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Set up the pipeline

Set up the Gloo OpenTelemetry (OTel) pipeline in a new or an existing Gloo Gateway installation.

In Gloo Gateway version 2.3 and later, the OTel pipeline is the default telemetry pipeline. If you previously installed the legacy metrics pipeline, such as if you migrated from the legacy Helm charts, you have the following options to set up the Gloo OTel telemetry pipeline.

Additionally, when you set up the Gloo OTel telemetry pipeline, you can choose how to secure the communication between the telemetry gateway in the management cluster and collector agents in the workload clusters.

Set up OTel with the default certificate

Enable the OTel telemetry pipeline by using the default certificate that the telemetry gateway is automatically created with.

  1. Enable the Gloo telemetry gateway. In multicluster setups, enable the telemetry gateway in your management cluster.

    1. Get your current installation Helm values, and save them in a file. Note that if you migrated from the legacy charts, your release might have a different name. 
      helm get values gloo-platform -n gloo-mesh > gloo-gateway-single.yaml
open gloo-gateway-single.yaml
    2. Add or update the following sections in your Helm values file. If you previously installed the legacy metrics pipeline and want to continue using it alongside OTel, you can change legacyMetricsPipeline.enabled to true. 
      legacyMetricsPipeline:
  enabled: false
telemetryGateway:
  enabled: true
  resources:
    limits:
      cpu: 600m
      memory: 2Gi
    requests:
      cpu: 300m
      memory: 1Gi
    3. Upgrade your installation by using your updated values file. 
      helm upgrade gloo-platform gloo-platform/gloo-platform \
   --namespace gloo-mesh \
   --values gloo-gateway-single.yaml

  2. Verify that all pods in the gloo-mesh namespace are up and running, and that you see a gloo-telemetry-gateway* pod.

    kubectl get deployments -n gloo-mesh

  3. Verify that the default certificate secret for the telemetry gateway is created.

    kubectl get secrets -n gloo-mesh

    Example output:

    NAME                                       TYPE                 DATA   AGE
dashboard                                  Opaque               0      3d20h
gloo-telemetry-gateway-tls-secret          kubernetes.io/tls    3      3d20h
...

  4. Get the external IP address of the load balancer service that was created for the Gloo telemetry gateway.

    export TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_IP=$(kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh gloo-telemetry-gateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')
export TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_PORT=$(kubectl -n gloo-mesh get service gloo-telemetry-gateway -o jsonpath='{.spec.ports[?(@.name=="otlp")].port}')
export TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_ADDRESS=${TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_IP}:${TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_PORT}
echo $TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_ADDRESS

  5. Enable the Gloo telemetry collector agents. In multicluster setups, enable the collector agents in each workload cluster.

    1. Get your updated installation Helm values again, and save them in a file. Note that if you migrated from the legacy charts, your release might have a different name. 
      helm get values gloo-platform -n gloo-mesh > gloo-gateway-single.yaml
open gloo-gateway-single.yaml
    2. Add or update the the following sections in your Helm values file. 
      telemetryCollector:
  enabled: true
  resources:
    limits:
      cpu: 2
      memory: 2Gi
    requests:
      cpu: 500m
      memory: 1Gi
    3. Upgrade your installation by using your updated values file. Include the telemetry gateway's address in a --set flag. 
      helm upgrade gloo-platform gloo-platform/gloo-platform \
   --namespace gloo-mesh \
   --values gloo-gateway-single.yaml \
   --set telemetryCollector.config.exporters.otlp.endpoint=$TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_ADDRESS

  6. Verify that all telemetry pods in the gloo-mesh namespace are up and running. Because the agents are deployed as a daemon set, the number of telemetry collector agent pods equals the number of worker nodes in your cluster.

    kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh

    Example output:

    ...
gloo-telemetry-collector-agent-7rzfb      1/1     Running   0          22s
gloo-telemetry-collector-agent-dgs87      1/1     Running   0          22s
gloo-telemetry-collector-agent-nbmr6      1/1     Running   0          22s
gloo-telemetry-gateway-6547f479d5-rtj7s   1/1     Running   0          107s

  7. Verify metrics collection.

Set up OTel with a custom certificate

Enable the OTel telemetry pipeline by using a custom certificate to secure the connection between the telemetry gateway and collector agents.

  1. Decide on the root CA that you want to use to sign the certificate for the telemetry gateway. The recommended approach is to derive the telemetry gateway certificate from the same root CA that you used to sign the server and client TLS certificates for your relay connection. However, you can also use a custom root CA for your telemetry gateway certificate.

  2. Choose the domain name that you want to use for your telemetry gateway. In the following steps, the example domain gloo-telemetry-gateway.apps.cluster1.mydomain.net is used.

  3. Use your preferred certificate issuer to create a server certificate and key for the telemetry gateway's domain, and store that information in a secret named gloo-telemetry-gateway-tls-secret in the gloo-mesh namespace. You might follow steps similar to the management server certificate generation to generate your telemetry gateway certificate.

    For example, you might use the following YAML file with a cert-manager instance to create the certificate and a key for the gloo-telemetry-gateway.apps.cluster1.mydomain.net domain in a Vault instance. This example assumes that the root CA certificate and key are stored and managed in Vault so that Vault can derive the telemetry gateway certificate from the same root. After the telemetry gateway certificate and key are created, the information is stored in the gloo-telemetry-gateway-tls-secret secret in the gloo-mesh namespace. This file is provided only as an example; your certificate and key generation might be different, depending on your certificate setup.

    kind: Certificate
apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
metadata:
  name: gloo-telemetry-gateway
  namespace: gloo-mesh
spec:
  secretName: gloo-telemetry-gateway-tls-secret
  duration: 8760h # 365 days
  renewBefore: 360h # 15 days
  # Issuer for certs
  issuerRef:
    kind: ClusterIssuer
    name: vault-issuer-gloo
  commonName: gloo-telemetry-gateway
  dnsNames:
    # Domain for gateway's DNS entry
    - gloo-telemetry-gateway.apps.cluster1.mydomain.net
  usages:
    - server auth
    - client auth
    - digital signature
    - key encipherment
  privateKey:
    algorithm: "RSA"
    size: 2048

  4. Verify that the gloo-telemetry-gateway-tls-secret secret is created. This secret name is referenced by default in the telemetryGateway.extraVolumes field of your Helm values file, which ensures that the telemetry gateway can access and use the certificate information.

    kubectl get secret gloo-telemetry-gateway-tls-secret -n gloo-mesh

    Example output:

    apiVersion: v1
data:
  ca.crt: [ca.crt content]
  tls.crt: [tls.crt content]
  tls.key: [tls.key content]
kind: Secret
metadata:
  annotations:
    cert-manager.io/alt-names: gloo-telemetry-gateway.apps.cluster1.mydomain.net
    cert-manager.io/certificate-name: gloo-telemetry-gateway
    cert-manager.io/common-name: gloo-telemetry-gateway
    cert-manager.io/ip-sans: ""
    cert-manager.io/issuer-group: ""
    cert-manager.io/issuer-kind: ClusterIssuer
    cert-manager.io/issuer-name: vault-issuer-gloo
    cert-manager.io/uri-sans: ""
  creationTimestamp: "2023-02-17T00:57:39Z"
  labels:
    controller.cert-manager.io/fao: "true"
  name: gloo-telemetry-gateway-tls-secret
  namespace: gloo-mesh
  resourceVersion: "11625264"
  uid: 31c794da-2359-43e6-ae02-6575968a0814
type: kubernetes.io/tls

  5. Enable the Gloo telemetry gateway. In multicluster setups, enable the telemetry gateway in your management cluster.

    1. Get your current installation Helm values, and save them in a file. Note that if you migrated from the legacy charts, your release might have a different name. 
      helm get values gloo-platform -n gloo-mesh > gloo-gateway-single.yaml
open gloo-gateway-single.yaml
    2. Add or update the following sections in your Helm values file. If you previously installed the legacy metrics pipeline and want to continue using it alongside OTel, you can change legacyMetricsPipeline.enabled to true. 
      legacyMetricsPipeline:
  enabled: false
telemetryGateway:
  enabled: true
  resources:
    limits:
      cpu: 600m
      memory: 2Gi
    requests:
      cpu: 300m
      memory: 1Gi
telemetryGatewayCustomization:
  disableCertGeneration: true
    3. Upgrade your installation by using your updated values file. 
      helm upgrade gloo-platform gloo-platform/gloo-platform \
   --namespace gloo-mesh \
   --values gloo-gateway-single.yaml

  6. Verify that all pods in the gloo-mesh namespace are up and running, and that you see a gloo-telemetry-gateway* pod.

    kubectl get deployments -n gloo-mesh

  7. Get the external IP address of the load balancer service that was created for the Gloo telemetry gateway.

    export TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_IP=$(kubectl get svc -n gloo-mesh gloo-telemetry-gateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}')
export TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_PORT=$(kubectl -n gloo-mesh get service gloo-telemetry-gateway -o jsonpath='{.spec.ports[?(@.name=="otlp")].port}')
export TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_ADDRESS=${TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_IP}:${TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_PORT}
echo $TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_ADDRESS

  8. Use your cloud or DNS provider to create a DNS entry in your domain for the telemetry gateway's IP address.

  9. Prepare the Gloo telemetry collector agent installation. To successfully connect from a collector agent in the workload cluster to the telemetry gateway in the management cluster, the root CA certificate must be stored in a Kubernetes secret on the workload cluster. By default, the collector agents are configured to look up the root CA certificate from the relay-root-tls-secret Kubernetes secret in the gloo-mesh namespace. This secret might already exist in your workload cluster if you implemented Option 2 or Option 3 of the relay certificate setup options. Review the following options to decide if you can use this Kubernetes secret or need to create a new one.

    If you implemented Option 2 or Option 3 of the relay certificate setup options and you used the same root CA certificate to create the certificate for the telemetry gateway, you can use the relay-root-tls-secret Kubernetes for the collector agents.

    1. Check whether the relay-root-tls-secret secret exists. In multicluster setups, check for this secret in the workload clusters. 
      kubectl get secret relay-root-tls-secret -n gloo-mesh
    2. If the secret exists, no further action is required. If the certificate does not exist in your multicluster setup, copy the root CA certificate from the management cluster to each workload cluster. 
      kubectl get secret relay-root-tls-secret -n gloo-mesh --context $MGMT_CONTEXT -o jsonpath='{.data.ca\.crt}' | base64 -d > ca.crt
kubectl create secret generic relay-root-tls-secret -n gloo-mesh --context $REMOTE_CONTEXT --from-file ca.crt=ca.crt

    If you implemented Option 1 or Option 4 of the relay setup options, or if you decided to use a different root CA certificate for the telemetry gateway certificate, store the root CA certificate in a Kubernetes secret on each workload cluster.

    1. Store the root CA certificate that you want to use for the OTel pipeline in a secret. In multicluster setups, create this secret in each workload cluster.

      kubectl create secret generic telemetry-root-secret -n gloo-mesh --from-file ca.crt=<root_ca_cert>.crt

    2. Verify that the secret is created.

      kubectl get secret telemetry-root-secret -n gloo-mesh

  10. Enable the Gloo telemetry collector agents. In multicluster setups, enable the collector agents in each workload cluster.

    1. Get your updated installation Helm values again, and save them in a file. Note that if you migrated from the legacy charts, your release might have a different name. 
      helm get values gloo-platform -n gloo-mesh > gloo-gateway-single.yaml
open gloo-gateway-single.yaml
    2. Add or update the the following sections in your Helm values file. Replace the serverName value with the domain for your telemetry gateway's DNS entry. If you created a custom root CA certificate secret named telemetry-root-secret in step 1 of this guide, include that secret name in the extraVolumes section. If you decided to use the root CA certificate in the relay-root-tls-secret Kubernetes secret, you can remove the secretName: telemetry-root-secret line from the Helm values file. 
      telemetryCollector:
  config:
    exporters:
      otlp:
        # Domain for gateway's DNS entry
        endpoint: [domain]:443
        tls:
          ca_file: /etc/otel-certs/ca.crt
  enabled: true
  resources:
    limits:
      cpu: 2
      memory: 2Gi
    requests:
      cpu: 500m
      memory: 1Gi
  # Include this section if you created a custom root CA cert secret
  extraVolumes:
    - name: root-ca
      secret:
        defaultMode: 420
        # Add your root CA cert secret name
        secretName: telemetry-root-secret
telemetryCollectorCustomization:
  # Domain for gateway's DNS entry
  serverName: [domain]
    3. Upgrade your installation by using your updated values file. Include the telemetry gateway's address in a --set flag. 
      helm upgrade gloo-platform gloo-platform/gloo-platform \
   --namespace gloo-mesh \
   --values gloo-gateway-single.yaml \
   --set telemetryCollector.config.exporters.otlp.endpoint=$TELEMETRY_GATEWAY_ADDRESS

  11. Verify that all telemetry pods in the gloo-mesh namespace are up and running. Because the agents are deployed as a daemon set, the number of telemetry collector agent pods equals the number of worker nodes in your cluster.

    kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh

    Example output:

    ...
gloo-telemetry-collector-agent-7rzfb      1/1     Running   0          22s
gloo-telemetry-collector-agent-dgs87      1/1     Running   0          22s
gloo-telemetry-collector-agent-nbmr6      1/1     Running   0          22s
gloo-telemetry-gateway-6547f479d5-rtj7s   1/1     Running   0          107s

  12. Verify metrics collection.

Verify metrics collection

  1. Generate traffic for the apps in your cluster. For example, if you set up the Bookinfo app as part of the getting started guide, you can open the product page app in your browser to generate traffic.

    1. Open a port on your local machine for the product page app. 
      kubectl port-forward deploy/productpage-v1 -n bookinfo 9080
    2. Open the product page in your browser. 
      open http://localhost:9080/productpage?u=normal
    3. Refresh the page a couple of times to generate traffic.

  2. Open the Gloo UI.

    meshctl dashboard

  3. Verify that metrics were populated for your workloads by looking at the UI Graph.

  4. You can optionally review the raw metrics by opening the Prometheus UI and entering istio_requests_total in the expression search bar.