Create a Sidecar Container for Syslog

You can configure a sidecar container for syslog to run in the same pod as NCP. The following procedure assumes that the syslog agent image is example/rsyslog.

Configure NCP and NSX node agent to log to a file.

In the yaml file for NCP and NSX node agent, set the log_dir parameter and specify the volume to be mounted. For example,

    [DEFAULT]
    log_dir = /var/log/nsx-ujo/
    ...

    spec:
      ...
      containers:
        - name: nsx-ncp
          ...
          volumeMounts:
          - name: nsx-ujo-log-dir
            # Mount path must match [DEFAULT] option "log_dir"
            mountPath: /var/log/nsx-ujo
      volumes:
        ...
        - name: nsx-ujo-log-dir
          hostPath:
            path: /var/log/nsx-ujo

You can change the log file name by setting the

log_file

parameter. The default names are

ncp.log

nsx_node_agent.log

, and

nsx_kube_proxy.log

. If the

log_dir

option is set to a path other than

/var/log/nsx-ujo

, either a hostPath volume or emptyDir volume must be created and mounted to the corresponding pod spec.

Make sure the host path exists and is writable by the user

nsx-ncp

Run the following commands.

    mkdir -p <host-filesystem-log-dir-path>
    chmod +w <host-filesystem-log-dir-path>

Add the user

nsx-ncp

or change the mode of the host path to 777.

    useradd -s /bin/bash nsx-ncp
    chown nsx-ncp:nsx-ncp <host-filesystem-log-dir-path>
or
    chmod 777 <host-filesystem-log-dir-path>

In the NCP pod's specification yaml file, add a ConfigMap for syslog. For example,

    kind: ConfigMap
    metadata:
      name: rsyslog-config
      labels:
        version: v1
    data:
      ncp.conf: |
        module(load="imfile")
    
        ruleset(name="remote") {
          action(type="omfwd"
          Protocol="tcp"
          Target="nsx.example.com"
          Port="514")
    
          stop
        }
    
        input(type="imfile"
          File="/var/log/nsx-ujo/ncp.log"
          Tag="ncp"
          Ruleset="remote"

In the NCP pod's yaml file, add the rsyslog container and mount the appropriate volumes where rsyslog can find configuration data and read logs from other containers. For example,

     spec:
       containers:
       - name: nsx-ncp
         ...
       - name: rsyslog
         image: example/rsyslog
         imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
         volumeMounts:
         - name: rsyslog-config-volume
           mountPath: /etc/rsyslog.d
           readOnly: true
         - name: nsx-ujo-log-dir
           mountPath: /var/log/nsx-ujo
       volumes:
         ...
         - name: rsyslog-config-volume
           configMap:
             name: rsyslog-config
         - name: nsx-ujo-log-dir
           hostPath:
             path: <host-filesystem-log-dir-path>

Configuring Syslog

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VMware NSX Container Plugin 3.0

Create a Sidecar Container for Syslog