Kubewatch

kubewatch is a Kubernetes watcher that currently publishes notification to Slack. Run it in your k8s cluster, and you will get event notifications in a slack channel.

Create a Slack bot

Create a new Bot: https://my.slack.com/services/new/bot

Edit the Bot to customize its name, icon and retrieve the API token (it starts with xoxb-).

Invite the Bot into your channel by typing: /join @name_of_your_bot in the Slack message area.

Installing kubewatch using helm

When you have helm installed in your cluster, use the following setup:

helm install kubewatch stable/kubewatch --set='rbac.create=true,slack.channel=#YOUR_CHANNEL,slack.token=xoxb-YOUR_TOKEN,resourcesToWatch.pod=true,resourcesToWatch.daemonset=true'

You may also provide a values file instead:

rbac:
  create: true
resourcesToWatch:
  daemonset: true
  deployment: false
  pod: true
  replicaset: false
  replicationcontroller: false
  services: true
  secret: false
  configmap: false
slack:
  channel: '#YOUR_CHANNEL'
  token: 'xoxb-YOUR_TOKEN'

And use that:

$ helm upgrade --install kubewatch stable/kubewatch --values=values-file.yml

Installing kubewatch using kubectl

In order to run kubewatch in a Kubernetes cluster quickly, the easiest way is for you to create a ConfigMap to hold kubewatch configuration. It contains the SLACK bot API token and channel to use.

An example is provided at kubewatch-configmap.yaml, do not forget to update your own slack channel and token parameters. Alternatively, you could use secrets.

Create k8s configmap:

$ kubectl create -f kubewatch-configmap.yaml

Create the Pod directly, or create your own deployment:

$ kubectl create -f kubewatch.yaml

A kubewatch container will be created along with kubectl sidecar container in order to reach the API server.

Once the Pod is running, you will start seeing Kubernetes events in your configured Slack channel. Here is a screenshot:

To modify what notifications you get, update the kubewatch ConfigMap and turn on and off (true/false) resources:

resource:
      deployment: false
      replicationcontroller: false
      replicaset: false
      daemonset: false
      services: true
      pod: true
      secret: false
      configmap: false
      ingress: false

Working with RBAC

Kubernetes Engine clusters running versions 1.6 or higher introduced Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). We can create ServiceAccount for it to work with RBAC.

$ kubectl create -f kubewatch-service-account.yaml

If you do not have permission to create it, you need to become a admin first. For example, in GKE you would run:

$ kubectl create clusterrolebinding cluster-admin-binding --clusterrole=cluster-admin --user=REPLACE_EMAIL_HERE

Edit kubewatch.yaml, and create a new field under spec with serviceAccountName: kubewatch, you can achieve this by running:

$ sed -i '/spec:/a\ \ serviceAccountName: kubewatch' kubewatch.yaml

Then just create pod as usual with:

$ kubectl create -f kubewatch.yaml

Building

Building with go

• you need go v1.5 or later.
• if your working copy is not in your GOPATH, you need to set it accordingly.

$ go build -o kubewatch main.go

You can also use the Makefile directly:

$ make build

Building with Docker

$ make docker-image
$ docker images
REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED              SIZE
kubewatch           latest              919896d3cd90        3 minutes ago       27.9MB

Download kubewatch package

$ go get -u github.com/bitnami-labs/kubewatch

Configuration

Kubewatch supports config command for configuration. Config file will be saved at $HOME/.kubewatch.yaml

Configure slack

$ kubewatch config slack --channel <slack_channel> --token <slack_token>

Configure flock

$ kubewatch config flock --url <flock_webhook_url>

Configure resources to be watched

// rc, po and svc will be watched
$ kubewatch config resource --rc --po --svc

// only svc will be watched
$ kubewatch config resource --svc

Environment variables

You have an altenative choice to set your SLACK token, channel via environment variables:

$ export KW_SLACK_TOKEN='XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX'
$ export KW_SLACK_CHANNEL='#channel_name'

You have an altenative choice to set your FLOCK URL

$ export KW_FLOCK_URL='https://api.flock.com/hooks/sendMessage/XXXXXXXX'

Run kubewatch locally

$ kubewatch