Viewing logs for a resource

You can view the logs for various resources, such as builds, deployments, and pods by using the OpenShift CLI (oc) and the web console.

Resource logs are a default feature that provides limited log viewing capability. To enhance your log retrieving and viewing experience, it is recommended that you install OpenShift Logging. OpenShift Logging aggregates all the logs from your OKD cluster, such as node system audit logs, application container logs, and infrastructure logs, into a dedicated log store. You can then query, discover, and visualize your log data through the Kibana interface. Resource logs do not access the OpenShift Logging log store.

Viewing resource logs

You can view the log for various resources in the OpenShift CLI (oc) and web console. Logs read from the tail, or end, of the log.

Prerequisites

  • Access to the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure (UI)

  1. In the OKD console, navigate to Workloads → Pods or navigate to the pod through the resource you want to investigate.

    Some resources, such as builds, do not have pods to query directly. In such instances, you can locate the Logs link on the Details page for the resource.

  2. Select a project from the drop-down menu.

  3. Click the name of the pod you want to investigate.

  4. Click Logs.

Procedure (CLI)

  • View the log for a specific pod:

    1. $ oc logs -f <pod_name> -c <container_name>

    where:

    -f

    Optional: Specifies that the output follows what is being written into the logs.

    <pod_name>

    Specifies the name of the pod.

    <container_name>

    Optional: Specifies the name of a container. When a pod has more than one container, you must specify the container name.

    For example:

    1. $ oc logs ruby-58cd97df55-mww7r
    1. $ oc logs -f ruby-57f7f4855b-znl92 -c ruby

    The contents of log files are printed out.

  • View the log for a specific resource:

    1. $ oc logs <object_type>/<resource_name> (1)
    1Specifies the resource type and name.

    For example:

    1. $ oc logs deployment/ruby

    The contents of log files are printed out.