Getting Started

kobs can be configured using a configuration file in yaml format, command-line arguments and environment variables. The configuration file is used to provide the cluster and plugin configuration. The command-line arguments and environment variables are used to customize the log behavior, ports or cache duration.

Command-line Arguments and Environment Variables

The following command-line arguments and environment variables are available.

Command-line Argument	Environment Variable	Description	Default
--api.address	KOBS_API_ADDRESS	The address, where the API server is listen on.	:15220
--api.auth.default-team	KOBS_API_AUTH_DEFAULT_TEAM	The name of the team, which should be used for a users permissions when a user hasn't any teams. The team is specified in the following format: cluster,namespace,name
--api.auth.enabled		Enable the authentication and authorization middleware.	false
--api.auth.header.teams string	KOBS_API_AUTH_HEADER_TEAMS	The header, which contains the team ids.	X-Auth-Request-Groups
--api.auth.header.user string	KOBS_API_AUTH_HEADER_USER	The header, which contains the user id.	X-Auth-Request-Email
--api.auth.session.interval duration	KOBS_API_AUTH_SESSION_INTERVAL	The interval for how long a session is valid.	48h0m0s
--api.auth.session.token string	KOBS_API_AUTH_SESSION_TOKEN	The token to encrypt the session cookie.
--api.debug		Enable /api/debug endpoints for the API server.	false
--app.address	KOBS_APP_ADDRESS	The address, where the Application server is listen on.	:15219
--app.assets	KOBS_APP_ASSETS	The location of the assets directory.	app/build
--clusters.cache-duration.namespaces	KOBS_CLUSTERS_CACHE_DURATION_NAMESPACES	The duration, for how long requests to get the list of namespaces should be cached.	5m
--config	KOBS_CONFIG	Name of the configuration file.	config.yaml
--development		Use development version	false
--log.format	KOBS_LOG_FORMAT	Set the output format of the logs. Must be plain or json.	plain
--log.level	KOBS_LOG_LEVEL	Set the log level. Must be debug, info, warn, error, fatal or panic.	info
--metrics.address	KOBS_METRICS_ADDRESS	The address, where the Prometheus metrics are served.	:15221
--version		Print version information.	false

Configuration File

kobs requires a configuration file in yaml format for the cluster and plugin configuration. By default kobs will look for a config.yaml file in the directory of the kobs binary. To set a custom location of the configuration file your can use the --config command-line flag or the KOBS_CONFIG environment variable.

The config file consists of two section. The first one is the clusters configuration, which is used to configure the access to a Kubernetes cluster for kobs. The second section is used to configure all plugins for kobs.

clusters:
  providers:
    - provider: incluster
      incluster:
        name: kobs-demo

plugins:
  prometheus:
    - name: prometheus
      displayName: Prometheus
      description: "From metrics to insight: Power your metrics and alerting with a leading open-source monitoring solution."
      address: http://prometheus.istio-system.svc.cluster.local:9090

  elasticsearch:
    - name: elasticsearch
      displayName: Elasticsearch
      description: "A distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine capable of addressing a growing number of use cases."
      address: http://elasticsearch-es-http.elastic-system.svc.cluster.local:9200

  jaeger:
    - name: jaeger
      displayName: Jaeger
      description: "Open-source, end-to-end distributed tracing: Monitor and troubleshoot transactions in complex distributed systems"
      address: http://tracing.istio-system.svc.cluster.local:80/jaeger

You can also use environment variables within the configuration file. To use an environment variable you can place the following placeholder in the config file: ${NAME_OF_THE_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE}. When kobs reads the file the placeholder will be replaced, with the value of the environment variable. This allows you to provide confidential data via an environment variable, instead of putting them into the file.