Glossary

This glossary defines common terms that are used in the OKD Logging content.

annotation

You can use annotations to attach metadata to objects.

Cluster Logging Operator (CLO)

The Cluster Logging Operator provides a set of APIs to control the collection and forwarding of application, infrastructure, and audit logs.

Custom Resource (CR)

A CR is an extension of the Kubernetes API. To configure OKD Logging and log forwarding, you can customize the ClusterLogging and the ClusterLogForwarder custom resources.

event router

The event router is a pod that watches OKD events. It collects logs by using OKD Logging.

Fluentd

Fluentd is a log collector that resides on each OKD node. It gathers application, infrastructure, and audit logs and forwards them to different outputs.

garbage collection

Garbage collection is the process of cleaning up cluster resources, such as terminated containers and images that are not referenced by any running pods.

Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch is a distributed search and analytics engine. OKD uses ELasticsearch as a default log store for OKD Logging.

Elasticsearch Operator

Elasticsearch operator is used to run Elasticsearch cluster on top of OKD. The Elasticsearch Operator provides self-service for the Elasticsearch cluster operations and is used by OKD Logging.

indexing

Indexing is a data structure technique that is used to quickly locate and access data. Indexing optimizes the performance by minimizing the amount of disk access required when a query is processed.

JSON logging

OKD Logging Log Forwarding API enables you to parse JSON logs into a structured object and forward them to either OKD Logging-managed Elasticsearch or any other third-party system supported by the Log Forwarding API.

Kibana

Kibana is a browser-based console interface to query, discover, and visualize your Elasticsearch data through histograms, line graphs, and pie charts.

Kubernetes API server

Kubernetes API server validates and configures data for the API objects.

Labels

Labels are key-value pairs that you can use to organize and select subsets of objects, such as a pod.

Logging

With OKD Logging you can aggregate application, infrastructure, and audit logs throughout your cluster. You can also store them to a default log store, forward them to third party systems, and query and visualize the stored logs in the default log store.

logging collector

A logging collector collects logs from the cluster, formats them, and forwards them to the log store or third party systems.

log store

A log store is used to store aggregated logs. You can use the default Elasticsearch log store or forward logs to external log stores. The default log store is optimized and tested for short-term storage.

log visualizer

Log visualizer is the user interface (UI) component you can use to view information such as logs, graphs, charts, and other metrics. The current implementation is Kibana.

node

A node is a worker machine in the OKD cluster. A node is either a virtual machine (VM) or a physical machine.

Operators

Operators are the preferred method of packaging, deploying, and managing a Kubernetes application in an OKD cluster. An Operator takes human operational knowledge and encodes it into software that is packaged and shared with customers.

pod

A pod is the smallest logical unit in Kubernetes. A pod consists of one or more containers and runs on a worker node..

Role-based access control (RBAC)

RBAC is a key security control to ensure that cluster users and workloads have access only to resources required to execute their roles.

shards

Elasticsearch organizes the log data from Fluentd into datastores, or indices, then subdivides each index into multiple pieces called shards.

taint

Taints ensure that pods are scheduled onto appropriate nodes. You can apply one or more taints on a node.

toleration

You can apply tolerations to pods. Tolerations allow the scheduler to schedule pods with matching taints.

web console

A user interface (UI) to manage OKD.