Proxy Observability

Envoy Gateway provides observability for the ControlPlane and the underlying EnvoyProxy instances. This guide show you how to config proxy observability, includes metrics, logs, and traces.

Prerequisites

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

FluentBit is used to collect logs from the EnvoyProxy instances and forward them to Loki. Install FluentBit:

helm repo add fluent https://fluent.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install fluent-bit fluent/fluent-bit -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/latest/examples/fluent-bit/helm-values.yaml -n monitoring --create-namespace --version 0.30.4

Loki is used to store logs. Install Loki:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/latest/examples/loki/loki.yaml -n monitoring 

Tempo is used to store traces. Install Tempo:

helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install tempo grafana/tempo -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/latest/examples/tempo/helm-values.yaml -n monitoring --create-namespace --version 1.3.1

OpenTelemetry Collector offers a vendor-agnostic implementation of how to receive, process and export telemetry data. Install OTel-Collector:

helm repo add open-telemetry https://open-telemetry.github.io/opentelemetry-helm-charts
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install otel-collector open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/latest/examples/otel-collector/helm-values.yaml -n monitoring --create-namespace --version 0.60.0

Expose endpoints:

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

Metrics

By default, Envoy Gateway doesn’t expose metrics of the EnvoyProxy instances. You can enable metrics by setting the telemetry.metrics.prometheus in the EnvoyProxy CRD.

Expose prometheus metrics endpoints:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/latest/examples/kubernetes/metric/prometheus.yaml

Verify metrics:

export ENVOY_POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pod -n envoy-gateway-system --selector=gateway.envoyproxy.io/owning-gateway-namespace=default,gateway.envoyproxy.io/owning-gateway-name=eg -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')
kubectl port-forward pod/$ENVOY_POD_NAME -n envoy-gateway-system 19001:19001

# check metrics 
curl localhost:19001/stats/prometheus  | grep "default/backend/rule/0/match/0-www"

Envoy Gateway can send metrics to OpenTelemetry Sink. Send metrics to OTel-Collector:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/latest/examples/kubernetes/metric/otel-sink.yaml

Verify OTel-Collector metrics:

export OTEL_POD_NAME=$(kubectl get pod -n monitoring --selector=app.kubernetes.io/name=opentelemetry-collector -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')
kubectl port-forward pod/$OTEL_POD_NAME -n monitoring 19001:19001

# check metrics 
curl localhost:19001/metrics  | grep "default/backend/rule/0/match/0-www"

Logs

By default, Envoy Gateway send logs to stdout in default text format. 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'

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

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/latest/examples/kubernetes/accesslog/disable-accesslog.yaml

Envoy Gateway can send logs to OpenTelemetry Sink.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/latest/examples/kubernetes/accesslog/otel-accesslog.yaml

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'

Traces

By default, Envoy Gateway doesn’t send traces to OpenTelemetry Sink. You can enable traces by setting the telemetry.tracing in the EnvoyProxy CRD.

Note: Envoy Gateway use 100% sample rate, which means all requests will be traced. This may cause performance issues.

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/envoyproxy/gateway/latest/examples/kubernetes/tracing/default.yaml

Verify traces from tempo:

curl -s "http://$TEMPO_IP:3100/api/search" --data-urlencode "q={ component=envoy }" | jq .traces
curl -s "http://$TEMPO_IP:3100/api/traces/<trace_id>" | jq