How do I access npm log files in GKE? - node.js

Question

I'm running different nodejs microservices on Google Kubernetes Services.
Sometimes these services crash and according to Cloud Logging, I can find detailed information in a logging file. For example, the logging message says
{
"textPayload": "npm ERR! /root/.npm/_logs/2021-10-27T11_26_28_534Z-debug.log\n",
"insertId": "zoqxk8wvkuofhslm",
"resource": {
"type": "k8s_container",
"labels": {
"pod_name": "client-depl-7f679c6b49-5d9tz",
"container_name": "client",
"namespace_name": "production",
"cluster_name": "cluster-1",
"location": "europe-west3-a",
"project_id": "XXX"
}
},
"timestamp": "2021-10-27T11:26:28.701252670Z",
"severity": "ERROR",
"labels": {
"k8s-pod/app": "client",
"k8s-pod/skaffold_dev/run-id": "b5518659-05d6-4c08-9b55-9d58fdd5807f",
"k8s-pod/pod-template-hash": "7f679c6b49",
"compute.googleapis.com/resource_name": "gke-cluster-1-pool-1-8bfc60b2-ag86",
"k8s-pod/app_kubernetes_io/managed-by": "skaffold"
},
"logName": "projects/xxx-productive/logs/stderr",
"receiveTimestamp": "xxx"
}
Where do I find these logs on Google Cloud Platform?
---------------- Edit 2021.10.28 ---------------------------
I should clarify that I am already using the logs explorer. This is what I see there:
The logs show 7 consecutive error entries about npm failing. The last two entries indicate that there are more information in a log file "/root/.npm/_logs/2021-10-27T11_26_28_534Z-debug.log".
Does this log file has more info about the failure or is all the info I get in these 7 error log entries?
Thanks

Answer 1

kubectl logs <your_pod>
You can use GCP Logs Explorer

Answer 2

Assuming you already Enable Logging and Monitoring, You can view logs on:
a. Go to the Logs explorer in the Cloud Console.
b. Click Resource. Under ALL_RESOURCE_TYPES, select Kubernetes Container.
c. Under CLUSTER_NAME, select the name of your user cluster.
d. Under NAMESPACE_NAME, select default.
e. Click Add and then click Run Query.
f. Under Query results, you can see log entries from the monitoring-example Deployment. For example:
{
"textPayload": "2020/11/14 01:24:24 Starting to listen on :9090\n",
"insertId": "1oa4vhg3qfxidt",
"resource": {
"type": "k8s_container",
"labels": {
"pod_name": "monitoring-example-7685d96496-xqfsf",
"cluster_name": ...,
"namespace_name": "default",
"project_id": ...,
"location": "us-west1",
"container_name": "prometheus-example-exporter"
}
},
"timestamp": "2020-11-14T01:24:24.358600252Z",
"labels": {
"k8s-pod/pod-template-hash": "7685d96496",
"k8s-pod/app": "monitoring-example"
},
"logName": "projects/.../logs/stdout",
"receiveTimestamp": "2020-11-14T01:24:39.562864735Z"
}

Answer 3

How about
log into the pod while it is alive
kubectl exec -it your-pod -- sh
wait for it to crash and watch the crash file in real time while the pod is not restarted yet :)

Answer 4

How to login to a GCP Pod:
From the Google Cloud Platform main menu go to Kubernetes Engine -> Workloads
Click on the workload you're interested in:
Find the Managed Pods section and click on the Pod you want to access:
Click on KUBECTL -> Exec -> [name of workload/namespace]
A terminal should appear at the bottom of the browser page, SSHing you into the pod. You can look around for your log file from inside here