Looking at Application Logs in Kubernetes

At some point when running apps in Kubernetes you will need to look at the logs of a running application. To do this we use the following command:

kubectl logs yourPodName -f

This will tail the logs. It works in a similar way to how the tail shell command works. You can also specify the -c flag if you have a pod with multiple containers where you specify the name of the container after that flag.

A trick I use when tailing logs is pushing enter a few times after the current output and leaving a gap. What this does is lets you visually separate what has just happened with what is happening now as there is a clear gap.

The logs command like most shell commands can be piped to other commands. I often do this leaving off the follow flag -f so that I can more easily look through the logs:

kubectl logs yourPodName | less

In case you were curious piping to less +F will keep tailing the running logs that use the -f flag but as soon as you stop tailing (ctrl+c) then try following again (shift-f) - the tailing does not continue.

This command also has the --since flag which lets you specify how far back the logs should go and can be paired with the follow flag to keep following. This is very useful for a long running app where leaving this out will result in the entire contents of the log being output up until the point you are at now:

kubectl logs yourPodName --since 1h -f