Managing Elasticsearch Cluster Logs

Impact on Billing

When log backup is enabled, the generated log backups are stored in OBS buckets, which will result in additional costs. For details, see Object Storage Service Billing.

Prerequisites

The OBS bucket used for storing log backups has been created. The OBS bucket must meet the following requirements:

• Storage Class: Standard.
• Region: the same as that of the cluster.

Querying Logs

1. Log in to the CSS management console.
2. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Clusters > Elasticsearch.
3. In the cluster list, click the name of the target cluster. The cluster information page is displayed.
4. Choose Logs > Log Search. The Log Search page is displayed.

   You can search records by log type, node, log level, or keyword. For a detailed description of each type of logs, see Log Introduction.

   When a log file reaches 128 MB or when the time reaches 00:00 UTC, the system automatically compresses and archives it. Only unarchived logs appear on the log search page, while archived logs remain accessible through the log backup function.

Backing Up Logs

Cluster logs can be backed up to OBS buckets, where you can download them for in-depth analysis at any time.

1. Log in to the CSS management console.
2. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Clusters > Elasticsearch.
3. In the cluster list, click the name of the target cluster. The cluster information page is displayed.
4. Choose Logs > Log Backup. The Log Backup page is displayed.
5. Enable log backup.

   Perform the following steps to enable log backup. If it is already enabled, skip this step.

   1. Click Enable Backup. In the displayed dialog box, configure necessary settings.

      Table 1 Log backup settings

      Parameter	Description
      OBS Bucket	Select an OBS bucket for storing log backups from the drop-down list box. If no OBS buckets meet your requirements, click Create Bucket to go to the OBS console and create one. For details, see Creating a Bucket.
      Backup Path	Set the log storage location in the OBS bucket. The backup path cannot: Contain the following characters: \:*?"<>|'{} Start with a slash (/). Start or end with a period (.). Contain more than two consecutive slashes (/) or periods (.). Exceed 512 characters.
      IAM Agency	To back up data to an OBS bucket, you must have the write permission to it. By configuring an IAM agency, you can authorize CSS to access its OBS resources through an associated account. If you are configuring an agency for the first time, click Automatically Create IAM Agency to create css-obs-agency. If there is an IAM agency automatically created earlier, you can click One-click authorization to have the OBS Administrator permissions deleted automatically, and have the following custom policies added automatically instead to implement more refined permissions control. "obs:bucket:GetBucketLocation", "obs:object:GetObjectVersion", "obs:object:GetObject", "obs:object:DeleteObject", "obs:bucket:HeadBucket", "obs:bucket:GetBucketStoragePolicy", "obs:object:DeleteObjectVersion", "obs:bucket:ListBucketVersions", "obs:bucket:ListBucket", "obs:object:PutObject" When OBS buckets use SSE-KMS encryption, the IAM agency must be granted KMS permissions. You can click Automatically Create IAM Agency and One-click authorization to have the following custom policies created automatically. "kms:cmk:create", "kms:dek:create", "kms:cmk:get", "kms:dek:decrypt", "kms:cmk:list" To use Automatically Create IAM Agency and One-click authorization, the following minimum permissions are required: "iam:agencies:listAgencies", "iam:roles:listRoles", "iam:agencies:getAgency", "iam:agencies:createAgency", "iam:permissions:listRolesForAgency", "iam:permissions:grantRoleToAgency", "iam:permissions:listRolesForAgencyOnProject", "iam:permissions:revokeRoleFromAgency", "iam:roles:createRole" To use an IAM agency, the following minimum permissions are required: "iam:agencies:listAgencies", "iam:agencies:getAgency", "iam:permissions:listRolesForAgencyOnProject", "iam:permissions:listRolesForAgency" WARNING: The agency name can contain only letters (case-sensitive), digits, underscores (_), and hyphens (-). Otherwise, the backup will fail.

      Determine whether to enable Automatic backup based on service needs.

      • To enable automatic, periodic log backup, select Automatic backup, and set the backup policy. For more information, see Table 2.
      • If manual log backup is sufficient, deselect Automatic backup.
   2. Click OK to enable log backup.

      The configuration information will be displayed on the Log Backup tab.

6. Back up logs. Two options are available: automatic or manual.

   Automatic log backup: Logs are backed up periodically based on the preset policy.

   1. On the Log Backup page, click Modify Settings on the right.
      Figure 1 Modifying Settings
      
   2. In the Modify Settings dialog box, select Automatic backup, and configure the automatic backup policy.

      Table 2 Automatic backup settings

      Parameter	Description
      Time Zone	Select a time zone for the backup start time.
      Backup Start Time	Specify the start time of auto backup. Select a value from the drop-down list. The value range is from 00:00 to 23:00. The backup always happens on the hour.

   3. Click OK to enable automatic log backup.

      Automatic log backup tasks are displayed in the task list. When Task Status in the task list changes to Succeeded, the backup is successful.

      If log backup fails, click Failed Tasks learn the failure causes. A maximum of 10 failed tasks can be displayed. When log backup is disabled or the cluster is deleted, the failure records are also cleared.

   4. If automatic log backup is not required, click Modify Settings. In the displayed dialog box, deselect Automatic backup, and click OK. In the displayed confirmation dialog box, click OK.

      Disabling log backup does not automatically delete log backups automatically generated earlier. Instead, you need to manually delete them on the OBS console.

   Manual log backup: Back up logs right away.

   1. On the Log Backup page, click Back Up Manually under Log Backup Tasks.
      Figure 2 Manually backing up logs
      
   2. In the displayed dialog box, confirm the log backup path and click OK.

      The log backup task is displayed in the task list. When Task Status in the task list changes to Succeeded, the backup is successful.

      If log backup fails, click Failed Tasks learn the failure causes. A maximum of 10 failed tasks can be displayed. When log backup is disabled or the cluster is deleted, the failure records are also cleared.

7. Check the backed-up log files.

   Logs are backed up incrementally. After the backup is successful, you can access the target OBS bucket to obtain the full log files by clicking Log Path.

   Figure 3 OBS bucket address
   

   Table 3 lists the log types, where clustername indicates the cluster name.

   Table 3 Log types

   Log Name	Description
   clustername_deprecation.log	Deprecation log file
   clustername_index_indexing_slowlog.log	Slow indexing log file
   clustername_index_search_slowlog.log	Slow query log file
   clustername.log	Run log file
   clustername_access.log	Access log file

8. If the log backup function is no longer needed, you can disable it.

   On the Log Backup page, click Disable Backup. In the displayed dialog box, click OK. Disabling log backup does not automatically delete existing log backups. Instead, you need to manually delete them on the OBS console.

Log Ingestion

With log ingestion, you can store the real-time logs of a cluster in itself or a different cluster on the same network, facilitating log search and analytics using Kibana.

Log ingestion is supported only when the Elasticsearch cluster version is 7.10.2 and the image version is no earlier than 7.10.2_24.2.0_x.x.x.

1. Log in to the CSS management console.
2. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Clusters > Elasticsearch.
3. In the cluster list, click the name of the target cluster. The cluster information page is displayed.
4. Choose Logs > Log Ingestion. The Log Ingestion page is displayed.
   

   If the Log Ingestion tab is not displayed, the cluster does not support log ingestion.

5. Enable log ingestion. If it is already enabled, skip this step.
   1. Click Enable Log Ingestion. In the displayed dialog box, configure necessary settings.

      Table 4 Log ingestion settings

      Parameter	Description
      Index Prefix Name	If you set a prefix for the log file indexes, the log index names will use the format index prefix name + log ingestion date. The unit of log ingestion is days. An index prefix name is a string of 1 to 128 characters. It can contain only digits, lowercase letters, underscores (_), and hyphens (-).
      Retention Period	Set the log retention period. Ingested logs will be deleted upon expiration of this period. Value range: 1 to 3650 Unit: days
      Log Storage Cluster	Select a cluster to store ingested logs. Options include Current cluster and Other clusters. Current cluster: Store ingested logs in the current cluster. Other clusters: Store ingested logs in another cluster. Select a cluster from the Cluster drop-down list to use as the log storage destination. Make sure this cluster is in the same VPC and have the same version as the current cluster. When you select another cluster, click Check to verify network connectivity between the current cluster and the selected other cluster. Log ingestion can start only when The current cluster is available is displayed.

   2. Click OK to enable log ingestion.

      The configuration information will be displayed on the Log Ingestion tab.

6. View ingested logs.

   If the task status changes to Running, log ingestion has started.

   Figure 4 Viewing ingested logs
   
   • Click Kibana to log in to the target cluster and check the logs.
   • Click the cluster name at Log Storage Cluster to go to the cluster details page.
7. If you no longer need the log ingestion function, you can disable it to reclaim storage resources.

   On the Log Ingestion page, click Disable Log Ingestion. In the displayed dialog box, click OK. Disabling log ingestion does not automatically remove ingested log data. Rather, it will be deleted by the system upon expiration of their retention period. You can also manually delete it from the target cluster before the retention period expires.

Log Introduction

• Run log description

  Run logs record the cluster status and key information about write and query operations. For example, the log record below indicates that an index named test was created and afterwards the cluster status changed from YELLOW to GREEN.

  Figure 5 A sample of run logs
  
  Log content:

  • 1. Log generation time
  • 2. Log level, which can be DEBUG, INFO, WARN, or ERROR
  • 3. Log-generating module
  • 4. Name of the log-generating node
  • 5. Log content
• Slow indexing log description

  Slow indexing logs record indexing operations that took a long time to complete. For example, the log record below shows an indexing request that lasted longer than the preset threshold. The log contains the index name, duration, and request content.

  Figure 6 A sample of slow indexing logs
  
  Log content:

  • 1. Log generation time

  • 2. Log level, which can be DEBUG, INFO, WARN, or ERROR
  • 3. Log-generating module
  • 4. Name of the log-generating node
  • 5. Index name and ID
  • 6. Log content. In this example, the log recorded the request execution duration, index type, and index request body.
• Slow query log description

  Slow query logs record search requests that took a long time to complete. For example, the log record below shows a search request that lasted longer than the preset threshold. The log contains the index name, duration, and request content.

  Figure 7 A sample of slow query logs
  
  Log content:

  • 1. Log generation time
  • 2. Log level, which can be DEBUG, INFO, WARN, or ERROR
  • 3. Log-generating module
  • 4. Name of the log-generating node
  • 5. Index name and shard ID
  • 6. Log content. In this example, the log recorded the query duration, number of hits, and query request body.
• Deprecation log description

  Deprecation logs record deprecation warnings. For example, the log record below indicates that GET /_cat/master has been deprecated and should be replaced with GET /_cat/cluster_manager.

  Figure 8 A sample of deprecation logs
  
  Log content:

  • 1. Log generation time
  • 2. Log level, which can only be DEPRECATION.
  • 3. Log-generating module
  • 4. Name of the log-generating node
  • 5. Log content
• Access log description

  Access logs record cluster access requests and source addresses. For example, the log record below has recorded source information for the /_snapshot/my_backup/my_snapshot/_restore?pretty=true operation.

  Figure 9 A sample of access logs
  
  Log content:

  • 1. Log generation time
  • 2. Name of the log-generating node
  • 3. Name of the log-generating thread
  • 4. Log level, which can be DEBUG, INFO, WARN, or ERROR.
  • 5. Log request method
  • 6. Request path
  • 7. Source and destination addresses of the request

Related Documents

How Do I Set Slow Query Log Thresholds for an Elasticsearch Cluster of CSS?