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Deploy on Kubernetes

This article describes how to deploy DOG Stack on Kubernetes with Helm and collect container logs, kubelet, node, and cluster metrics, and Kubernetes Events of a cluster into it. After completing the steps, you can query the data in Doris and view it in the Grafana dashboards. To deploy on a single host instead, see Deploy with Docker Compose.

DOG Stack on Kubernetes consists of two independent Helm charts:

ChartRoleWorkloads
ai-observe-stackThe DOG Stack backend. Installed once. It receives OTLP data, writes it into Doris, and displays it in Grafana. It collects nothing by itself.OpenTelemetry gateway (StatefulSet), Grafana with the Doris App plugin (Deployment), and optionally a Doris cluster managed by the Doris Operator
dog-k8s-collectorThe Kubernetes collector. Installed once in every cluster to be collected, and pointed at the gateway.agent (DaemonSet, one per node): container logs, kubelet and node metrics, node-local OTLP entry point; cluster (Deployment, one per cluster): cluster metrics and Kubernetes Events

The data flow is:

applications (OTLP SDK) ───────┐
                               │ OTLP
dog-k8s-collector ─────────────┤
  agent   (DaemonSet)          │
  cluster (Deployment)         ▼
ai-observe-stack
  gateway  OpenTelemetry Collector  receives OTLP, writes Doris
  doris    Apache Doris             stores logs, metrics, traces
  grafana  Grafana + Doris App      shows them

There is no Helm dependency between the two charts: they are installed and upgraded separately. Several Kubernetes clusters can send to one DOG Stack, told apart by the cluster name.

tip

If a DOG Stack is already running (installed with this chart, deployed another way, or in another cluster), skip to Step 2: Install the Kubernetes Collector. You only need the OTLP gRPC address of its gateway.

Prerequisites​

  • Kubernetes 1.24 or later, Helm 3.8 or later, and kubectl configured to access the cluster.
  • Cluster-level RBAC permissions: the collector creates a ClusterRole and a ClusterRoleBinding.
  • Nodes can pull the images otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib, otel/opentelemetry-collector-k8s, grafana/grafana, velodb/doris-app-plugin, and busybox. For a private registry, set global.imagePullSecrets in ai-observe-stack and imagePullSecrets in dog-k8s-collector, and point the image parameters at your mirror: gateway.image.repository, grafana.image.repository, dorisPlugin.image.repository, and global.helperImages.busybox / global.helperImages.curl in ai-observe-stack; agent.image.repository and cluster.image.repository in dog-k8s-collector.
  • Doris, one of the following:
    • An existing Doris cluster whose FE ports 9030 (MySQL protocol) and 8030 (HTTP) are reachable from the Kubernetes cluster, and an account with the CREATE DATABASE privilege. The gateway writes data through Stream Load: FE redirects each request to a BE at the address the BE registered in Doris (shown by SHOW BACKENDS), so these BE addresses and the BE HTTP port (8040 by default) must also be reachable from the gateway pods.
    • Or let the chart deploy Doris: a PersistentVolume provisioner, and at least 2 CPU cores and 4 GiB of memory each for FE and BE.

The commands in this article use the release name dog and the namespace dog. The object names below are derived from them; if you use other names, replace them accordingly.

ObjectName
Gateway StatefulSet and Servicedog-ai-observe-stack-otel-gateway
Grafana Deployment and Servicedog-ai-observe-stack-grafana
Grafana admin Secretdog-ai-observe-stack-grafana-admin
DorisCluster (when the chart deploys Doris)dog-ai-observe-stack-doris
Collector agent DaemonSetdog-k8s-collector-agent
Collector cluster Deploymentdog-k8s-collector-cluster

Get the Charts​

Clone the repository and download the chart dependency. The Doris Operator subchart is declared in the chart's dependencies, so this step is required even if you connect to an existing Doris. Use helm dependency update, which does not require helm repo add.

git clone https://github.com/ai-observe/ai-observe-stack.git
cd ai-observe-stack/helm-charts
helm dependency update ./ai-observe-stack

All following commands run in the helm-charts directory.

Step 1: Install the DOG Stack Backend​

Choose where Doris runs:

Option A: use an existing DorisOption B: the chart deploys Doris
Suited forAn existing Doris or SelectDB cluster; productionTrials and development when no Doris is available
Data locationYour Doris clusterPVCs inside the Kubernetes cluster

Option A: Use an Existing Doris​

  1. Create the namespace and store the Doris account in a Secret. The Secret must contain the keys username and password.

    kubectl create namespace dog
    kubectl create secret generic doris-credentials -n dog \
      --from-literal=username=<DORIS_USER> --from-literal=password='<DORIS_PASSWORD>'

  2. Create a values file dog-values.yaml:

    doris:
      mode: external
      database: otel                  # the gateway creates this database and its tables
      external:
        host: <DORIS_FE_HOST>         # FE address reachable from the cluster
        port: 9030                    # MySQL protocol port
        feHttpPort: 8030              # HTTP port, used by Stream Load
        existingSecret: doris-credentials
      internal:
        operator:
          enabled: false              # do not install the Doris Operator

    The same file is available as examples/ai-observe-stack/minimal-external-doris.yaml in the repository.

  3. Install:

    helm install dog ./ai-observe-stack -n dog -f dog-values.yaml

Option B: The Chart Deploys Doris​

The repository provides two sizes:

  • examples/ai-observe-stack/dev.yaml: one FE and one BE, no persistence, one gateway, debug output on. For trials only.
  • examples/ai-observe-stack/prod.yaml: three FE and three BE, persistence, three gateways, and Ingress. A starting point for production. Before using it, adapt the environment-specific settings: storageClass (set to the AWS gp3), the Ingress class, hosts, and TLS issuer, and the Grafana password (CHANGE_ME).
helm install dog ./ai-observe-stack -n dog --create-namespace -f examples/ai-observe-stack/dev.yaml

Doris FE and BE take two to five minutes to pull images and initialize. The gateway waits until FE ports 9030 and 8030 are reachable and at least one BE is online before starting.

caution

The Doris Operator is cluster-scoped, and only one can run in a Kubernetes cluster. When installing a second DOG Stack in the same cluster, set doris.internal.operator.enabled: false.

Verify the Backend​

When the installation finishes, Helm prints NOTES, which include the OTLP gRPC address of the gateway: dog-ai-observe-stack-otel-gateway.dog.svc:4317. Record it for Step 2.

  1. Check that the pods are running. You should see the gateway pods (dog-ai-observe-stack-otel-gateway-0 and -1 with the default two replicas; dev.yaml runs one), the Grafana pod, and, with Option B, the Doris FE and BE pods, all in the Running status.

    kubectl get pods -n dog

  2. Run the built-in pipeline test. It sends a log record through the gateway and checks that it arrives in Doris.

    helm test dog -n dog --logs

    The output ends with OK: record found in Doris.

  3. Get the Grafana admin password (default admin):

    kubectl get secret -n dog dog-ai-observe-stack-grafana-admin -o jsonpath='{.data.admin-password}' | base64 -d; echo

  4. Access Grafana:

    kubectl port-forward -n dog svc/dog-ai-observe-stack-grafana 3000:3000

    Open http://localhost:3000 and log in as admin with the password above. The dashboards are empty at this point, because nothing sends data to the gateway yet.

Step 2: Install the Kubernetes Collector​

The backend installed in Step 1 only receives data. The collector gathers data from the Kubernetes cluster and sends it to the gateway: on every node, the agent reads the stdout and stderr of all containers and collects kubelet and node metrics; the cluster collector collects cluster-level metrics and Kubernetes Events. Every record carries the pod, namespace, workload, and cluster name. Without the collector, only applications that send OTLP to the gateway directly reach DOG Stack, and there are no container logs, node or cluster metrics, or Events. Install one collector release in every Kubernetes cluster to be observed.

  1. Confirm that the gateway is reachable from the cluster to be collected. Replace the address with yours.

    kubectl run -it --rm otlp-check --image=busybox:1.36 --restart=Never -- \
      sh -c 'sleep 2; nc -zv dog-ai-observe-stack-otel-gateway.dog.svc 4317'

    open in the output means the gateway is reachable. The gateway address depends on where the DOG Stack runs:

    DOG Stack locationGateway address (host:port, without http://)
    Installed by this chart in the same cluster<release>-ai-observe-stack-otel-gateway.<namespace>.svc:4317
    Your own OpenTelemetry Collector with the Doris exporterIts OTLP gRPC Service, usually <service>.<namespace>.svc:4317
    Another Kubernetes clusterThe gateway's external address: a LoadBalancer IP (gateway.service.type: LoadBalancer) or an Ingress host. Port 4317 must be open between the clusters

  2. The agent runs as root and mounts the node's /var/log/pods, / (read-only), and /var/lib/otelcol. If the namespace enforces the restricted Pod Security Standard, relax it:

    kubectl label namespace dog pod-security.kubernetes.io/enforce=privileged --overwrite

  3. Create a values file collector-values.yaml:

    gateway:
      endpoint: dog-ai-observe-stack-otel-gateway.dog.svc:4317
    clusterName: my-cluster
    platform: generic
    ParameterRequiredDefaultDescription
    gateway.endpointYesNoneOTLP gRPC address of the gateway, in the form host:port.
    clusterNameNoRelease nameWritten to every record as k8s.cluster.name, to tell clusters apart.
    platformNogenericOne of generic, k3s, eks, gke, aks, ack, openshift. Selects cloud resource detectors and journald unit names. Use generic if unsure.
    timezoneNoUTCIANA time zone assumed for log lines whose timestamp has no time zone. A parsing rule can override it with timestamp.timezone.

  4. Install:

    helm install dog-k8s-collector ./dog-k8s-collector -n dog -f collector-values.yaml

The collector enables the following collection presets by default:

PresetDefaultCollectsRuns in
logsCollectionOnstdout and stderr of every container in every namespaceagent
kubeletMetricsOnCPU, memory, network, and filesystem of nodes, pods, containers, and volumes, with limit utilizationagent
hostMetricsOnCPU, memory, load, disk, filesystem, and network of the nodeagent
otlpOnNode-local OTLP entry point for application SDKsagent
clusterMetricsOnDeployment availability, node conditions, pod phases, quotascluster
kubernetesEventsOnKubernetes Events, stored as logscluster
prometheusScrapeOffPods annotated with prometheus.io/scrapeagent
journaldOffNode journal. Requires an image that contains journalctlagent
caution

examples/ai-observe-stack/dev.yaml turns on the gateway's debug output, which prints sampled records to the gateway log. When the collector runs in the same cluster, exclude the gateway's log files, otherwise every record is collected again:

logs:
  excludePaths:
    - /var/log/pods/dog_dog-ai-observe-stack-otel-gateway-*/*/*.log

Step 3: Verify Collection​

  1. Check the collector pods. There is one agent pod per node and one cluster pod:

    kubectl get pods -n dog -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=dog-k8s-collector -o wide
    NAME                                         READY   STATUS    NODE
    dog-k8s-collector-agent-7x2kq                1/1     Running   node-1
    dog-k8s-collector-agent-p9m4c                1/1     Running   node-2
    dog-k8s-collector-cluster-6f5d9c8b7d-hq2xn   1/1     Running   node-1

  2. Check that the agent reports no errors. The following command should print nothing:

    kubectl logs -n dog ds/dog-k8s-collector-agent | grep '"level":"error"'

  3. Query the data in Doris. With Option A, connect a MySQL client to port 9030 of your Doris FE. With Option B, forward the FE port first and connect with a MySQL client:

    kubectl port-forward -n dog svc/dog-ai-observe-stack-doris-fe-service 9030:9030
    mysql -h127.0.0.1 -P9030 -uroot
    SELECT service_name, count(*) AS records
    FROM otel.otel_logs
    WHERE timestamp > now() - interval 5 minute
      AND cast(resource_attributes['k8s.cluster.name'] as string) = 'my-cluster'
    GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 2 DESC;

    The first records arrive within 30 seconds after the agent starts. service_name is the name of the workload that owns the pod, looked up in the order Deployment, StatefulSet, DaemonSet, CronJob, and Job, or the pod name for a standalone pod. Kubernetes Events appear as kubernetes-events. Only log lines written after the installation are collected; existing log files on the nodes are not read again.

  4. Open Grafana and check the dashboards:

    • Logs Explorer: filter logs by namespace, service, severity, and text.
    • Kubernetes Events: Warning counts, top reasons, and the event table.
    • K8s Observability: CPU and memory of nodes and pods.
    • Collector Self-Monitoring: queue length, failures, and refusals of the agent, the cluster collector, and the gateway.

End-to-End Example​

The following pod prints one JSON log line per second, which verifies the whole path from container logs to Doris:

kubectl create namespace demo
kubectl run json-app -n demo --image=busybox:1.36 --restart=Never -- sh -c \
  'i=0; while true; do i=$((i+1)); echo "{\"time\":\"$(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ)\",\"level\":\"info\",\"msg\":\"tick $i\"}"; sleep 1; done'

After about 30 seconds, query Doris:

SELECT timestamp, severity_text, body, cast(resource_attributes['k8s.pod.name'] as string) AS pod
FROM otel.otel_logs
WHERE cast(resource_attributes['k8s.namespace.name'] as string) = 'demo'
ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT 5;

Rows with severity_text equal to INFO and body like tick 42 show that the container log was collected, the JSON line was parsed, and Kubernetes metadata was attached. Clean up with kubectl delete namespace demo.

Configure Collection​

To change the collection, edit collector-values.yaml and run:

helm upgrade dog-k8s-collector ./dog-k8s-collector -n dog -f collector-values.yaml

Only the affected agent or cluster collector restarts. File offsets on the nodes are kept, so no log line is collected twice.

Select Namespaces and Containers​

logs:
  namespaces:
    include: ["*"]                          # or a list, such as [shop, payment]
    exclude: [kube-system, monitoring]
  containers:
    exclude: [istio-proxy, linkerd-proxy]   # container names, excluded in every namespace

Exclusions take precedence over inclusions. The collector's own pods are never collected.

Parse Logs​

  • JSON logs: lines starting with { are parsed automatically. level or severity becomes severity_text, message or msg becomes body, and other keys are stored in log_attributes. For other field names, set logs.json.severityFields and logs.json.messageFields.

  • Common text formats: use a built-in preset in a rule. selector.container matches the container name, not the pod or Deployment name.

    logs:
      rules:
        - name: shop-api
          selector: {namespace: "^shop$", container: "^api$"}
          preset: java-spring
    PresetFormat
    java-springSpring Boot 3 default console format, with stack traces joined
    python-loggingPython logging.basicConfig default format
    go-zap-consolezap console encoder
    glogC++ and Go glog
    nginx-access, nginx-errornginx combined access log and error log
    mysql, postgres, redisDefaults of the official images
    doris-fe, doris-fe-audit, doris-beApache Doris FE, FE audit, and BE logs
    json-genericSingle-line JSON

    Doris FE writes runtime logs and audit logs to the same container. To parse both, add two rules with the same selector, one with preset: doris-fe and one with preset: doris-fe-audit.

  • Custom formats: write a regular expression with named groups ts (timestamp), level (severity), and msg (message):

    logs:
      rules:
        - name: shop-worker
          selector: {namespace: "^shop$", container: "^worker$"}
          regex: '^(?P<ts>\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}T\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\.\d+Z)\s+(?P<level>[a-z]+)\s+(?P<msg>(?s:.*))$'
          timestamp: {layout: "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%L%z"}
          severity: {field: level}
          multiline: {firstLinePattern: '^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}T'}   # stack trace lines join the previous record
          drop: ['GET /healthz']                             # dropped on the node

    If the timestamp in the log line has no time zone and the container does not run in UTC, add timezone to timestamp, for example timestamp: {layout: "...", timezone: Asia/Shanghai}. Rules are matched in order and the first matching rule wins. The attribute dog.log.rule of each record shows which rule parsed it.

    Before deploying a rule, you can test it against sample logs with hack/test-rule.sh in the repository, which requires helm, yq, and Docker:

    kubectl logs -n shop -l app=worker -c worker --tail=30 > worker.log
    hack/test-rule.sh -f collector-values.yaml -n shop -c worker worker.log

Receive OTLP from Applications​

Applications instrumented with an OpenTelemetry SDK can send traces, metrics, and logs to the agent on their node, which adds pod, namespace, and workload metadata. Expose the agent ports on the node:

presets:
  otlp:
    hostPortHttp: 4318
    hostPortGrpc: 4317

Then set the endpoint in the application's pod template:

env:
  - name: HOST_IP
    valueFrom: {fieldRef: {fieldPath: status.hostIP}}
  - name: OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT
    value: http://$(HOST_IP):4318
  - name: OTEL_SERVICE_NAME
    value: checkout

Scrape Prometheus Metrics​

Set presets.prometheusScrape.enabled: true, then annotate the application pods with prometheus.io/scrape: "true", prometheus.io/port, and prometheus.io/path. The metrics are written to the otel_metrics_* tables, and service_name is the workload name.

Collect Multiple Clusters​

Install one collector release in each cluster. Point gateway.endpoint at the same gateway (use its LoadBalancer or Ingress address across clusters) and give each cluster a different clusterName. Queries and dashboards filter by k8s.cluster.name.

Production Recommendations​

ItemParameterDescription
Doris replicas and disksdoris.internal.cluster.fe.replicas, doris.internal.cluster.be.replicas, doris.internal.cluster.persistenceAt least three FE and three BE, with gateway.dorisExporter.replicationNum: 3.
Gateway replicas and queuegateway.replicas, gateway.persistence.size, gateway.dorisExporter.sendingQueueEach gateway replica keeps its sending queue on its own PVC. If writes lag, watch otelcol_exporter_queue_size on the Collector Self-Monitoring dashboard.
Data retentiongateway.dorisExporter.historyDays7 days by default.
Grafana passwordgrafana.adminPassword or grafana.existingSecretThe default password is admin.
External accessingress, gateway.service.typeIngress for Grafana; applications outside the cluster use the OTLP/HTTP Ingress path or a LoadBalancer.
Debug outputgateway.debug.enabled: falseTurned on in dev.yaml.
Collection scopelogs.namespaces.excludeUsually excludes kube-system.
Collector resourcesagent.resources, agent.queueSizeEach agent requests 100m CPU and 128 MiB of memory, and is limited to 1 CPU and 512 MiB. While the gateway is unreachable, each node buffers up to agent.queueSize records (20,000 by default) on local disk.

examples/ai-observe-stack/prod.yaml in the repository is a production values file to start from.

Upgrade and Uninstall​

Upgrade or change configuration:

helm upgrade dog ./ai-observe-stack -n dog -f dog-values.yaml
helm upgrade dog-k8s-collector ./dog-k8s-collector -n dog -f collector-values.yaml

Uninstall:

helm uninstall dog-k8s-collector -n dog
helm uninstall dog -n dog

Uninstalling the collector does not affect the DOG Stack or the data in Doris. The file offsets under /var/lib/otelcol on the nodes are kept, and a reinstall continues from the last position. With Option A, uninstalling the DOG Stack does not delete the database in your Doris.

Helm does not delete the PersistentVolumeClaims of the gateway, the PersistentVolumeClaims of Doris (Option B with persistence enabled), or the completed helm test pod. To remove them:

kubectl delete pvc -n dog -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=dog
kubectl delete pvc -n dog -l 'app.doris.ownerreference/name in (dog-ai-observe-stack-doris-fe,dog-ai-observe-stack-doris-be)'
kubectl delete pod -n dog dog-ai-observe-stack-test-pipeline --ignore-not-found

With Option B, Helm also keeps the CustomResourceDefinition dorisclusters.doris.selectdb.com installed with the Doris Operator, because Helm never deletes CRDs. Deleting the CRD deletes every DorisCluster in the Kubernetes cluster, so delete it only when no other Doris cluster is managed by the Doris Operator:

kubectl delete crd dorisclusters.doris.selectdb.com

Troubleshooting​

SymptomCause and solution
helm install reports missing in charts/ directory: doris-operatorThe chart dependency is not downloaded. Run helm dependency update ./ai-observe-stack.
helm dependency build reports no repository definition for https://charts.selectdb.comhelm dependency build only uses repositories added with helm repo add. Run helm dependency update ./ai-observe-stack instead.
helm install reports gateway.endpoint is requiredSet gateway.endpoint of the collector to the gateway address.
helm install reports additional properties 'xxx' not allowedA top-level key in the values file is misspelled.
helm test fails, or the gateway log reports Doris errorsCheck that Doris FE ports 9030 and 8030 are reachable and that the account has the CREATE DATABASE privilege. View the gateway log with kubectl logs -n dog dog-ai-observe-stack-otel-gateway-0.
Agent pod reports CreateContainerConfigError, is rejected by Pod Security, or logs permission denied on /var/log/podsThe namespace enforces restricted. Add the privileged label, see Step 2.
Agent log reports connection refused or UnavailableThe gateway address is wrong, the gateway is down, or a network policy blocks port 4317. Records are buffered on the node and sent after the problem is fixed.
Agent pod stays in ContainerCreating, and its events report MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume "zoneinfo"The node has no time zone database (some minimal operating system images). Set agent.tzdata.hostPath: "", and keep timezone and the timestamp.timezone of every rule at UTC.
A namespace has no logsIt is excluded by logs.namespaces.exclude or logs.containers.exclude, or no new lines were written after the installation.
Logs arrive but service_name is emptyThe agent cannot read pod metadata. Check the agent log for RBAC forbidden errors.
A parsing rule has no effect (dog.log.rule is empty)selector.container contains a pod name instead of a container name, or an earlier rule matched first. Verify with hack/test-rule.sh.
Log times are off by hoursThe log line has no time zone, the container does not run in UTC, and timestamp.timezone is not set.

To view the configuration that the agent actually runs:

kubectl get cm -n dog dog-k8s-collector-agent-config -o jsonpath='{.data.config\.yaml}'

For all parameters of the two charts, see the USER_GUIDE.md and values.yaml of each chart under helm-charts in the repository.

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