PART-2 – ECK setup

ECK is only available with basic and enterprise/trial license!

Deploy ECK

Just run following command to install the custom resource definitions – or download the yaml and apply it

kubectl apply -f https://download.elastic.co/downloads/eck/1.3.0/all-in-one.yaml

Setting Up The Elasticsearch-Cluster

Create a folder where you save your yaml-files. In this example we will assume that vkube-001 is in zone-1 and vkube-002 is in zone-2. We will save Elasticsearch data on persistent-volumes which are bound to specific pods on the nodes. The setup will try to imitate a hot-warm-cold setup with two Elasticsearch nodes each – this means for the hot-nodes one will run in zone-1 and the other in zone-2,…

The cluster will run in the namespace elk and will also be named elk

Why So Complicated?

Yes, this setup may be a little over the top. But if you for example have in each zone two Kubernetes nodes, and one dies or is in maintenance, Elasticsearch would probably move the pod to another available Kubernetes node (in default setup). This would then create another volume and copy all shards, which can take very long in large environments. With this setup we just have to wait until the node is back online and Elasticsearch will reuse the available data and reconstruct everything.

Prepare Static Local Persistent-Volumes

Create a subfolder e.g. called persistent-volumes here we place all yaml-files holding info about them.

Create the file holding info about the storage-class we will use – e.g. storage-class.yaml:

kind: StorageClass
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: local-storage
  provisioner: kubernetes.io/no-provisioner
  volumeBindingMode: WaitForFirstConsumer

Create subfolders hot, warm and cold each with subfolders zone-1 and zone-2 – this will make it easier to keep track of files

Hot-Volumes Configuration

hot persistent-volumes — in the hot/zone-1-folder create a file

pv-001-elk-zone-1-hot-es-pod-0.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: pv-001-elk-zone-1-hot-es-pod-0
  spec:
    capacity:
      storage: 5Gi
    accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
    # Delete is not working in this case!
    persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
    storageClassName: local-storage
    local:
      # the folder has to be created before applying this yaml
      path: /data/pv-001-elk-zone-1-hot-es-pod-0
    nodeAffinity:
      required:
        nodeSelectorTerms:
        - matchExpressions:
          - key: kubernetes.io/hostname
            operator: In
            values:
            - vkube-001
    claimRef:
      # we want that the first pod/es-node is always on this node
      # the pattern is: elasticsearch-data-CLUSTERNAME-es-NODESETNAME-PODNUMBER
      name: elasticsearch-data-elk-es-zone-1-hot-0
      namespace: elk

pv-002-elk-zone-2-hot-es-pod-0.yaml

create another file in the hot/zone-2-folder with this name

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: pv-002-elk-zone-2-hot-es-pod-0
spec:
  capacity:
    storage: 5Gi
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  # Delete is not working in this case!
  persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
  storageClassName: local-storage
  local:
    # the folder has to be created before applying this yaml
    path: /data/pv-002-elk-zone-2-hot-es-pod-0
  nodeAffinity:
    required:
      nodeSelectorTerms:
      - matchExpressions:
        - key: kubernetes.io/hostname
          operator: In
          values:
          - vkube-002
  claimRef:
    # we want that the first pod/es-node is always on this node
    # the pattern is: elasticsearch-data-CLUSTERNAME-es-NODESETNAME-PODNUMBER
    name: elasticsearch-data-elk-es-zone-2-hot-0
    namespace: elk

Warm-Volumes Configuration

create the needed warm-files in the corresponding folder (in our case pv-001 in zone-1, pv-002 in zone-2)

pv-001-elk-zone-1-warm-es-pod-0.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: pv-001-elk-zone-1-warm-es-pod-0
spec:
  capacity:
    storage: 5Gi
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  # Delete is not working in this case!
  persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
  storageClassName: local-storage
  local:
    path: /data/pv-001-elk-zone-1-warm-es-pod-0
  nodeAffinity:
    required:
      nodeSelectorTerms:
      - matchExpressions:
        - key: kubernetes.io/hostname
          operator: In
          values:
          - vkube-001
  claimRef:
    # we want that the first pod/es-node is always on this node
    # the pattern is: elasticsearch-data-CLUSTERNAME-es-NODESETNAME-PODNUMBER
    name: elasticsearch-data-elk-es-zone-1-warm-0
    namespace: elk

pv-002-elk-zone-2-warm-es-pod-0.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
  name: pv-002-elk-zone-2-warm-es-pod-0
spec:
  capacity:
    storage: 5Gi
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  # Delete is not working in this case!
  persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
  storageClassName: local-storage
  local:
    # the folder has to be created before applying this yaml
    path: /data/pv-002-elk-zone-2-warm-es-pod-0
  nodeAffinity:
     required:
       nodeSelectorTerms:
       - matchExpressions:
         - key: kubernetes.io/hostname
           operator: In
           values:
           - vkube-002
  claimRef:
    # we want that the first pod/es-node is always on this node
    # the pattern is: elasticsearch-data-CLUSTERNAME-es-NODESETNAME-PODNUMBER
    name: elasticsearch-data-elk-es-zone-2-warm-0
    namespace: elk

Cold-Volumes Configuration

repeat for cold-files 😉

Create Folders On Each Node

as mentioned in the yaml-code, the folders have to be created on the defined Kubernetes nodes first before applying.

# on vkube-001
mkdir -p /data/pv-001-elk-zone-1-hot-es-pod-0 /data/pv-001-elk-zone-1-warm-es-pod-0 /data/pv-001-elk-zone-1-cold-es-pod-0 
# on vkube-002
mkdir -p /data/pv-002-elk-zone-2-hot-es-pod-0 /data/pv-002-elk-zone-2-warm-es-pod-0 /data/pv-002-elk-zone-2-cold-es-pod-0

You should now be able to apply the yamls in the persistent-volumes-folder: kubectl apply -R -f persistent-volumes

with kubectl get pv you should see all defined persistent-volumes pop up as Available

About "storage.capacity": The parameter is mandatory and has to be set BUT unless you use the "CSIStorageCapacity" feature gate and the "CSIDriver" it seems to not have no effect. The data in the folders can grow larger than the set limit, which is in this case OK – because later when we set up the "Stack Monitoring" you will see that Elasticsearch sees all available space where the persistent-volume is placed.

Prepare Elasticsearch

missing the node.roles parameter – will have to update the elasticsearch.yaml soon™

create a the file elasticsearch.yaml in your main-folder where you save your yaml-configs

# This theoretically should install 6 elasticsearch nodes (hot-warm-cold)
# every k8s node is representing a zone
#  2 as hot  -- one pod on each k8s node
#  2 as warm -- one pod on each k8s node
#  2 as cold -- one pod on each k8s node
# a persistent local volume is available - see the pv-files
apiVersion: elasticsearch.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Elasticsearch
metadata:
  # change it if needed
  name: elk
  namespace: elk
spec:
  version: 7.10.0
  # this will inject the secret into elasticsearch's keystore. it's content is the password for 
  # the later activedirectory example you'll find in the first nodeset-zone-definition
  # the secrets data saves a base64 (make sure its one line without newline) coded password with the key
  # xpack.security.authc.realms.active_directory.ad1.secure_bind_password
  # for base64ing the password you can use something like: echo -n 'the-password' | base64 -w 0
  #secureSettings:
  #- secretName: ldap-elasticsearch-ad
  nodeSets:
  - name: zone-1-hot
    count: 1
    config:
      # needed if you do not have set the vm.max_map_count kernel parameter via other means
      # node.store.allow_mmap: false
      node.attr.data: hot
      node.attr.zone: zone-1
      cluster.routing.allocation.awareness.attributes: k8s_node_name,zone
      # https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/configuring-metricbeat.html
      xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled: true
      xpack.monitoring.elasticsearch.collection.enabled: false
      # for audit logging - make sure to enable it after setting up filebeat - else you have a lot of logs
      # and finding errors will be hard
      xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
      # if you have ActiveDirectory and want users to be able to authenticate (roll-mappings needed)
      # this is only an example - the sections are missing in the other nodeset-zone-definitions
      #xpack.security.authc.realms:
      #  # we need native to be able to fall back to built-in users, in case something goes wrong
      #  native:
      #    native1:
      #      order: 0
      #  active_directory:
      #    ad1:
      #      order: 1
      #      domain_name: home.local
      #      url: ldaps://ldap1.home.local:3269, ldaps://ldap2.home.local:3269
      #      # for debugging we can disable cert verification
      #      # ssl.verification_mode: none
      #      ssl.certificate_authorities: /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/certs/home-local-ca.pem
      #      bind_dn: ldap_elasticsearch@home.local
      #      # password set via secure_bind_password 
      #      user_search.base_dn: OU=USR,DC=home,DC=local
      #      group_search.base_dn: OU=GRP,DC=home,DC=local
    podTemplate:
      metadata:
        labels:
          # change it if needed
          cluster: elk
          stackmonitoring: elasticsearch
      spec:
        # needed for the AD ldaps ca-cert
        #securityContext:
        #  runAsUser: 1000
        #  runAsGroup: 1000
        #  fsGroup: 1000
        containers:
          - name: elasticsearch
            # needed for pointing ssl.certificate_authorities above to the correct cert
            #volumeMounts:
            #- name: home-local-windows-ca
            #  mountPath: /usr/share/elasticsearch/config/certs
            #  readOnly: true
            env:
            - name: ES_JAVA_OPTS
              value: -Xms512m -Xmx512m
        # to be able to do the volume mount above - save the secret in the correct namespace
        # make sure it's base64 encoded (e.g. `cat home-local-ca.pem | base64 -w 0`)
        #volumes:
        #- name: home-local-ca
        #  secret:
        #    secretName: home-local-ca
    # to reclaim an existing persistent volume - check first it's state: kubectl get pv
    # it should either not exist yet or if you want to reclaim it you have to remove it's claimref-uid
    # e.g. kubectl patch persistentvolume/pv-001-elk-zone-1-hot-es-pod-0 --type json -p '[{op: remove, path: 
    # /spec/claimRef/uid}]'
    volumeClaimTemplates:
    - metadata:
        name: elasticsearch-data
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 5Gi
        storageClassName: local-storage
  - name: zone-2-hot
    count: 1
    config:
      node.attr.data: hot
      node.attr.zone: zone-2
      cluster.routing.allocation.awareness.attributes: k8s_node_name,zone
      # https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/configuring-metricbeat.html
      xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled: true
      xpack.monitoring.elasticsearch.collection.enabled: false
      # for audit logging
      xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
    podTemplate:
      metadata:
        labels:
          # change it if needed
          cluster: elk
          stackmonitoring: elasticsearch
      spec:
        containers:
          - name: elasticsearch
            env:
            - name: ES_JAVA_OPTS
              value: -Xms512m -Xmx512m
    volumeClaimTemplates:
    - metadata:
        name: elasticsearch-data
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 5Gi
        storageClassName: local-storage
  - name: zone-1-warm
    count: 1
    config:
      node.attr.data: warm
      node.attr.zone: zone-1
      cluster.routing.allocation.awareness.attributes: k8s_node_name,zone
      # https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/configuring-metricbeat.html
      xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled: true
      xpack.monitoring.elasticsearch.collection.enabled: false
      # for audit logging
      xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
    podTemplate:
      metadata:
        labels:
          # change it if needed
          cluster: elk
          stackmonitoring: elasticsearch
      spec:
        containers:
          - name: elasticsearch
            env:
            - name: ES_JAVA_OPTS
              value: -Xms512m -Xmx512m
    volumeClaimTemplates:
    - metadata:
        name: elasticsearch-data
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 5Gi
        storageClassName: local-storage
  - name: zone-2-warm
    count: 1
    config:
      node.attr.data: warm
      node.attr.zone: zone-2
      cluster.routing.allocation.awareness.attributes: k8s_node_name,zone
      # https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/configuring-metricbeat.html
      xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled: true
      xpack.monitoring.elasticsearch.collection.enabled: false
      # for audit logging
      xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
    podTemplate:
      metadata:
        labels:
          # change it if needed
          cluster: elk
          stackmonitoring: elasticsearch
      spec:
        containers:
          - name: elasticsearch
            env:
            - name: ES_JAVA_OPTS
              value: -Xms512m -Xmx512m
    volumeClaimTemplates:
    - metadata:
        name: elasticsearch-data
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 5Gi
        storageClassName: local-storage
  - name: zone-1-cold
    count: 1
    config:
      node.attr.data: cold
      node.attr.zone: zone-1
      cluster.routing.allocation.awareness.attributes: k8s_node_name,zone
      # https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/configuring-metricbeat.html
      xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled: true
      xpack.monitoring.elasticsearch.collection.enabled: false
      # for audit logging
      xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
    podTemplate:
      metadata:
        labels:
          # change it if needed
          cluster: elk
          stackmonitoring: elasticsearch
      spec:
        containers:
          - name: elasticsearch
            env:
            - name: ES_JAVA_OPTS
              value: -Xms512m -Xmx512m
    volumeClaimTemplates:
    - metadata:
        name: elasticsearch-data
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 5Gi
        storageClassName: local-storage
  - name: zone-2-cold
    count: 1
    config:
      node.attr.data: cold
      node.attr.zone: zone-2
      cluster.routing.allocation.awareness.attributes: k8s_node_name,zone
      # https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/configuring-metricbeat.html
      xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled: true
      xpack.monitoring.elasticsearch.collection.enabled: false
      # for audit logging
      xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
    podTemplate:
      metadata:
        labels:
          # change it if needed
          cluster: elk
          stackmonitoring: elasticsearch
      spec:
        containers:
          - name: elasticsearch
            env:
            - name: ES_JAVA_OPTS
              value: -Xms512m -Xmx512m
    volumeClaimTemplates:
    - metadata:
        name: elasticsearch-data
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 5Gi
        storageClassName: local-storage
  ---
  # the ingress definition
  # the operator seems to create a service CLUSTERNAME-es-http - you should find it with kubectl get services -n elk
  # if you see a Warning: networking.k8s.io/v1beta1 Ingress is deprecated in v1.19+, unavailable in v1.22+; use networking.k8s.io/v1 Ingress
  # you can have a look at https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89778 if you want to use networking.k8s.io/v1
  apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1beta1
  kind: Ingress
  metadata:
  name: elasticsearch
  # change it if needed
  namespace: elk
  annotations:
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/backend-protocol: HTTPS
  spec:
  rules:
  # change it if needed
  - host: elasticsearch.home.local
    http:
      paths:
      - backend:
          # change it if needed
          serviceName: elk-es-http
          servicePort: 9200

add elasticsearch.home.local to your hosts-file for example: 192.168.100.120 elasticsearch.home.local and get your elastic credentials: kubectl get secret elk-es-elastic-user -o=jsonpath='{.data.elastic}' -n elk | base64 --decode; echo

you can save it temporarily into a variable: export ELASTIC_PW=$(kubectl get secret elk-es-elastic-user -o=jsonpath='{.data.elastic}' -n elk | base64 --decode; echo)

try curl -k https://elastic:${ELASTIC_PW}@elasticsearch.home.local:30443/?pretty – save the cluster_uuid somewhere for later 😉

Congratulations you have your Elastichsearch-Cluster up and running!

Prepare Kibana

As we want to make sure, that it is scaleable we have to first create a secret with Kibana\’s encryptionKey inside. Also we have to set another annotation in the ingress-definition. For the secret create a folder secrects and create a file kibana-secret-settings.yaml:

# the key is base64 encoded
# create some key with 32 characters: HnWzJhQFxNuoUMPj8ufFxJPBcXFOh46m
# echo -n 'HnWzJhQFxNuoUMPj8ufFxJPBcXFOh46m' | base64 -w 0
# this will output: SG5XekpoUUZ4TnVvVU1Qajh1ZkZ4SlBCY1hGT2g0Nm0K
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: kibana-secret-settings
  namespace: elk
type: Opaque
data:
  xpack.security.encryptionKey: SG5XekpoUUZ4TnVvVU1Qajh1ZkZ4SlBCY1hGT2g0Nm0=

In the main-folder create a kibana.yaml:

apiVersion: kibana.k8s.elastic.co/v1
kind: Kibana
metadata:
  # change if needed
  name: kibana
  namespace: elk
spec:
  version: 7.10.0
  count: 2
  # if you want to scale up, the encryptionKey must be everywhere the same
  secureSettings:
  - secretName: kibana-secret-settings
  elasticsearchRef:
    # change if needed
    name: elk
  config:
    # For Elasticsearch clusters that are running in containers, this setting changes the Node Listing to display the CPU 
    # utilization based on the reported Cgroup statistics. It also adds the calculated Cgroup CPU utilization to the Node 
    # Overview page instead of the overall operating system’s CPU utilization. Defaults to false.
    xpack.monitoring.ui.container.elasticsearch.enabled: true
    # we want to disable "self-monitoring" - in documentations and examples it's mentioned with xpack - but it seems it's
    # really the setting without xpack.
    xpack.monitoring.kibana.collection.enabled: false
    monitoring.kibana.collection.enabled: false
    # we need this for collecting data later with metricbeats
    xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled: true
    # enable audit-log (trial or enterprise license needed)
    xpack.security.audit.enabled: true
    # disable telemetry
    telemetry.enabled: false
    # this enables the license management ui - probably not allowed ;o)
    # for reverting to a basic-license, call in dev-console: POST /_license/start_basic?acknowledge=true
    xpack.license_management.ui.enabled: true
  podTemplate:
    metadata:
      labels:
        stackmonitoring: kibana
    spec:
      # this makes sure that at least on every node a pod is running
      # TODO: sometimes not working as expected - may be an better option to have a look at https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/pod-topology-spread-constraints/
      affinity:
        podAntiAffinity:
          preferredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
          - weight: 100
            podAffinityTerm:
              labelSelector:
                matchExpressions:
                - key: app
                  operator: In
                  values:
                  - logstash-buffer
              topologyKey: "kubernetes.io/hostname"
      containers:
      - name: kibana
---
# the ingress definition
# if you see a Warning: networking.k8s.io/v1beta1 Ingress is deprecated in v1.19+, unavailable in v1.22+; use networking.k8s.io/v1 Ingress
# you can have a look at https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89778 if you want to use networking.k8s.io/v1 already
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1beta1 
kind: Ingress 
metadata: 
  name: kibana
  namespace: elk
  annotations:
    # if you want to scale up, the connections must be sticky
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/affinity: "cookie"
    # because Kibana is running with HTTPS ;)
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/backend-protocol: "HTTPS"
spec: 
  rules: 
  - host: kibana.home.local
    http: 
      paths: 
      - backend:
          # thankfully the orchestrator also creates a services we can use 
          serviceName: kibana-kb-http
          servicePort: 5601

You now should be able to access Kibana via https://kibana.home.local:30443

Proceed to PART-3