Setting up Event Generator App

Welcome to this tutorial on deploying the Event Generator application on Kubernetes. In this guide, you'll learn how to verify your prerequisites, clone the repository, review configuration files, and deploy the pod that simulates application events. Before getting started, ensure you have access to your Kubernetes cluster and that both Elasticsearch and Kibana are installed. In our lab environment, these components are pre-installed.

Prerequisite Check

Make sure to run the following command to verify the running pods. If you do not see Elasticsearch and Kibana, check your namespace context.

Step 1: Verify Prerequisites

Run the command below to list the running pods:

kubectl get pods
NAME                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
elasticsearch-0                  1/1     Running   0          6m42s
kibana-5b7c7f664b4-6l5zg         1/1     Running   0          6m42s

If the expected pods are missing, you might be operating in the wrong namespace. Adjust your namespace context using this command (replace efk with the correct namespace if needed):

kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=efk

Then verify the pods again:

kubectl get pods
NAME                             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
elasticsearch-0                  1/1     Running   0          7m40s
kibana-5bfc7f664b-6lszg          1/1     Running   0          7m40s

Step 2: Clone the Repository

Clone the GitHub repository containing the configuration files needed for the Event Generator pod:

git clone https://github.com/kodekloudhub/efk-stack.git

You should see an output similar to:

Cloning into 'efk-stack'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 116, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (116/116), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (99/99), done.
remote: Total 116 (delta 52), reused 54 (delta 11), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (116/116), 24.98 KiB | 6.24 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (52/52), done.

Step 3: Explore the Repository Structure

Navigate into the cloned repository and list the directories:

ls -lrt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Jun 29 13:49 python-simple
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Jun 29 13:49 nginx
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Jun 29 13:49 k8-monitoring
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Jun 29 13:49 event-generator
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Jun 29 13:49 elasticsearch-kibana

Now, switch to the Event Generator folder:

cd efk-stack/event-generator/
ls -lrt

This should display the following files:

total 24
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 372 Jun 29 13:49 webapp-fluent-bit.yaml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 2245 Jun 29 13:49 fluent-bit.yaml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 112 Jun 29 13:49 fluent-bit-sa.yaml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 1400 Jun 29 13:49 fluent-bit-config.yaml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 181 Jun 29 13:49 fluent-bit-clusterrole.yaml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 260 Jun 29 13:49 fluent-bit-clusterrolebinding.yaml

Step 4: Inspect the Pod Configuration

Examine the pod configuration in the webapp-fluent-bit.yaml file. This file creates a pod named "app-event-simulator" that pulls the Docker image from the KodeKloud repository. The pod mounts a host directory (/var/log/webapp) to /log within the container so that the logs can be stored properly.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: app-event-simulator
  labels:
    app: efk
spec:
  containers:
    - name: app
      image: kodekloud/event-simulator
      volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /log
          name: log-volume
  # Volume to store the logs
  volumes:
    - name: log-volume
      hostPath:
        path: /var/log/webapp
        type: DirectoryOrCreate

Step 5: Deploy the Pod

Apply the configuration to create the Event Simulator pod:

kubectl apply -f webapp-fluent-bit.yaml

Clear your screen and verify that the pod is running:

kubectl get pods
NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
app-event-simulator           1/1     Running   0          38s
elasticsearch-0               1/1     Running   0          10m
kibana-5bcf7f66b4-6lszg       1/1     Running   0          10m

Step 6: Verify Log Generation

To check the logs generated by the event simulator pod, run:

kubectl logs app-event-simulator

The output should resemble the following sample logs:

2023-06-29 13:51:52,118 WARNING in event-simulator: USER7 Order failed as the item is OUT OF STOCK.
2023-06-29 13:51:52,118 INFO in event-simulator: USER2 logged out
2023-06-29 13:51:53,119 INFO in event-simulator: USER3 is viewing page1
2023-06-29 13:51:54,120 WARNING in event-simulator: USER4 Failed to Login as the account is locked due to MANY FAILED ATTEMPTS.
2023-06-29 13:51:55,121 INFO in event-simulator: USER3 logged in
2023-06-29 13:51:57,123 INFO in event-simulator: USER2 is viewing page1
2023-06-29 13:51:58,124 INFO in event-simulator: USER2 is viewing page2
2023-06-29 13:51:59,125 INFO in event-simulator: USER5 Failed to Login as the account is locked due to MANY FAILED ATTEMPTS.
2023-06-29 13:52:00,126 WARNING in event-simulator: USER1 is viewing page1
2023-06-29 13:52:01,127 INFO in event-simulator: USER4 is viewing page1
2023-06-29 13:52:03,130 INFO in event-simulator: USER4 is viewing page3
2023-06-29 13:52:04,131 WARNING in event-simulator: USER1 Failed to Login as the account is locked due to MANY FAILED ATTEMPTS.
2023-06-29 13:52:05,132 INFO in event-simulator: USER2 is viewing page1
2023-06-29 13:52:06,134 INFO in event-simulator: USER1 logged out
2023-06-29 13:52:08,136 WARNING in event-simulator: USER7 Order failed as the item is OUT OF STOCK.
2023-06-29 13:52:09,137 WARNING in event-simulator: USER5 Failed to Login as the account is locked due to MANY FAILED ATTEMPTS.
2023-06-29 13:52:10,138 INFO in event-simulator: USER2 is viewing page1
2023-06-29 13:52:12,140 INFO in event-simulator: USER4 is viewing page1
2023-06-29 13:52:13,141 INFO in event-simulator: USER1 logged out
2023-06-29 13:52:14,143 WARNING in event-simulator: USER5 Failed to Login as the account is locked due to MANY FAILED ATTEMPTS.
2023-06-29 13:52:15,145 WARNING in event-simulator: USER6 Order failed as the item is OUT OF STOCK.
2023-06-29 13:52:16,146 INFO in event-simulator: USER3 is viewing page3

The event simulator simulates an e-commerce application by generating various log types (INFO and WARNING) which indicate user activities like page views, login attempts, and order failures. These logs can be analyzed on a dashboard to gain insights into user behavior.

Next Steps

With the Event Simulator application running, the next lesson will guide you through configuring Fluent Bit to collect these logs and forward them to Elasticsearch for analysis.

For further information on Kubernetes deployment patterns and logging integrations, consider reviewing the following resources:

Happy logging!

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