabled by running the following command:

    $ oc netobserv flows --enable_filter=true --action=Accept --cidr=0.0.0.0/0 --protocol=TCP --port=49051
  2. Add filters to the live table filter prompt in the terminal to further refine the incoming flows. For example:

    live table filter: [SrcK8S_Zone:us-west-1b] press enter to match multiple regular expressions at once
  3. To stop capturing, press Ctrl+C. The data that was captured is written to two separate files in an ./output directory located in the same path used to install the CLI.
  4. View the captured data in the ./output/flow/<capture_date_time>.json JSON file, which contains JSON arrays of the captured data.

    Example JSON file

    {
      "AgentIP": "10.0.1.76",
      "Bytes": 561,
      "DnsErrno": 0,
      "Dscp": 20,
      "DstAddr": "f904:ece9:ba63:6ac7:8018:1e5:7130:0",
      "DstMac": "0A:58:0A:80:00:37",
      "DstPort": 9999,
      "Duplicate": false,
      "Etype": 2048,
      "Flags": 16,
      "FlowDirection": 0,
      "IfDirection": 0,
      "Interface": "ens5",
      "K8S_FlowLayer": "infra",
      "Packets": 1,
      "Proto": 6,
      "SrcAddr": "3e06:6c10:6440:2:a80:37:b756:270f",
      "SrcMac": "0A:58:0A:80:00:01",
      "SrcPort": 46934,
      "TimeFlowEndMs": 1709741962111,
      "TimeFlowRttNs": 121000,
      "TimeFlowStartMs": 1709741962111,
      "TimeReceived": 1709741964
    }

  5. You can use SQLite to inspect the ./output/flow/<capture_date_time>.db database file. For example:

    1. Open the file by running the following command:

      $ sqlite3 ./output/flow/<capture_date_time>.db
    2. Query the data by running a SQLite SELECT statement, for example:

      sqlite> SELECT DnsLatencyMs, DnsFlagsResponseCode, DnsId, DstAddr, DstPort, Interface, Proto, SrcAddr, SrcPort, Bytes, Packets FROM flow WHERE DnsLatencyMs >10 LIMIT 10;

      Example output

      12|NoError|58747|10.128.0.63|57856||17|172.30.0.10|53|284|1
      11|NoError|20486|10.128.0.52|56575||17|169.254.169.254|53|225|1
      11|NoError|59544|10.128.0.103|51089||17|172.30.0.10|53|307|1
      13|NoError|32519|10.128.0.52|55241||17|169.254.169.254|53|254|1
      12|NoError|32519|10.0.0.3|55241||17|169.254.169.254|53|254|1
      15|NoError|57673|10.128.0.19|59051||17|172.30.0.10|53|313|1
      13|NoError|35652|10.0.0.3|46532||17|169.254.169.254|53|183|1
      32|NoError|37326|10.0.0.3|52718||17|169.254.169.254|53|169|1
      14|NoError|14530|10.0.0.3|58203||17|169.254.169.254|53|246|1
      15|NoError|40548|10.0.0.3|45933||17|169.254.169.254|53|174|1

11.2.2. Capturing packets

You can capture packets using the Network Observability CLI.

Prerequisites

  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).
  • Install the Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) plugin.

Procedure

  1. Run the packet capture with filters enabled:

    $ oc netobserv packets tcp,80
  2. Add filters to the live table filter prompt in the terminal to refine the incoming packets. An example filter is as follows:

    live table filter: [SrcK8S_Zone:us-west-1b] press enter to match multiple regular expressions at once
  3. To stop capturing, press Ctrl+C.
  4. View the captured data, which is written to a single file in an ./output/pcap directory located in the same path that was used to install the CLI:

    1. The ./output/pcap/<capture_date_time>.pcap file can be opened with Wireshark.

11.2.3. Cleaning the Network Observability CLI

You can manually clean the CLI workload by running oc netobserv cleanup. This command removes all the CLI components from your cluster.

When you end a capture, this command is run automatically by the client. You might be required to manually run it if you experience connectivity issues.

Procedure

  • Run the following command:

    $ oc netobserv cleanup

11.3. Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) reference

The Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) has most features and filtering options that are available for the Network Observability Operator. You can pass command line arguments to enable features or filtering options.

11.3.1. oc netobserv CLI reference

The Network Observability CLI (oc netobserv) is a CLI tool for capturing flow data and packet data for further analysis.

oc netobserv syntax

$ oc netobserv [<command>] [<feature_option>] [<command_options>] 1

1
Feature options can only be used with the oc netobserv flows command. They cannot be used with the oc netobserv packets command.
Table 11.1. Basic commands
CommandDescription

flows

Capture flows information. For subcommands, see the "Flow capture subcommands" table.

packets

Capture packets from a specific protocol or port pair, such as netobserv packets --filter=tcp,80. For more information about packet capture, see the "Packet capture subcommand" table.

cleanup

Remove the Network Observability CLI components.

version

Print the software version.

help

Show help.

11.3.1.1. Network Observability enrichment

The Network Observability enrichment to display zone, node, owner and resource names including optional features about packet drops, DNS latencies and Round-trip time can only be enabled when capturing flows. These do not appear in packet capture pcap output file.

Network Observability enrichment syntax

$ oc netobserv flows [<enrichment_options>] [<subcommands>]

Table 11.2. Network Observability enrichment options
OptionDescriptionPossible valuesDefault

--enable_pktdrop

Enable packet drop.

true, false

false

--enable_rtt

Enable round trip time.

true, false

false

--enable_dns

Enable DNS tracking.

true, false

false

--help

Show help.

-

-

--interfaces

Interfaces to match on the flow. For example, "eth0,eth1".

"<interface>"

-

11.3.1.2. Flow capture options

Flow capture has mandatory commands as well as additional options, such as enabling extra features about packet drops, DNS latencies, Round-trip time, and filtering.

oc netobserv flows syntax

$ oc netobserv flows [<feature_option>] [<command_options>]

Table 11.3. Flow capture filter options
OptionDescriptionPossible valuesMandatoryDefault

--enable_filter

Enable flow filter.

true, false

Yes

false

--action

Action to apply on the flow.

Accept, Reject

Yes

Accept

--cidr

CIDR to match on the flow.

1.1.1.0/24, 1::100/64, or 0.0.0.0/0

Yes

0.0.0.0/0

--protocol

Protocol to match on the flow

TCP, UDP, SCTP, ICMP, or ICMPv6

No

-

--direction

Direction to match on the flow

Ingress, Egress

No

-

--dport

Destination port to match on the flow.

80, 443, or 49051

no

-

--sport

Source port to match on the flow.

80, 443, or 49051

No

-

--port

Port to match on the flow.

80, 443, or 49051

No

-

--sport_range

Source port range to match on the flow.

80-100 or 443-445

No

-

--dport_range

Destination port range to match on the flow.

80-100

No

-

--port_range

Port range to match on the flow.

80-100 or 443-445

No

-

--icmp_type

ICMP type to match on the flow.

8 or 13

No

-

--icmp_code

ICMP code to match on the flow.

0 or 1

No

-

--peer_ip

Peer IP to match on the flow.

1.1.1.1 or 1::1

No

-

11.3.1.3. Packet capture options

You can filter on port and protocol for packet capture data.

oc netobserv packets syntax

$ oc netobserv packets [<option>]

Table 11.4. Packet capture filter option

Option

Description

Mandatory

Default

<protocol>,<port>

Capture packets from a specific protocol and port pair. Use a comma as delimiter. For example, tcp,80 specifies the tcp protocol and port 80.

Yes

-

Chapter 12. FlowCollector API reference

FlowCollector is the Schema for the network flows collection API, which pilots and configures the underlying deployments.

12.1. FlowCollector API specifications

Description
FlowCollector is the schema for the network flows collection API, which pilots and configures the underlying deployments.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

apiVersion

string

APIVersion defines the versioned schema of this representation of an object. Servers should convert recognized schemas to the latest internal value, and might reject unrecognized values. More info: https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#resources

kind

string

Kind is a string value representing the REST resource this object represents. Servers might infer this from the endpoint the client submits requests to. Cannot be updated. In CamelCase. More info: https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#types-kinds

metadata

object

Standard object’s metadata. More info: https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#metadata

spec

object

Defines the desired state of the FlowCollector resource.

*: the mention of "unsupported" or "deprecated" for a feature throughout this document means that this feature is not officially supported by Red Hat. It might have been, for example, contributed by the community and accepted without a formal agreement for maintenance. The product maintainers might provide some support for these features as a best effort only.

12.1.1. .metadata

Description
Standard object’s metadata. More info: https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#metadata
Type
object

12.1.2. .spec

Description

Defines the desired state of the FlowCollector resource.

*: the mention of "unsupported" or "deprecated" for a feature throughout this document means that this feature is not officially supported by Red Hat. It might have been, for example, contributed by the community and accepted without a formal agreement for maintenance. The product maintainers might provide some support for these features as a best effort only.

Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

agent

object

Agent configuration for flows extraction.

consolePlugin

object

consolePlugin defines the settings related to the OpenShift Container Platform Console plugin, when available.

deploymentModel

string

deploymentModel defines the desired type of deployment for flow processing. Possible values are:

- Direct (default) to make the flow processor listen directly from the agents.

- Kafka to make flows sent to a Kafka pipeline before consumption by the processor.

Kafka can provide better scalability, resiliency, and high availability (for more details, see https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/integration/what-is-apache-kafka).

exporters

array

exporters define additional optional exporters for custom consumption or storage.

kafka

object

Kafka configuration, allowing to use Kafka as a broker as part of the flow collection pipeline. Available when the spec.deploymentModel is Kafka.

loki

object

loki, the flow store, client settings.

namespace

string

Namespace where Network Observability pods are deployed.

processor

object

processor defines the settings of the component that receives the flows from the agent, enriches them, generates metrics, and forwards them to the Loki persistence layer and/or any available exporter.

prometheus

object

prometheus defines Prometheus settings, such as querier configuration used to fetch metrics from the Console plugin.

12.1.3. .spec.agent

Description
Agent configuration for flows extraction.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

ebpf

object

ebpf describes the settings related to the eBPF-based flow reporter when spec.agent.type is set to eBPF.

type

string

type [deprecated (*)] selects the flows tracing agent. Previously, this field allowed to select between eBPF or IPFIX. Only eBPF is allowed now, so this field is deprecated and is planned for removal in a future version of the API.

12.1.4. .spec.agent.ebpf

Description
ebpf describes the settings related to the eBPF-based flow reporter when spec.agent.type is set to eBPF.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

advanced

object

advanced allows setting some aspects of the internal configuration of the eBPF agent. This section is aimed mostly for debugging and fine-grained performance optimizations, such as GOGC and GOMAXPROCS env vars. Set these values at your own risk.

cacheActiveTimeout

string

cacheActiveTimeout is the max period during which the reporter aggregates flows before sending. Increasing cacheMaxFlows and cacheActiveTimeout can decrease the network traffic overhead and the CPU load, however you can expect higher memory consumption and an increased latency in the flow collection.

cacheMaxFlows

integer

cacheMaxFlows is the max number of flows in an aggregate; when reached, the reporter sends the flows. Increasing cacheMaxFlows and cacheActiveTimeout can decrease the network traffic overhead and the CPU load, however you can expect higher memory consumption and an increased latency in the flow collection.

excludeInterfaces

array (string)

excludeInterfaces contains the interface names that are excluded from flow tracing. An entry enclosed by slashes, such as /br-/, is matched as a regular expression. Otherwise it is matched as a case-sensitive string.

features

array (string)

List of additional features to enable. They are all disabled by default. Enabling additional features might have performance impacts. Possible values are:

- PacketDrop: enable the packets drop flows logging feature. This feature requires mounting the kernel debug filesystem, so the eBPF pod has to run as privileged. If the spec.agent.ebpf.privileged parameter is not set, an error is reported.

- DNSTracking: enable the DNS tracking feature.

- FlowRTT: enable flow latency (sRTT) extraction in the eBPF agent from TCP traffic.

flowFilter

object

flowFilter defines the eBPF agent configuration regarding flow filtering.

imagePullPolicy

string

imagePullPolicy is the Kubernetes pull policy for the image defined above

interfaces

array (string)

interfaces contains the interface names from where flows are collected. If empty, the agent fetches all the interfaces in the system, excepting the ones listed in excludeInterfaces. An entry enclosed by slashes, such as /br-/, is matched as a regular expression. Otherwise it is matched as a case-sensitive string.

kafkaBatchSize

integer

kafkaBatchSize limits the maximum size of a request in bytes before being sent to a partition. Ignored when not using Kafka. Default: 1MB.

logLevel

string

logLevel defines the log level for the Network Observability eBPF Agent

metrics

object

metrics defines the eBPF agent configuration regarding metrics.

privileged

boolean

Privileged mode for the eBPF Agent container. When ignored or set to false, the operator sets granular capabilities (BPF, PERFMON, NET_ADMIN, SYS_RESOURCE) to the container. If for some reason these capabilities cannot be set, such as if an old kernel version not knowing CAP_BPF is in use, then you can turn on this mode for more global privileges. Some agent features require the privileged mode, such as packet drops tracking (see features) and SR-IOV support.

resources

object

resources are the compute resources required by this container. For more information, see https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/

sampling

integer

Sampling rate of the flow reporter. 100 means one flow on 100 is sent. 0 or 1 means all flows are sampled.

12.1.5. .spec.agent.ebpf.advanced

Description
advanced allows setting some aspects of the internal configuration of the eBPF agent. This section is aimed mostly for debugging and fine-grained performance optimizations, such as GOGC and GOMAXPROCS env vars. Set these values at your own risk.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

env

object (string)

env allows passing custom environment variables to underlying components. Useful for passing some very concrete performance-tuning options, such as GOGC and GOMAXPROCS, that should not be publicly exposed as part of the FlowCollector descriptor, as they are only useful in edge debug or support scenarios.

scheduling

object

scheduling controls how the pods are scheduled on nodes.

12.1.6. .spec.agent.ebpf.advanced.scheduling

Description
scheduling controls how the pods are scheduled on nodes.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

affinity

object

If specified, the pod’s scheduling constraints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.

nodeSelector

object (string)

nodeSelector allows scheduling of pods only onto nodes that have each of the specified labels. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/assign-pod-node/.

priorityClassName

string

If specified, indicates the pod’s priority. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/scheduling-eviction/pod-priority-preemption/#how-to-use-priority-and-preemption. If not specified, default priority is used, or zero if there is no default.

tolerations

array

tolerations is a list of tolerations that allow the pod to schedule onto nodes with matching taints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.

12.1.7. .spec.agent.ebpf.advanced.scheduling.affinity

Description
If specified, the pod’s scheduling constraints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.
Type
object

12.1.8. .spec.agent.ebpf.advanced.scheduling.tolerations

Description
tolerations is a list of tolerations that allow the pod to schedule onto nodes with matching taints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.
Type
array

12.1.9. .spec.agent.ebpf.flowFilter

Description
flowFilter defines the eBPF agent configuration regarding flow filtering.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

action

string

action defines the action to perform on the flows that match the filter.

cidr

string

cidr defines the IP CIDR to filter flows by. Examples: 10.10.10.0/24 or 100:100:100:100::/64

destPorts

integer-or-string

destPorts defines the destination ports to filter flows by. To filter a single port, set a single port as an integer value. For example: destPorts: 80. To filter a range of ports, use a "start-end" range in string format. For example: destPorts: "80-100".

direction

string

direction defines the direction to filter flows by.

enable

boolean

Set enable to true to enable the eBPF flow filtering feature.

icmpCode

integer

icmpCode, for Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) traffic, defines the ICMP code to filter flows by.

icmpType

integer

icmpType, for ICMP traffic, defines the ICMP type to filter flows by.

peerIP

string

peerIP defines the IP address to filter flows by. Example: 10.10.10.10.

ports

integer-or-string

ports defines the ports to filter flows by. It is used both for source and destination ports. To filter a single port, set a single port as an integer value. For example: ports: 80. To filter a range of ports, use a "start-end" range in string format. For example: ports: "80-100".

protocol

string

protocol defines the protocol to filter flows by.

sourcePorts

integer-or-string

sourcePorts defines the source ports to filter flows by. To filter a single port, set a single port as an integer value. For example: sourcePorts: 80. To filter a range of ports, use a "start-end" range in string format. For example: sourcePorts: "80-100".

12.1.10. .spec.agent.ebpf.metrics

Description
metrics defines the eBPF agent configuration regarding metrics.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

disableAlerts

array (string)

disableAlerts is a list of alerts that should be disabled. Possible values are:

NetObservDroppedFlows, which is triggered when the eBPF agent is dropping flows, such as when the BPF hashmap is full or the capacity limiter is being triggered.

enable

boolean

Set enable to false to disable eBPF agent metrics collection. It is enabled by default.

server

object

Metrics server endpoint configuration for the Prometheus scraper.

12.1.11. .spec.agent.ebpf.metrics.server

Description
Metrics server endpoint configuration for the Prometheus scraper.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

port

integer

The metrics server HTTP port.

tls

object

TLS configuration.

12.1.12. .spec.agent.ebpf.metrics.server.tls

Description
TLS configuration.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

insecureSkipVerify

boolean

insecureSkipVerify allows skipping client-side verification of the provided certificate. If set to true, the providedCaFile field is ignored.

provided

object

TLS configuration when type is set to Provided.

providedCaFile

object

Reference to the CA file when type is set to Provided.

type

string

Select the type of TLS configuration:

- Disabled (default) to not configure TLS for the endpoint. - Provided to manually provide cert file and a key file. [Unsupported (*)]. - Auto to use OpenShift Container Platform auto generated certificate using annotations.

12.1.13. .spec.agent.ebpf.metrics.server.tls.provided

Description
TLS configuration when type is set to Provided.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.14. .spec.agent.ebpf.metrics.server.tls.providedCaFile

Description
Reference to the CA file when type is set to Provided.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

file

string

File name within the config map or secret.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing the file.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing the file. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the file reference: "configmap" or "secret".

12.1.15. .spec.agent.ebpf.resources

Description
resources are the compute resources required by this container. For more information, see https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

limits

integer-or-string

Limits describes the maximum amount of compute resources allowed. More info: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/

requests

integer-or-string

Requests describes the minimum amount of compute resources required. If Requests is omitted for a container, it defaults to Limits if that is explicitly specified, otherwise to an implementation-defined value. Requests cannot exceed Limits. More info: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/

12.1.16. .spec.consolePlugin

Description
consolePlugin defines the settings related to the OpenShift Container Platform Console plugin, when available.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

advanced

object

advanced allows setting some aspects of the internal configuration of the console plugin. This section is aimed mostly for debugging and fine-grained performance optimizations, such as GOGC and GOMAXPROCS env vars. Set these values at your own risk.

autoscaler

object

autoscaler spec of a horizontal pod autoscaler to set up for the plugin Deployment. Refer to HorizontalPodAutoscaler documentation (autoscaling/v2).

enable

boolean

Enables the console plugin deployment.

imagePullPolicy

string

imagePullPolicy is the Kubernetes pull policy for the image defined above

logLevel

string

logLevel for the console plugin backend

portNaming

object

portNaming defines the configuration of the port-to-service name translation

quickFilters

array

quickFilters configures quick filter presets for the Console plugin

replicas

integer

replicas defines the number of replicas (pods) to start.

resources

object

resources, in terms of compute resources, required by this container. For more information, see https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/

12.1.17. .spec.consolePlugin.advanced

Description
advanced allows setting some aspects of the internal configuration of the console plugin. This section is aimed mostly for debugging and fine-grained performance optimizations, such as GOGC and GOMAXPROCS env vars. Set these values at your own risk.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

args

array (string)

args allows passing custom arguments to underlying components. Useful for overriding some parameters, such as a URL or a configuration path, that should not be publicly exposed as part of the FlowCollector descriptor, as they are only useful in edge debug or support scenarios.

env

object (string)

env allows passing custom environment variables to underlying components. Useful for passing some very concrete performance-tuning options, such as GOGC and GOMAXPROCS, that should not be publicly exposed as part of the FlowCollector descriptor, as they are only useful in edge debug or support scenarios.

port

integer

port is the plugin service port. Do not use 9002, which is reserved for metrics.

register

boolean

register allows, when set to true, to automatically register the provided console plugin with the OpenShift Container Platform Console operator. When set to false, you can still register it manually by editing console.operator.openshift.io/cluster with the following command: oc patch console.operator.openshift.io cluster --type='json' -p '[{"op": "add", "path": "/spec/plugins/-", "value": "netobserv-plugin"}]'

scheduling

object

scheduling controls how the pods are scheduled on nodes.

12.1.18. .spec.consolePlugin.advanced.scheduling

Description
scheduling controls how the pods are scheduled on nodes.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

affinity

object

If specified, the pod’s scheduling constraints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.

nodeSelector

object (string)

nodeSelector allows scheduling of pods only onto nodes that have each of the specified labels. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/assign-pod-node/.

priorityClassName

string

If specified, indicates the pod’s priority. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/scheduling-eviction/pod-priority-preemption/#how-to-use-priority-and-preemption. If not specified, default priority is used, or zero if there is no default.

tolerations

array

tolerations is a list of tolerations that allow the pod to schedule onto nodes with matching taints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.

12.1.19. .spec.consolePlugin.advanced.scheduling.affinity

Description
If specified, the pod’s scheduling constraints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.
Type
object

12.1.20. .spec.consolePlugin.advanced.scheduling.tolerations

Description
tolerations is a list of tolerations that allow the pod to schedule onto nodes with matching taints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.
Type
array

12.1.21. .spec.consolePlugin.autoscaler

Description
autoscaler spec of a horizontal pod autoscaler to set up for the plugin Deployment. Refer to HorizontalPodAutoscaler documentation (autoscaling/v2).
Type
object

12.1.22. .spec.consolePlugin.portNaming

Description
portNaming defines the configuration of the port-to-service name translation
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

enable

boolean

Enable the console plugin port-to-service name translation

portNames

object (string)

portNames defines additional port names to use in the console, for example, portNames: {"3100": "loki"}.

12.1.23. .spec.consolePlugin.quickFilters

Description
quickFilters configures quick filter presets for the Console plugin
Type
array

12.1.24. .spec.consolePlugin.quickFilters[]

Description
QuickFilter defines preset configuration for Console’s quick filters
Type
object
Required
  • filter
  • name
PropertyTypeDescription

default

boolean

default defines whether this filter should be active by default or not

filter

object (string)

filter is a set of keys and values to be set when this filter is selected. Each key can relate to a list of values using a coma-separated string, for example, filter: {"src_namespace": "namespace1,namespace2"}.

name

string

Name of the filter, that is displayed in the Console

12.1.25. .spec.consolePlugin.resources

Description
resources, in terms of compute resources, required by this container. For more information, see https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

limits

integer-or-string

Limits describes the maximum amount of compute resources allowed. More info: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/

requests

integer-or-string

Requests describes the minimum amount of compute resources required. If Requests is omitted for a container, it defaults to Limits if that is explicitly specified, otherwise to an implementation-defined value. Requests cannot exceed Limits. More info: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/

12.1.26. .spec.exporters

Description
exporters define additional optional exporters for custom consumption or storage.
Type
array

12.1.27. .spec.exporters[]

Description
FlowCollectorExporter defines an additional exporter to send enriched flows to.
Type
object
Required
  • type
PropertyTypeDescription

ipfix

object

IPFIX configuration, such as the IP address and port to send enriched IPFIX flows to.

kafka

object

Kafka configuration, such as the address and topic, to send enriched flows to.

type

string

type selects the type of exporters. The available options are Kafka and IPFIX.

12.1.28. .spec.exporters[].ipfix

Description
IPFIX configuration, such as the IP address and port to send enriched IPFIX flows to.
Type
object
Required
  • targetHost
  • targetPort
PropertyTypeDescription

targetHost

string

Address of the IPFIX external receiver

targetPort

integer

Port for the IPFIX external receiver

transport

string

Transport protocol (TCP or UDP) to be used for the IPFIX connection, defaults to TCP.

12.1.29. .spec.exporters[].kafka

Description
Kafka configuration, such as the address and topic, to send enriched flows to.
Type
object
Required
  • address
  • topic
PropertyTypeDescription

address

string

Address of the Kafka server

sasl

object

SASL authentication configuration. [Unsupported (*)].

tls

object

TLS client configuration. When using TLS, verify that the address matches the Kafka port used for TLS, generally 9093.

topic

string

Kafka topic to use. It must exist. Network Observability does not create it.

12.1.30. .spec.exporters[].kafka.sasl

Description
SASL authentication configuration. [Unsupported (*)].
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

clientIDReference

object

Reference to the secret or config map containing the client ID

clientSecretReference

object

Reference to the secret or config map containing the client secret

type

string

Type of SASL authentication to use, or Disabled if SASL is not used

12.1.31. .spec.exporters[].kafka.sasl.clientIDReference

Description
Reference to the secret or config map containing the client ID
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

file

string

File name within the config map or secret.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing the file.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing the file. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the file reference: "configmap" or "secret".

12.1.32. .spec.exporters[].kafka.sasl.clientSecretReference

Description
Reference to the secret or config map containing the client secret
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

file

string

File name within the config map or secret.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing the file.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing the file. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the file reference: "configmap" or "secret".

12.1.33. .spec.exporters[].kafka.tls

Description
TLS client configuration. When using TLS, verify that the address matches the Kafka port used for TLS, generally 9093.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

caCert

object

caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority

enable

boolean

Enable TLS

insecureSkipVerify

boolean

insecureSkipVerify allows skipping client-side verification of the server certificate. If set to true, the caCert field is ignored.

userCert

object

userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)

12.1.34. .spec.exporters[].kafka.tls.caCert

Description
caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.35. .spec.exporters[].kafka.tls.userCert

Description
userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.36. .spec.kafka

Description
Kafka configuration, allowing to use Kafka as a broker as part of the flow collection pipeline. Available when the spec.deploymentModel is Kafka.
Type
object
Required
  • address
  • topic
PropertyTypeDescription

address

string

Address of the Kafka server

sasl

object

SASL authentication configuration. [Unsupported (*)].

tls

object

TLS client configuration. When using TLS, verify that the address matches the Kafka port used for TLS, generally 9093.

topic

string

Kafka topic to use. It must exist. Network Observability does not create it.

12.1.37. .spec.kafka.sasl

Description
SASL authentication configuration. [Unsupported (*)].
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

clientIDReference

object

Reference to the secret or config map containing the client ID

clientSecretReference

object

Reference to the secret or config map containing the client secret

type

string

Type of SASL authentication to use, or Disabled if SASL is not used

12.1.38. .spec.kafka.sasl.clientIDReference

Description
Reference to the secret or config map containing the client ID
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

file

string

File name within the config map or secret.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing the file.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing the file. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the file reference: "configmap" or "secret".

12.1.39. .spec.kafka.sasl.clientSecretReference

Description
Reference to the secret or config map containing the client secret
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

file

string

File name within the config map or secret.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing the file.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing the file. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the file reference: "configmap" or "secret".

12.1.40. .spec.kafka.tls

Description
TLS client configuration. When using TLS, verify that the address matches the Kafka port used for TLS, generally 9093.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

caCert

object

caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority

enable

boolean

Enable TLS

insecureSkipVerify

boolean

insecureSkipVerify allows skipping client-side verification of the server certificate. If set to true, the caCert field is ignored.

userCert

object

userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)

12.1.41. .spec.kafka.tls.caCert

Description
caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.42. .spec.kafka.tls.userCert

Description
userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.43. .spec.loki

Description
loki, the flow store, client settings.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

advanced

object

advanced allows setting some aspects of the internal configuration of the Loki clients. This section is aimed mostly for debugging and fine-grained performance optimizations.

enable

boolean

Set enable to true to store flows in Loki. The Console plugin can use either Loki or Prometheus as a data source for metrics (see also spec.prometheus.querier), or both. Not all queries are transposable from Loki to Prometheus. Hence, if Loki is disabled, some features of the plugin are disabled as well, such as getting per-pod information or viewing raw flows. If both Prometheus and Loki are enabled, Prometheus takes precedence and Loki is used as a fallback for queries that Prometheus cannot handle. If they are both disabled, the Console plugin is not deployed.

lokiStack

object

Loki configuration for LokiStack mode. This is useful for an easy Loki Operator configuration. It is ignored for other modes.

manual

object

Loki configuration for Manual mode. This is the most flexible configuration. It is ignored for other modes.

microservices

object

Loki configuration for Microservices mode. Use this option when Loki is installed using the microservices deployment mode (https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/fundamentals/architecture/deployment-modes/#microservices-mode). It is ignored for other modes.

mode

string

mode must be set according to the installation mode of Loki:

- Use LokiStack when Loki is managed using the Loki Operator

- Use Monolithic when Loki is installed as a monolithic workload

- Use Microservices when Loki is installed as microservices, but without Loki Operator

- Use Manual if none of the options above match your setup

monolithic

object

Loki configuration for Monolithic mode. Use this option when Loki is installed using the monolithic deployment mode (https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/fundamentals/architecture/deployment-modes/#monolithic-mode). It is ignored for other modes.

readTimeout

string

readTimeout is the maximum console plugin loki query total time limit. A timeout of zero means no timeout.

writeBatchSize

integer

writeBatchSize is the maximum batch size (in bytes) of Loki logs to accumulate before sending.

writeBatchWait

string

writeBatchWait is the maximum time to wait before sending a Loki batch.

writeTimeout

string

writeTimeout is the maximum Loki time connection / request limit. A timeout of zero means no timeout.

12.1.44. .spec.loki.advanced

Description
advanced allows setting some aspects of the internal configuration of the Loki clients. This section is aimed mostly for debugging and fine-grained performance optimizations.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

staticLabels

object (string)

staticLabels is a map of common labels to set on each flow in Loki storage.

writeMaxBackoff

string

writeMaxBackoff is the maximum backoff time for Loki client connection between retries.

writeMaxRetries

integer

writeMaxRetries is the maximum number of retries for Loki client connections.

writeMinBackoff

string

writeMinBackoff is the initial backoff time for Loki client connection between retries.

12.1.45. .spec.loki.lokiStack

Description
Loki configuration for LokiStack mode. This is useful for an easy Loki Operator configuration. It is ignored for other modes.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

name

string

Name of an existing LokiStack resource to use.

namespace

string

Namespace where this LokiStack resource is located. If omitted, it is assumed to be the same as spec.namespace.

12.1.46. .spec.loki.manual

Description
Loki configuration for Manual mode. This is the most flexible configuration. It is ignored for other modes.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

authToken

string

authToken describes the way to get a token to authenticate to Loki.

- Disabled does not send any token with the request.

- Forward forwards the user token for authorization.

- Host [deprecated (*)] - uses the local pod service account to authenticate to Loki.

When using the Loki Operator, this must be set to Forward.

ingesterUrl

string

ingesterUrl is the address of an existing Loki ingester service to push the flows to. When using the Loki Operator, set it to the Loki gateway service with the network tenant set in path, for example https://loki-gateway-http.netobserv.svc:8080/api/logs/v1/network.

querierUrl

string

querierUrl specifies the address of the Loki querier service. When using the Loki Operator, set it to the Loki gateway service with the network tenant set in path, for example https://loki-gateway-http.netobserv.svc:8080/api/logs/v1/network.

statusTls

object

TLS client configuration for Loki status URL.

statusUrl

string

statusUrl specifies the address of the Loki /ready, /metrics and /config endpoints, in case it is different from the Loki querier URL. If empty, the querierUrl value is used. This is useful to show error messages and some context in the frontend. When using the Loki Operator, set it to the Loki HTTP query frontend service, for example https://loki-query-frontend-http.netobserv.svc:3100/. statusTLS configuration is used when statusUrl is set.

tenantID

string

tenantID is the Loki X-Scope-OrgID that identifies the tenant for each request. When using the Loki Operator, set it to network, which corresponds to a special tenant mode.

tls

object

TLS client configuration for Loki URL.

12.1.47. .spec.loki.manual.statusTls

Description
TLS client configuration for Loki status URL.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

caCert

object

caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority

enable

boolean

Enable TLS

insecureSkipVerify

boolean

insecureSkipVerify allows skipping client-side verification of the server certificate. If set to true, the caCert field is ignored.

userCert

object

userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)

12.1.48. .spec.loki.manual.statusTls.caCert

Description
caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.49. .spec.loki.manual.statusTls.userCert

Description
userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.50. .spec.loki.manual.tls

Description
TLS client configuration for Loki URL.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

caCert

object

caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority

enable

boolean

Enable TLS

insecureSkipVerify

boolean

insecureSkipVerify allows skipping client-side verification of the server certificate. If set to true, the caCert field is ignored.

userCert

object

userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)

12.1.51. .spec.loki.manual.tls.caCert

Description
caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.52. .spec.loki.manual.tls.userCert

Description
userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.53. .spec.loki.microservices

Description
Loki configuration for Microservices mode. Use this option when Loki is installed using the microservices deployment mode (https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/fundamentals/architecture/deployment-modes/#microservices-mode). It is ignored for other modes.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

ingesterUrl

string

ingesterUrl is the address of an existing Loki ingester service to push the flows to.

querierUrl

string

querierURL specifies the address of the Loki querier service.

tenantID

string

tenantID is the Loki X-Scope-OrgID header that identifies the tenant for each request.

tls

object

TLS client configuration for Loki URL.

12.1.54. .spec.loki.microservices.tls

Description
TLS client configuration for Loki URL.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

caCert

object

caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority

enable

boolean

Enable TLS

insecureSkipVerify

boolean

insecureSkipVerify allows skipping client-side verification of the server certificate. If set to true, the caCert field is ignored.

userCert

object

userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)

12.1.55. .spec.loki.microservices.tls.caCert

Description
caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.56. .spec.loki.microservices.tls.userCert

Description
userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.57. .spec.loki.monolithic

Description
Loki configuration for Monolithic mode. Use this option when Loki is installed using the monolithic deployment mode (https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/fundamentals/architecture/deployment-modes/#monolithic-mode). It is ignored for other modes.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

tenantID

string

tenantID is the Loki X-Scope-OrgID header that identifies the tenant for each request.

tls

object

TLS client configuration for Loki URL.

url

string

url is the unique address of an existing Loki service that points to both the ingester and the querier.

12.1.58. .spec.loki.monolithic.tls

Description
TLS client configuration for Loki URL.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

caCert

object

caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority

enable

boolean

Enable TLS

insecureSkipVerify

boolean

insecureSkipVerify allows skipping client-side verification of the server certificate. If set to true, the caCert field is ignored.

userCert

object

userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)

12.1.59. .spec.loki.monolithic.tls.caCert

Description
caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.60. .spec.loki.monolithic.tls.userCert

Description
userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.61. .spec.processor

Description
processor defines the settings of the component that receives the flows from the agent, enriches them, generates metrics, and forwards them to the Loki persistence layer and/or any available exporter.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

addZone

boolean

addZone allows availability zone awareness by labelling flows with their source and destination zones. This feature requires the "topology.kubernetes.io/zone" label to be set on nodes.

advanced

object

advanced allows setting some aspects of the internal configuration of the flow processor. This section is aimed mostly for debugging and fine-grained performance optimizations, such as GOGC and GOMAXPROCS env vars. Set these values at your own risk.

clusterName

string

clusterName is the name of the cluster to appear in the flows data. This is useful in a multi-cluster context. When using OpenShift Container Platform, leave empty to make it automatically determined.

imagePullPolicy

string

imagePullPolicy is the Kubernetes pull policy for the image defined above

kafkaConsumerAutoscaler

object

kafkaConsumerAutoscaler is the spec of a horizontal pod autoscaler to set up for flowlogs-pipeline-transformer, which consumes Kafka messages. This setting is ignored when Kafka is disabled. Refer to HorizontalPodAutoscaler documentation (autoscaling/v2).

kafkaConsumerBatchSize

integer

kafkaConsumerBatchSize indicates to the broker the maximum batch size, in bytes, that the consumer accepts. Ignored when not using Kafka. Default: 10MB.

kafkaConsumerQueueCapacity

integer

kafkaConsumerQueueCapacity defines the capacity of the internal message queue used in the Kafka consumer client. Ignored when not using Kafka.

kafkaConsumerReplicas

integer

kafkaConsumerReplicas defines the number of replicas (pods) to start for flowlogs-pipeline-transformer, which consumes Kafka messages. This setting is ignored when Kafka is disabled.

logLevel

string

logLevel of the processor runtime

logTypes

string

logTypes defines the desired record types to generate. Possible values are:

- Flows (default) to export regular network flows

- Conversations to generate events for started conversations, ended conversations as well as periodic "tick" updates

- EndedConversations to generate only ended conversations events

- All to generate both network flows and all conversations events

metrics

object

Metrics define the processor configuration regarding metrics

multiClusterDeployment

boolean

Set multiClusterDeployment to true to enable multi clusters feature. This adds clusterName label to flows data

resources

object

resources are the compute resources required by this container. For more information, see https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/

subnetLabels

object

subnetLabels allows to define custom labels on subnets and IPs or to enable automatic labelling of recognized subnets in OpenShift Container Platform, which is used to identify cluster external traffic. When a subnet matches the source or destination IP of a flow, a corresponding field is added: SrcSubnetLabel or DstSubnetLabel.

12.1.62. .spec.processor.advanced

Description
advanced allows setting some aspects of the internal configuration of the flow processor. This section is aimed mostly for debugging and fine-grained performance optimizations, such as GOGC and GOMAXPROCS env vars. Set these values at your own risk.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

conversationEndTimeout

string

conversationEndTimeout is the time to wait after a network flow is received, to consider the conversation ended. This delay is ignored when a FIN packet is collected for TCP flows (see conversationTerminatingTimeout instead).

conversationHeartbeatInterval

string

conversationHeartbeatInterval is the time to wait between "tick" events of a conversation

conversationTerminatingTimeout

string

conversationTerminatingTimeout is the time to wait from detected FIN flag to end a conversation. Only relevant for TCP flows.

dropUnusedFields

boolean

dropUnusedFields [deprecated (*)] this setting is not used anymore.

enableKubeProbes

boolean

enableKubeProbes is a flag to enable or disable Kubernetes liveness and readiness probes

env

object (string)

env allows passing custom environment variables to underlying components. Useful for passing some very concrete performance-tuning options, such as GOGC and GOMAXPROCS, that should not be publicly exposed as part of the FlowCollector descriptor, as they are only useful in edge debug or support scenarios.

healthPort

integer

healthPort is a collector HTTP port in the Pod that exposes the health check API

port

integer

Port of the flow collector (host port). By convention, some values are forbidden. It must be greater than 1024 and different from 4500, 4789 and 6081.

profilePort

integer

profilePort allows setting up a Go pprof profiler listening to this port

scheduling

object

scheduling controls how the pods are scheduled on nodes.

12.1.63. .spec.processor.advanced.scheduling

Description
scheduling controls how the pods are scheduled on nodes.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

affinity

object

If specified, the pod’s scheduling constraints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.

nodeSelector

object (string)

nodeSelector allows scheduling of pods only onto nodes that have each of the specified labels. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/assign-pod-node/.

priorityClassName

string

If specified, indicates the pod’s priority. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/scheduling-eviction/pod-priority-preemption/#how-to-use-priority-and-preemption. If not specified, default priority is used, or zero if there is no default.

tolerations

array

tolerations is a list of tolerations that allow the pod to schedule onto nodes with matching taints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.

12.1.64. .spec.processor.advanced.scheduling.affinity

Description
If specified, the pod’s scheduling constraints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.
Type
object

12.1.65. .spec.processor.advanced.scheduling.tolerations

Description
tolerations is a list of tolerations that allow the pod to schedule onto nodes with matching taints. For documentation, refer to https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/workload-resources/pod-v1/#scheduling.
Type
array

12.1.66. .spec.processor.kafkaConsumerAutoscaler

Description
kafkaConsumerAutoscaler is the spec of a horizontal pod autoscaler to set up for flowlogs-pipeline-transformer, which consumes Kafka messages. This setting is ignored when Kafka is disabled. Refer to HorizontalPodAutoscaler documentation (autoscaling/v2).
Type
object

12.1.67. .spec.processor.metrics

Description
Metrics define the processor configuration regarding metrics
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

disableAlerts

array (string)

disableAlerts is a list of alerts that should be disabled. Possible values are:

NetObservNoFlows, which is triggered when no flows are being observed for a certain period.

NetObservLokiError, which is triggered when flows are being dropped due to Loki errors.

includeList

array (string)

includeList is a list of metric names to specify which ones to generate. The names correspond to the names in Prometheus without the prefix. For example, namespace_egress_packets_total shows up as netobserv_namespace_egress_packets_total in Prometheus. Note that the more metrics you add, the bigger is the impact on Prometheus workload resources. Metrics enabled by default are: namespace_flows_total, node_ingress_bytes_total, workload_ingress_bytes_total, namespace_drop_packets_total (when PacketDrop feature is enabled), namespace_rtt_seconds (when FlowRTT feature is enabled), namespace_dns_latency_seconds (when DNSTracking feature is enabled). More information, with full list of available metrics: https://github.com/netobserv/network-observability-operator/blob/main/docs/Metrics.md

server

object

Metrics server endpoint configuration for Prometheus scraper

12.1.68. .spec.processor.metrics.server

Description
Metrics server endpoint configuration for Prometheus scraper
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

port

integer

The metrics server HTTP port.

tls

object

TLS configuration.

12.1.69. .spec.processor.metrics.server.tls

Description
TLS configuration.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

insecureSkipVerify

boolean

insecureSkipVerify allows skipping client-side verification of the provided certificate. If set to true, the providedCaFile field is ignored.

provided

object

TLS configuration when type is set to Provided.

providedCaFile

object

Reference to the CA file when type is set to Provided.

type

string

Select the type of TLS configuration:

- Disabled (default) to not configure TLS for the endpoint. - Provided to manually provide cert file and a key file. [Unsupported (*)]. - Auto to use OpenShift Container Platform auto generated certificate using annotations.

12.1.70. .spec.processor.metrics.server.tls.provided

Description
TLS configuration when type is set to Provided.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.71. .spec.processor.metrics.server.tls.providedCaFile

Description
Reference to the CA file when type is set to Provided.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

file

string

File name within the config map or secret.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing the file.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing the file. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the file reference: "configmap" or "secret".

12.1.72. .spec.processor.resources

Description
resources are the compute resources required by this container. For more information, see https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

limits

integer-or-string

Limits describes the maximum amount of compute resources allowed. More info: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/

requests

integer-or-string

Requests describes the minimum amount of compute resources required. If Requests is omitted for a container, it defaults to Limits if that is explicitly specified, otherwise to an implementation-defined value. Requests cannot exceed Limits. More info: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/manage-resources-containers/

12.1.73. .spec.processor.subnetLabels

Description
subnetLabels allows to define custom labels on subnets and IPs or to enable automatic labelling of recognized subnets in OpenShift Container Platform, which is used to identify cluster external traffic. When a subnet matches the source or destination IP of a flow, a corresponding field is added: SrcSubnetLabel or DstSubnetLabel.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

customLabels

array

customLabels allows to customize subnets and IPs labelling, such as to identify cluster-external workloads or web services. If you enable openShiftAutoDetect, customLabels can override the detected subnets in case they overlap.

openShiftAutoDetect

boolean

openShiftAutoDetect allows, when set to true, to detect automatically the machines, pods and services subnets based on the OpenShift Container Platform install configuration and the Cluster Network Operator configuration. Indirectly, this is a way to accurately detect external traffic: flows that are not labeled for those subnets are external to the cluster. Enabled by default on OpenShift Container Platform.

12.1.74. .spec.processor.subnetLabels.customLabels

Description
customLabels allows to customize subnets and IPs labelling, such as to identify cluster-external workloads or web services. If you enable openShiftAutoDetect, customLabels can override the detected subnets in case they overlap.
Type
array

12.1.75. .spec.processor.subnetLabels.customLabels[]

Description
SubnetLabel allows to label subnets and IPs, such as to identify cluster-external workloads or web services.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

cidrs

array (string)

List of CIDRs, such as ["1.2.3.4/32"].

name

string

Label name, used to flag matching flows.

12.1.76. .spec.prometheus

Description
prometheus defines Prometheus settings, such as querier configuration used to fetch metrics from the Console plugin.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

querier

object

Prometheus querying configuration, such as client settings, used in the Console plugin.

12.1.77. .spec.prometheus.querier

Description
Prometheus querying configuration, such as client settings, used in the Console plugin.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

enable

boolean

When enable is true, the Console plugin queries flow metrics from Prometheus instead of Loki whenever possible. It is enbaled by default: set it to false to disable this feature. The Console plugin can use either Loki or Prometheus as a data source for metrics (see also spec.loki), or both. Not all queries are transposable from Loki to Prometheus. Hence, if Loki is disabled, some features of the plugin are disabled as well, such as getting per-pod information or viewing raw flows. If both Prometheus and Loki are enabled, Prometheus takes precedence and Loki is used as a fallback for queries that Prometheus cannot handle. If they are both disabled, the Console plugin is not deployed.

manual

object

Prometheus configuration for Manual mode.

mode

string

mode must be set according to the type of Prometheus installation that stores Network Observability metrics:

- Use Auto to try configuring automatically. In OpenShift Container Platform, it uses the Thanos querier from OpenShift Container Platform Cluster Monitoring

- Use Manual for a manual setup

timeout

string

timeout is the read timeout for console plugin queries to Prometheus. A timeout of zero means no timeout.

12.1.78. .spec.prometheus.querier.manual

Description
Prometheus configuration for Manual mode.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

forwardUserToken

boolean

Set true to forward logged in user token in queries to Prometheus

tls

object

TLS client configuration for Prometheus URL.

url

string

url is the address of an existing Prometheus service to use for querying metrics.

12.1.79. .spec.prometheus.querier.manual.tls

Description
TLS client configuration for Prometheus URL.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

caCert

object

caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority

enable

boolean

Enable TLS

insecureSkipVerify

boolean

insecureSkipVerify allows skipping client-side verification of the server certificate. If set to true, the caCert field is ignored.

userCert

object

userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)

12.1.80. .spec.prometheus.querier.manual.tls.caCert

Description
caCert defines the reference of the certificate for the Certificate Authority
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

12.1.81. .spec.prometheus.querier.manual.tls.userCert

Description
userCert defines the user certificate reference and is used for mTLS (you can ignore it when using one-way TLS)
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

certFile

string

certFile defines the path to the certificate file name within the config map or secret.

certKey

string

certKey defines the path to the certificate private key file name within the config map or secret. Omit when the key is not necessary.

name

string

Name of the config map or secret containing certificates.

namespace

string

Namespace of the config map or secret containing certificates. If omitted, the default is to use the same namespace as where Network Observability is deployed. If the namespace is different, the config map or the secret is copied so that it can be mounted as required.

type

string

Type for the certificate reference: configmap or secret.

Chapter 13. FlowMetric configuration parameters

FlowMetric is the API allowing to create custom metrics from the collected flow logs.

13.1. FlowMetric [flows.netobserv.io/v1alpha1]

Description
FlowMetric is the API allowing to create custom metrics from the collected flow logs.
Type
object
PropertyTypeDescription

apiVersion

string

APIVersion defines the versioned schema of this representation of an object. Servers should convert recognized schemas to the latest internal value, and might reject unrecognized values. More info: https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#resources

kind

string

Kind is a string value representing the REST resource this object represents. Servers might infer this from the endpoint the client submits requests to. Cannot be updated. In CamelCase. More info: https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#types-kinds

metadata

object

Standard object’s metadata. More info: https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#metadata

spec

object

FlowMetricSpec defines the desired state of FlowMetric The provided API allows you to customize these metrics according to your needs.

When adding new metrics or modifying existing labels, you must carefully monitor the memory usage of Prometheus workloads as this could potentially have a high impact. Cf https://rhobs-handbook.netlify.app/products/openshiftmonitoring/telemetry.md/#what-is-the-cardinality-of-a-metric

To check the cardinality of all Network Observability metrics, run as promql: count({name=~"netobserv.*"}) by (name).

13.1.1. .metadata

Description
Standard object’s metadata. More info: https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#metadata
Type
object

13.1.2. .spec

Description

FlowMetricSpec defines the desired state of FlowMetric The provided API allows you to customize these metrics according to your needs.

When adding new metrics or modifying existing labels, you must carefully monitor the memory usage of Prometheus workloads as this could potentially have a high impact. Cf https://rhobs-handbook.netlify.app/products/openshiftmonitoring/telemetry.md/#what-is-the-cardinality-of-a-metric

To check the cardinality of all Network Observability metrics, run as promql: count({name=~"netobserv.*"}) by (name).

Type
object
Required
  • metricName
  • type
PropertyTypeDescription

buckets

array (string)

A list of buckets to use when type is "Histogram". The list must be parsable as floats. When not set, Prometheus default buckets are used.

charts

array

Charts configuration, for the OpenShift Container Platform Console in the administrator view, Dashboards menu.

direction

string

Filter for ingress, egress or any direction flows. When set to Ingress, it is equivalent to adding the regular expression filter on FlowDirection: 0|2. When set to Egress, it is equivalent to adding the regular expression filter on FlowDirection: 1|2.

divider

string

When nonzero, scale factor (divider) of the value. Metric value = Flow value / Divider.

filters

array

filters is a list of fields and values used to restrict which flows are taken into account. Oftentimes, these filters must be used to eliminate duplicates: Duplicate != "true" and FlowDirection = "0". Refer to the documentation for the list of available fields: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/latest/observability/network_observability/json-flows-format-reference.html.

labels

array (string)

labels is a list of fields that should be used as Prometheus labels, also known as dimensions. From choosing labels results the level of granularity of this metric, and the available aggregations at query time. It must be done carefully as it impacts the metric cardinality (cf https://rhobs-handbook.netlify.app/products/openshiftmonitoring/telemetry.md/#what-is-the-cardinality-of-a-metric). In general, avoid setting very high cardinality labels such as IP or MAC addresses. "SrcK8S_OwnerName" or "DstK8S_OwnerName" should be preferred over "SrcK8S_Name" or "DstK8S_Name" as much as possible. Refer to the documentation for the list of available fields: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/latest/observability/network_observability/json-flows-format-reference.html.

metricName

string

Name of the metric. In Prometheus, it is automatically prefixed with "netobserv_".

type

string

Metric type: "Counter" or "Histogram". Use "Counter" for any value that increases over time and on which you can compute a rate, such as Bytes or Packets. Use "Histogram" for any value that must be sampled independently, such as latencies.

valueField

string

valueField is the flow field that must be used as a value for this metric. This field must hold numeric values. Leave empty to count flows rather than a specific value per flow. Refer to the documentation for the list of available fields: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/latest/observability/network_observability/json-flows-format-reference.html.

13.1.3. .spec.charts

Description
Charts configuration, for the OpenShift Container Platform Console in the administrator view, Dashboards menu.
Type
array

13.1.4. .spec.charts[]

Description
Configures charts / dashboard generation associated to a metric
Type
object
Required
  • dashboardName
  • queries
  • title
  • type
PropertyTypeDescription

dashboardName

string

Name of the containing dashboard. If this name does not refer to an existing dashboard, a new dashboard is created.

queries

array

List of queries to be displayed on this chart. If type is SingleStat and multiple queries are provided, this chart is automatically expanded in several panels (one per query).

sectionName

string

Name of the containing dashboard section. If this name does not refer to an existing section, a new section is created. If sectionName is omitted or empty, the chart is placed in the global top section.

title

string

Title of the chart.

type

string

Type of the chart.

unit

string

Unit of this chart. Only a few units are currently supported. Leave empty to use generic number.

13.1.5. .spec.charts[].queries

Description
List of queries to be displayed on this chart. If type is SingleStat and multiple queries are provided, this chart is automatically expanded in several panels (one per query).
Type
array

13.1.6. .spec.charts[].queries[]

Description
Configures PromQL queries
Type
object
Required
  • legend
  • promQL
  • top
PropertyTypeDescription

legend

string

The query legend that applies to each timeseries represented in this chart. When multiple timeseries are displayed, you should set a legend that distinguishes each of them. It can be done with the following format: {{ Label }}. For example, if the promQL groups timeseries per label such as: sum(rate($METRIC[2m])) by (Label1, Label2), you might write as the legend: Label1={{ Label1 }}, Label2={{ Label2 }}.

promQL

string

The promQL query to be run against Prometheus. If the chart type is SingleStat, this query should only return a single timeseries. For other types, a top 7 is displayed. You can use $METRIC to refer to the metric defined in this resource. For example: sum(rate($METRIC[2m])). To learn more about promQL, refer to the Prometheus documentation: https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/querying/basics/

top

integer

Top N series to display per timestamp. Does not apply to SingleStat chart type.

13.1.7. .spec.filters

Description
filters is a list of fields and values used to restrict which flows are taken into account. Oftentimes, these filters must be used to eliminate duplicates: Duplicate != "true" and FlowDirection = "0". Refer to the documentation for the list of available fields: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/latest/observability/network_observability/json-flows-format-reference.html.
Type
array

13.1.8. .spec.filters[]

Description
Type
object
Required
  • field
  • matchType
PropertyTypeDescription

field

string

Name of the field to filter on

matchType

string

Type of matching to apply

value

string

Value to filter on. When matchType is Equal or NotEqual, you can use field injection with $(SomeField) to refer to any other field of the flow.

Chapter 14. Network flows format reference

These are the specifications for network flows format, used both internally and when exporting flows to Kafka.

14.1. Network flows format reference

This is the specification of the network flows format. That format is used when a Kafka exporter is configured, for Prometheus metrics labels as well as internally for the Loki store.

The "Filter ID" column shows which related name to use when defining Quick Filters (see spec.consolePlugin.quickFilters in the FlowCollector specification).

The "Loki label" column is useful when querying Loki directly: label fields need to be selected using stream selectors.

The "Cardinality" column gives information about the implied metric cardinality if this field was to be used as a Prometheus label with the FlowMetric API. For more information, see the "FlowMetric API reference".

NameTypeDescriptionFilter IDLoki labelCardinality

Bytes

number

Number of bytes

n/a

no

avoid

DnsErrno

number

Error number returned from DNS tracker ebpf hook function

dns_errno

no

fine

DnsFlags

number

DNS flags for DNS record

n/a

no

fine

DnsFlagsResponseCode

string

Parsed DNS header RCODEs name

dns_flag_response_code

no

fine

DnsId

number

DNS record id

dns_id

no

avoid

DnsLatencyMs

number

Time between a DNS request and response, in milliseconds

dns_latency

no

avoid

Dscp

number

Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) value

dscp

no

fine

DstAddr

string

Destination IP address (ipv4 or ipv6)

dst_address

no

avoid

DstK8S_HostIP

string

Destination node IP

dst_host_address

no

fine

DstK8S_HostName

string

Destination node name

dst_host_name

no

fine

DstK8S_Name

string

Name of the destination Kubernetes object, such as Pod name, Service name or Node name.

dst_name

no

careful

DstK8S_Namespace

string

Destination namespace

dst_namespace

yes

fine

DstK8S_OwnerName

string

Name of the destination owner, such as Deployment name, StatefulSet name, etc.

dst_owner_name

yes

fine

DstK8S_OwnerType

string

Kind of the destination owner, such as Deployment, StatefulSet, etc.

dst_kind

no

fine

DstK8S_Type

string

Kind of the destination Kubernetes object, such as Pod, Service or Node.

dst_kind

yes

fine

DstK8S_Zone

string

Destination availability zone

dst_zone

yes

fine

DstMac

string

Destination MAC address

dst_mac

no

avoid

DstPort

number

Destination port

dst_port

no

careful

DstSubnetLabel

string

Destination subnet label

dst_subnet_label

no

fine

Duplicate

boolean

Indicates if this flow was also captured from another interface on the same host

n/a

yes

fine

Flags

number

Logical OR combination of unique TCP flags comprised in the flow, as per RFC-9293, with additional custom flags to represent the following per-packet combinations:
- SYN+ACK (0x100)
- FIN+ACK (0x200)
- RST+ACK (0x400)

n/a

no

fine

FlowDirection

number

Flow interpreted direction from the node observation point. Can be one of:
- 0: Ingress (incoming traffic, from the node observation point)
- 1: Egress (outgoing traffic, from the node observation point)
- 2: Inner (with the same source and destination node)

node_direction

yes

fine

IcmpCode

number

ICMP code

icmp_code

no

fine

IcmpType

number

ICMP type

icmp_type

no

fine

IfDirections

number

Flow directions from the network interface observation point. Can be one of:
- 0: Ingress (interface incoming traffic)
- 1: Egress (interface outgoing traffic)

ifdirections

no

fine

Interfaces

string

Network interfaces

interfaces

no

careful

K8S_ClusterName

string

Cluster name or identifier

cluster_name

yes

fine

K8S_FlowLayer

string

Flow layer: 'app' or 'infra'

flow_layer

no

fine

Packets

number

Number of packets

n/a

no

avoid

PktDropBytes

number

Number of bytes dropped by the kernel

n/a

no

avoid

PktDropLatestDropCause

string

Latest drop cause

pkt_drop_cause

no

fine

PktDropLatestFlags

number

TCP flags on last dropped packet

n/a

no

fine

PktDropLatestState

string

TCP state on last dropped packet

pkt_drop_state

no

fine

PktDropPackets

number

Number of packets dropped by the kernel

n/a

no

avoid

Proto

number

L4 protocol

protocol

no

fine

SrcAddr

string

Source IP address (ipv4 or ipv6)

src_address

no

avoid

SrcK8S_HostIP

string

Source node IP

src_host_address

no

fine

SrcK8S_HostName

string

Source node name

src_host_name

no

fine

SrcK8S_Name

string

Name of the source Kubernetes object, such as Pod name, Service name or Node name.

src_name

no

careful

SrcK8S_Namespace

string

Source namespace

src_namespace

yes

fine

SrcK8S_OwnerName

string

Name of the source owner, such as Deployment name, StatefulSet name, etc.

src_owner_name

yes

fine

SrcK8S_OwnerType

string

Kind of the source owner, such as Deployment, StatefulSet, etc.

src_kind

no

fine

SrcK8S_Type

string

Kind of the source Kubernetes object, such as Pod, Service or Node.

src_kind

yes

fine

SrcK8S_Zone

string

Source availability zone

src_zone

yes

fine

SrcMac

string

Source MAC address

src_mac

no

avoid

SrcPort

number

Source port

src_port

no

careful

SrcSubnetLabel

string

Source subnet label

src_subnet_label

no

fine

TimeFlowEndMs

number

End timestamp of this flow, in milliseconds

n/a

no

avoid

TimeFlowRttNs

number

TCP Smoothed Round Trip Time (SRTT), in nanoseconds

time_flow_rtt

no

avoid

TimeFlowStartMs

number

Start timestamp of this flow, in milliseconds

n/a

no

avoid

TimeReceived

number

Timestamp when this flow was received and processed by the flow collector, in seconds

n/a

no

avoid

_HashId

string

In conversation tracking, the conversation identifier

id

no

avoid

_RecordType

string

Type of record: 'flowLog' for regular flow logs, or 'newConnection', 'heartbeat', 'endConnection' for conversation tracking

type

yes

fine

Chapter 15. Troubleshooting Network Observability

To assist in troubleshooting Network Observability issues, you can perform some troubleshooting actions.

15.1. Using the must-gather tool

You can use the must-gather tool to collect information about the Network Observability Operator resources and cluster-wide resources, such as pod logs, FlowCollector, and webhook configurations.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the directory where you want to store the must-gather data.
  2. Run the following command to collect cluster-wide must-gather resources:

    $ oc adm must-gather
     --image-stream=openshift/must-gather \
     --image=quay.io/netobserv/must-gather

15.2. Configuring network traffic menu entry in the OpenShift Container Platform console

Manually configure the network traffic menu entry in the OpenShift Container Platform console when the network traffic menu entry is not listed in Observe menu in the OpenShift Container Platform console.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed OpenShift Container Platform version 4.10 or newer.

Procedure

  1. Check if the spec.consolePlugin.register field is set to true by running the following command:

    $ oc -n netobserv get flowcollector cluster -o yaml

    Example output

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1alpha1
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      consolePlugin:
        register: false

  2. Optional: Add the netobserv-plugin plugin by manually editing the Console Operator config:

    $ oc edit console.operator.openshift.io cluster

    Example output

    ...
    spec:
      plugins:
      - netobserv-plugin
    ...

  3. Optional: Set the spec.consolePlugin.register field to true by running the following command:

    $ oc -n netobserv edit flowcollector cluster -o yaml

    Example output

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1alpha1
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      consolePlugin:
        register: true

  4. Ensure the status of console pods is running by running the following command:

    $ oc get pods -n openshift-console -l app=console
  5. Restart the console pods by running the following command:

    $ oc delete pods -n openshift-console -l app=console
  6. Clear your browser cache and history.
  7. Check the status of Network Observability plugin pods by running the following command:

    $ oc get pods -n netobserv -l app=netobserv-plugin

    Example output

    NAME                                READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
    netobserv-plugin-68c7bbb9bb-b69q6   1/1     Running   0          21s

  8. Check the logs of the Network Observability plugin pods by running the following command:

    $ oc logs -n netobserv -l app=netobserv-plugin

    Example output

    time="2022-12-13T12:06:49Z" level=info msg="Starting netobserv-console-plugin [build version: , build date: 2022-10-21 15:15] at log level info" module=main
    time="2022-12-13T12:06:49Z" level=info msg="listening on https://:9001" module=server

15.3. Flowlogs-Pipeline does not consume network flows after installing Kafka

If you deployed the flow collector first with deploymentModel: KAFKA and then deployed Kafka, the flow collector might not connect correctly to Kafka. Manually restart the flow-pipeline pods where Flowlogs-pipeline does not consume network flows from Kafka.

Procedure

  1. Delete the flow-pipeline pods to restart them by running the following command:

    $ oc delete pods -n netobserv -l app=flowlogs-pipeline-transformer

15.4. Failing to see network flows from both br-int and br-ex interfaces

br-ex` and br-int are virtual bridge devices operated at OSI layer 2. The eBPF agent works at the IP and TCP levels, layers 3 and 4 respectively. You can expect that the eBPF agent captures the network traffic passing through br-ex and br-int, when the network traffic is processed by other interfaces such as physical host or virtual pod interfaces. If you restrict the eBPF agent network interfaces to attach only to br-ex and br-int, you do not see any network flow.

Manually remove the part in the interfaces or excludeInterfaces that restricts the network interfaces to br-int and br-ex.

Procedure

  1. Remove the interfaces: [ 'br-int', 'br-ex' ] field. This allows the agent to fetch information from all the interfaces. Alternatively, you can specify the Layer-3 interface for example, eth0. Run the following command:

    $ oc edit -n netobserv flowcollector.yaml -o yaml

    Example output

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1alpha1
    kind: FlowCollector
    metadata:
      name: cluster
    spec:
      agent:
        type: EBPF
        ebpf:
          interfaces: [ 'br-int', 'br-ex' ] 1

    1
    Specifies the network interfaces.

15.5. Network Observability controller manager pod runs out of memory

You can increase memory limits for the Network Observability operator by editing the spec.config.resources.limits.memory specification in the Subscription object.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators
  2. Click Network Observability and then select Subscription.
  3. From the Actions menu, click Edit Subscription.

    1. Alternatively, you can use the CLI to open the YAML configuration for the Subscription object by running the following command:

      $ oc edit subscription netobserv-operator -n openshift-netobserv-operator
  4. Edit the Subscription object to add the config.resources.limits.memory specification and set the value to account for your memory requirements. See the Additional resources for more information about resource considerations:

    apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
    kind: Subscription
    metadata:
      name: netobserv-operator
      namespace: openshift-netobserv-operator
    spec:
      channel: stable
      config:
        resources:
          limits:
            memory: 800Mi     1
          requests:
            cpu: 100m
            memory: 100Mi
      installPlanApproval: Automatic
      name: netobserv-operator
      source: redhat-operators
      sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace
      startingCSV: <network_observability_operator_latest_version> 2
    1
    For example, you can increase the memory limit to 800Mi.
    2
    This value should not be edited, but note that it changes depending on the most current release of the Operator.

15.6. Running custom queries to Loki

For troubleshooting, can run custom queries to Loki. There are two examples of ways to do this, which you can adapt according to your needs by replacing the <api_token> with your own.

Note

These examples use the netobserv namespace for the Network Observability Operator and Loki deployments. Additionally, the examples assume that the LokiStack is named loki. You can optionally use a different namespace and naming by adapting the examples, specifically the -n netobserv or the loki-gateway URL.

Prerequisites

  • Installed Loki Operator for use with Network Observability Operator

Procedure

  • To get all available labels, run the following:

    $ oc exec deployment/netobserv-plugin -n netobserv -- curl -G -s -H 'X-Scope-OrgID:network' -H 'Authorization: Bearer <api_token>' -k https://loki-gateway-http.netobserv.svc:8080/api/logs/v1/network/loki/api/v1/labels | jq
  • To get all flows from the source namespace, my-namespace, run the following:

    $ oc exec deployment/netobserv-plugin -n netobserv -- curl -G -s -H 'X-Scope-OrgID:network' -H 'Authorization: Bearer <api_token>' -k https://loki-gateway-http.netobserv.svc:8080/api/logs/v1/network/loki/api/v1/query --data-urlencode 'query={SrcK8S_Namespace="my-namespace"}' | jq

Additional resources

15.7. Troubleshooting Loki ResourceExhausted error

Loki may return a ResourceExhausted error when network flow data sent by Network Observability exceeds the configured maximum message size. If you are using the Red Hat Loki Operator, this maximum message size is configured to 100 MiB.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators, viewing All projects from the Project drop-down menu.
  2. In the Provided APIs list, select the Network Observability Operator.
  3. Click the Flow Collector then the YAML view tab.

    1. If you are using the Loki Operator, check that the spec.loki.batchSize value does not exceed 98 MiB.
    2. If you are using a Loki installation method that is different from the Red Hat Loki Operator, such as Grafana Loki, verify that the grpc_server_max_recv_msg_size Grafana Loki server setting is higher than the FlowCollector resource spec.loki.batchSize value. If it is not, you must either increase the grpc_server_max_recv_msg_size value, or decrease the spec.loki.batchSize value so that it is lower than the limit.
  4. Click Save if you edited the FlowCollector.

15.8. Loki empty ring error

The Loki "empty ring" error results in flows not being stored in Loki and not showing up in the web console. This error might happen in various situations. A single workaround to address them all does not exist. There are some actions you can take to investigate the logs in your Loki pods, and verify that the LokiStack is healthy and ready.

Some of the situations where this error is observed are as follows:

  • After a LokiStack is uninstalled and reinstalled in the same namespace, old PVCs are not removed, which can cause this error.

    • Action: You can try removing the LokiStack again, removing the PVC, then reinstalling the LokiStack.
  • After a certificate rotation, this error can prevent communication with the flowlogs-pipeline and console-plugin pods.

    • Action: You can restart the pods to restore the connectivity.

15.9. Resource troubleshooting

15.10. LokiStack rate limit errors

A rate-limit placed on the Loki tenant can result in potential temporary loss of data and a 429 error: Per stream rate limit exceeded (limit:xMB/sec) while attempting to ingest for stream. You might consider having an alert set to notify you of this error. For more information, see "Creating Loki rate limit alerts for the NetObserv dashboard" in the Additional resources of this section.

You can update the LokiStack CRD with the perStreamRateLimit and perStreamRateLimitBurst specifications, as shown in the following procedure.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to OperatorsInstalled Operators, viewing All projects from the Project dropdown.
  2. Look for Loki Operator, and select the LokiStack tab.
  3. Create or edit an existing LokiStack instance using the YAML view to add the perStreamRateLimit and perStreamRateLimitBurst specifications:

    apiVersion: loki.grafana.com/v1
    kind: LokiStack
    metadata:
      name: loki
      namespace: netobserv
    spec:
      limits:
        global:
          ingestion:
            perStreamRateLimit: 6        1
            perStreamRateLimitBurst: 30  2
      tenants:
        mode: openshift-network
      managementState: Managed
    1
    The default value for perStreamRateLimit is 3.
    2
    The default value for perStreamRateLimitBurst is 15.
  4. Click Save.

Verification

Once you update the perStreamRateLimit and perStreamRateLimitBurst specifications, the pods in your cluster restart and the 429 rate-limit error no longer occurs.

15.11. Running a large query results in Loki errors

When running large queries for a long time, Loki errors can occur, such as a timeout or too many outstanding requests. There is no complete corrective for this issue, but there are several ways to mitigate it:

Adapt your query to add an indexed filter
With Loki queries, you can query on both indexed and non-indexed fields or labels. Queries that contain filters on labels perform better. For example, if you query for a particular Pod, which is not an indexed field, you can add its Namespace to the query. The list of indexed fields can be found in the "Network flows format reference", in the Loki label column.
Consider querying Prometheus rather than Loki
Prometheus is a better fit than Loki to query on large time ranges. However, whether or not you can use Prometheus instead of Loki depends on the use case. For example, queries on Prometheus are much faster than on Loki, and large time ranges do not impact performance. But Prometheus metrics do not contain as much information as flow logs in Loki. The Network Observability OpenShift web console automatically favors Prometheus over Loki if the query is compatible; otherwise, it defaults to Loki. If your query does not run against Prometheus, you can change some filters or aggregations to make the switch. In the OpenShift web console, you can force the use of Prometheus. An error message is displayed when incompatible queries fail, which can help you figure out which labels to change to make the query compatible. For example, changing a filter or an aggregation from Resource or Pods to Owner.
Consider using the FlowMetrics API to create your own metric
If the data that you need isn’t available as a Prometheus metric, you can use the FlowMetrics API to create your own metric. For more information, see "FlowMetrics API Reference" and "Configuring custom metrics by using FlowMetric API".
Configure Loki to improve the query performance

If the problem persists, you can consider configuring Loki to improve the query performance. Some options depend on the installation mode you used for Loki, such as using the Operator and LokiStack, or Monolithic mode, or Microservices mode.

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