Instrumenting Kubernetes in AWS with Terraform and FluentBit

This blog discusses using Fluent Bit to collect logs from applications running in an Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) cluster. Fluent Bit is a subproject of Fluentd, developed under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation umbrella, designed for unifying and simplifying cloud logging infrastructure with a smaller memory and CPU footprint compared to its parent project. The author explains how Gretel utilizes FluentBit to collect logs from containerized workloads and publish them to storage and indexing services, making operations simpler by enabling query-based alerts, debugging issues, and monitoring infrastructure trends. The blog then delves into the setup process using Terraform and Helm for installing and versioning FluentBit in a Kubernetes cluster. It covers configuring FluentBit to capture data needed and send it where required, including setting up Inputs (Tail Plugin), Parsers (docker Parser), Filters (Grep Filter and Kubernetes Filter), and Outputs (Amazon Cloudwatch service). The author also highlights the importance of ensuring Node permissions for network access and log operations in Amazon's IAM configuration. Finally, the blog provides a GitHub repository link where readers can see FluentBit set up on an AWS EKS cluster to observe its functionality in action.