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Understanding Network Observability Operator - Network Observability | Observability | OKD 4.12
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Network Observability Operator in OKD

The Network Observability Operator for OKD deploys a monitoring pipeline. This pipeline collects and enriches network traffic flows generated by the eBPF agent.

Viewing statuses

The Network Observability Operator provides the Flow Collector API. When a Flow Collector resource is created, it deploys pods and services to create and store network flows in the Loki log store, as well as to display dashboards, metrics, and flows in the OKD web console.

Procedure

  1. Run the following command to view the state of FlowCollector:

    $ oc get flowcollector/cluster
    Example output
    NAME      AGENT   SAMPLING (EBPF)   DEPLOYMENT MODEL   STATUS
cluster   EBPF    50                DIRECT             Ready

  2. Check the status of pods running in the netobserv namespace by entering the following command:

    $ oc get pods -n netobserv
    Example output
    NAME                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
flowlogs-pipeline-56hbp           1/1     Running   0          147m
flowlogs-pipeline-9plvv           1/1     Running   0          147m
flowlogs-pipeline-h5gkb           1/1     Running   0          147m
flowlogs-pipeline-hh6kf           1/1     Running   0          147m
flowlogs-pipeline-w7vv5           1/1     Running   0          147m
netobserv-plugin-cdd7dc6c-j8ggp   1/1     Running   0          147m

    The flowlogs-pipeline pods collect flows, enriches the collected flows, then send flows to the Loki storage. netobserv-plugin pods create a visualization plugin for the OKD Console.

  3. Check the status of pods running in the namespace netobserv-privileged by entering the following command:

    $ oc get pods -n netobserv-privileged
    Example output
    NAME                         READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
netobserv-ebpf-agent-4lpp6   1/1     Running   0          151m
netobserv-ebpf-agent-6gbrk   1/1     Running   0          151m
netobserv-ebpf-agent-klpl9   1/1     Running   0          151m
netobserv-ebpf-agent-vrcnf   1/1     Running   0          151m
netobserv-ebpf-agent-xf5jh   1/1     Running   0          151m

    The netobserv-ebpf-agent pods monitor network interfaces of the nodes to get flows and send them to flowlogs-pipeline pods.

  4. If you are using the Loki Operator, check the status of the component pods of LokiStack custom resource in the netobserv namespace by entering the following command:

    $ oc get pods -n netobserv
    Example output
    NAME                                                READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
lokistack-compactor-0                               1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-distributor-654f87c5bc-qhkhv              1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-distributor-654f87c5bc-skxgm              1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-gateway-796dc6ff7-c54gz                   2/2     Running   0          18h
lokistack-index-gateway-0                           1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-index-gateway-1                           1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-ingester-0                                1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-ingester-1                                1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-ingester-2                                1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-querier-66747dc666-6vh5x                  1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-querier-66747dc666-cjr45                  1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-querier-66747dc666-xh8rq                  1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-query-frontend-85c6db4fbd-b2xfb           1/1     Running   0          18h
lokistack-query-frontend-85c6db4fbd-jm94f           1/1     Running   0          18h

Network Observablity Operator architecture

The Network Observability Operator provides the FlowCollector API, which is instantiated at installation and configured to reconcile the eBPF agent, the flowlogs-pipeline, and the netobserv-plugin components. Only a single FlowCollector per cluster is supported.

The eBPF agent runs on each cluster node with some privileges to collect network flows. The flowlogs-pipeline receives the network flows data and enriches the data with Kubernetes identifiers. If you choose to use Loki, the flowlogs-pipeline sends flow logs data to Loki for storing and indexing. The netobserv-plugin, which is a dynamic OKD web console plugin, queries Loki to fetch network flows data. Cluster-admins can view the data in the web console.

If you do not use Loki, you can generate metrics with Prometheus. Those metrics and their related dashboards are accessible in the web console. For more information, see "Network Observability without Loki".

Network Observability eBPF export architecture

There are three deployment model options for the Network Observability Operator.

The Network Observability Operator does not manage Loki or other data stores. You must install Loki separately by using the Loki Operator. If you use Kafka, you must install it separately by using the Kafka Operator.
service deployment model

When the spec.deploymentModel field in the FlowCollector resource is set to service, agents are deployed per node as daemon sets. The flowlogs-pipeline is a standard deployment with a service. You can scale the flowlogs-pipeline component by using the spec.processor.consumerReplicas field.

Direct deployment model

When the spec.deploymentModel field is set to Direct, agents and the flowlogs-pipeline are both deployed per node as daemon sets. This model is suitable for technology assessments and small clusters. However, it is less memory-efficient in large clusters because each instance of flowlogs-pipeline caches the same cluster information.

Kafka deployment model (optional)

If you use the Kafka option, the eBPF agent sends the network flow data to Kafka. You can scale the flowlogs-pipeline component by using the spec.processor.consumerReplicas field. The flowlogs-pipeline component reads from the Kafka topic before sending data to Loki, as shown in the following diagram.

Network Observability using Kafka
Additional resources

Viewing Network Observability Operator status and configuration

You can inspect the status and view the details of the FlowCollector using the oc describe command.

Procedure

  1. Run the following command to view the status and configuration of the Network Observability Operator:

    $ oc describe flowcollector/cluster