Proxy Access Logs

Envoy Gateway provides observability for the ControlPlane and the underlying EnvoyProxy instances. This task show you how to config proxy access logs.

Prerequisites

Follow the steps from the Quickstart to install Envoy Gateway and the example manifest. Before proceeding, you should be able to query the example backend using HTTP.

Envoy Gateway provides an add-ons Helm Chart, which includes all the needing components for observability. By default, the OpenTelemetry Collector is disabled.

Install the add-ons Helm Chart:

helm install eg-addons oci://docker.io/envoyproxy/gateway-addons-helm --version v1.1.1 --set opentelemetry-collector.enabled=true -n monitoring --create-namespace

By default, the Service type of loki is ClusterIP, you can change it to LoadBalancer type for further usage:

kubectl patch service loki -n monitoring -p '{"spec": {"type": "LoadBalancer"}}'

Expose endpoints:

LOKI_IP=$(kubectl get svc loki -n monitoring -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')

Default Access Log

If custom format string is not specified, Envoy Gateway uses the following default format:

{
  "start_time": "%START_TIME%",
  "method": "%REQ(:METHOD)%",
  "x-envoy-origin-path": "%REQ(X-ENVOY-ORIGINAL-PATH?:PATH)%",
  "protocol": "%PROTOCOL%",
  "response_code": "%RESPONSE_CODE%",
  "response_flags": "%RESPONSE_FLAGS%",
  "response_code_details": "%RESPONSE_CODE_DETAILS%",
  "connection_termination_details": "%CONNECTION_TERMINATION_DETAILS%",
  "upstream_transport_failure_reason": "%UPSTREAM_TRANSPORT_FAILURE_REASON%",
  "bytes_received": "%BYTES_RECEIVED%",
  "bytes_sent": "%BYTES_SENT%",
  "duration": "%DURATION%",
  "x-envoy-upstream-service-time": "%RESP(X-ENVOY-UPSTREAM-SERVICE-TIME)%",
  "x-forwarded-for": "%REQ(X-FORWARDED-FOR)%",
  "user-agent": "%REQ(USER-AGENT)%",
  "x-request-id": "%REQ(X-REQUEST-ID)%",
  ":authority": "%REQ(:AUTHORITY)%",
  "upstream_host": "%UPSTREAM_HOST%",
  "upstream_cluster": "%UPSTREAM_CLUSTER%",
  "upstream_local_address": "%UPSTREAM_LOCAL_ADDRESS%",
  "downstream_local_address": "%DOWNSTREAM_LOCAL_ADDRESS%",
  "downstream_remote_address": "%DOWNSTREAM_REMOTE_ADDRESS%",
  "requested_server_name": "%REQUESTED_SERVER_NAME%",
  "route_name": "%ROUTE_NAME%"
}

Note: Envoy Gateway disable envoy headers by default, you can enable it by setting EnableEnvoyHeaders to true in the ClientTrafficPolicy CRD.

Verify logs from loki:

curl -s "http://$LOKI_IP:3100/loki/api/v1/query_range" --data-urlencode "query={job=\"fluentbit\"}" | jq '.data.result[0].values'

Disable Access Log

If you want to disable it, set the telemetry.accesslog.disable to true in the EnvoyProxy CRD.

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: GatewayClass
metadata:
  name: eg
spec:
  controllerName: gateway.envoyproxy.io/gatewayclass-controller
  parametersRef:
    group: gateway.envoyproxy.io
    kind: EnvoyProxy
    name: disable-accesslog
    namespace: envoy-gateway-system
---
apiVersion: gateway.envoyproxy.io/v1alpha1
kind: EnvoyProxy
metadata:
  name: disable-accesslog
  namespace: envoy-gateway-system
spec:
  telemetry:
    accessLog:
      disable: true
EOF

OpenTelemetry Sink

Envoy Gateway can send logs to OpenTelemetry Sink.

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: GatewayClass
metadata:
  name: eg
spec:
  controllerName: gateway.envoyproxy.io/gatewayclass-controller
  parametersRef:
    group: gateway.envoyproxy.io
    kind: EnvoyProxy
    name: otel-access-logging
    namespace: envoy-gateway-system
---
apiVersion: gateway.envoyproxy.io/v1alpha1
kind: EnvoyProxy
metadata:
  name: otel-access-logging
  namespace: envoy-gateway-system
spec:
  telemetry:
    accessLog:
      settings:
        - format:
            type: Text
            text: |
              [%START_TIME%] "%REQ(:METHOD)% %REQ(X-ENVOY-ORIGINAL-PATH?:PATH)% %PROTOCOL%" %RESPONSE_CODE% %RESPONSE_FLAGS% %BYTES_RECEIVED% %BYTES_SENT% %DURATION% "%REQ(X-FORWARDED-FOR)%" "%REQ(USER-AGENT)%" "%REQ(X-REQUEST-ID)%" "%REQ(:AUTHORITY)%" "%UPSTREAM_HOST%"
          sinks:
            - type: OpenTelemetry
              openTelemetry:
                host: otel-collector.monitoring.svc.cluster.local
                port: 4317
                resources:
                  k8s.cluster.name: "cluster-1"
EOF

Verify logs from loki:

curl -s "http://$LOKI_IP:3100/loki/api/v1/query_range" --data-urlencode "query={exporter=\"OTLP\"}" | jq '.data.result[0].values'

gGRPC Access Log Service(ALS) Sink

Envoy Gateway can send logs to a backend implemented gRPC access log service proto. There’s an example service here, which simply count the log and export to prometheus endpoint.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/main/examples/kubernetes/envoy-als.yaml -n monitoring

The following configuration sends logs to the gRPC access log service:

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: GatewayClass
metadata:
  name: eg
spec:
  controllerName: gateway.envoyproxy.io/gatewayclass-controller
  parametersRef:
    group: gateway.envoyproxy.io
    kind: EnvoyProxy
    name: als
    namespace: envoy-gateway-system
---
apiVersion: gateway.envoyproxy.io/v1alpha1
kind: EnvoyProxy
metadata:
  name: als
  namespace: envoy-gateway-system
spec:
  telemetry:
    accessLog:
      settings:
        - sinks:
            - type: ALS
              als:
                backendRefs:
                  - name: envoy-als
                    namespace: monitoring
                    port: 8080
                type: HTTP
EOF

Verify logs from envoy-als:

curl -s "http://$(kubectl get svc envoy-als -n monitoring -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}'):19001/metrics" | grep log_count

CEL Expressions

Envoy Gateway provides CEL expressions to filter access log .

For example, you can use the expression 'x-envoy-logged' in request.headers to filter logs that contain the x-envoy-logged header.

kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: gateway.networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: GatewayClass
metadata:
  name: eg
spec:
  controllerName: gateway.envoyproxy.io/gatewayclass-controller
  parametersRef:
    group: gateway.envoyproxy.io
    kind: EnvoyProxy
    name: otel-access-logging
    namespace: envoy-gateway-system
---
apiVersion: gateway.envoyproxy.io/v1alpha1
kind: EnvoyProxy
metadata:
  name: otel-access-logging
  namespace: envoy-gateway-system
spec:
  telemetry:
    accessLog:
      settings:
        - format:
            type: Text
            text: |
              [%START_TIME%] "%REQ(:METHOD)% %REQ(X-ENVOY-ORIGINAL-PATH?:PATH)% %PROTOCOL%" %RESPONSE_CODE% %RESPONSE_FLAGS% %BYTES_RECEIVED% %BYTES_SENT% %DURATION% "%REQ(X-FORWARDED-FOR)%" "%REQ(USER-AGENT)%" "%REQ(X-REQUEST-ID)%" "%REQ(:AUTHORITY)%" "%UPSTREAM_HOST%"
          matches:
            - "'x-envoy-logged' in request.headers"
          sinks:
            - type: OpenTelemetry
              openTelemetry:
                host: otel-collector.monitoring.svc.cluster.local
                port: 4317
                resources:
                  k8s.cluster.name: "cluster-1"
EOF

Verify logs from loki:

curl -s "http://$LOKI_IP:3100/loki/api/v1/query_range" --data-urlencode "query={exporter=\"OTLP\"}" | jq '.data.result[0].values'

Additional Metadata

Envoy Gateway provides additional metadata about the K8s resources that were translated to certain envoy resources. For example, details about the HTTPRoute and GRPCRoute (kind, group, name, namespace and annotations) are available for access log formatter using the METADATA operator. To enrich logs, users can add log operator such as: %METADATA(ROUTE:envoy-gateway:resources)% to their access log format.