Configuration

This page covers settings for running Sematext Agent in Kubernetes. Settings that apply to every installation, such as proxy, logging, and journal settings, are on the Sematext Agent configuration page. Container filtering settings such as CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE are on the Containers configuration page and work in Kubernetes too.

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
KUBERNETES_ENABLED	Specifies if the Kubernetes monitoring functionality is active. Default value is true. To disable Kubernetes collector set KUBERNETES_ENABLED=false.
KUBERNETES_EVENTS_NAMESPACE	Designates a namespace for Kubernetes event watcher. By default all namespaces are watched for Kubernetes events and forwarded to event/log receivers.
KUBERNETES_NAMESPACES	Defines the comma separated list of namespaces that are queried for Kubernetes resources such as pods or deployments. By default all namespaces are fetched. You can adjust specific namespaces such as KUBERNETES_NAMESPACES=default,kube-system.
KUBERNETES_INTERVAL	Defines the collection interval for Kubernetes resources (default 10s)
KUBERNETES_CLUSTER_ID	Uniquely identifies the cluster where agent is deployed
KUBERNETES_KUBELET_AUTH_TOKEN	Specifies the path for account service token
KUBERNETES_KUBELET_CA_PATH	Determines the file path for the certificate authority utilized during TLS verification
KUBERNETES_KUBELET_CERT_PATH	Determines the file path for the certificate file utilized during TLS verification
KUBERNETES_KUBELET_KEY_PATH	Determines the file path for the private key utilized during TLS verification
KUBERNETES_ETCD_CA_PATH	Determines the file path for the certificate authority utilized during TLS verification
KUBERNETES_ETCD_KEY_PATH	Determines the file path for the private key utilized during TLS verification
KUBERNETES_ETCD_CERT_PATH	Determines the file path for the certificate file utilized during TLS verification
KUBERNETES_KUBELET_INSECURE_SKIP_TLS_VERIFY	Indicates whether to skip TLS verification
KUBERNETES_KUBELET_METRICS_PORT	Specifies the port where kubelet Prometheus metrics are exposed (default 10250)

Populating Environment Variables in Kubernetes

To populate environment variables in Kubernetes, you need to propagate the variables to the pods by including them in the DaemonSet manifest within the env section. Consider the following example manifest:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: DaemonSet
metadata:
  name: sematext-agent
  labels:
    app: sematext-agent
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: sematext-agent
 # ...
          env:
            - name: AUTODISCO_VECTOR_SERVICE_ACCOUNT
              value: sematext-agent-vector
            - name: INFRA_TOKEN
              value: <your-infra-token>
            - name: KUBERNETES_CLUSTER_ID
              value: <REPLACE_WITH_CLUSTER_NAME>
            - name: API_SERVER_PORT
              value: "8675"
            - name: REGION
              value: US
          livenessProbe:
            httpGet:
              path: /health
              port: 8675
# ...

You can add additional environment variables by following the name and value format, where the former is the name of the variable and the latter is the value. For example, to skip certain containers based on the image like nginx, add the following lines:

            - name: CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE
              value: nginx

If you are using the helm installation option instead of kubectl, you can add environment variables using the --set directive. Also, you can skip multiple images by separating multiple image names with a comma, as in the following example:

helm install st-agent \
  --set infraToken=<your-infra-token> \
  --set region=US \
  --set clusterName=REPLACE_WITH_CLUSTER_NAME \
  --set CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE=nginx,apache/httpd \
  --namespace=sematext \
  --create-namespace \
  sematext/sematext-agent

Note: The CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE values will search for any substring match among the discovered images. Therefore, if you wish to skip the apache/httpd image, you can simply use httpd. This applies similarly to other matching and skipping options such as CONTAINER_MATCH_BY_IMAGE, CONTAINER_MATCH_BY_NAME, and CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_NAME.