istio.io/content/en/docs/tasks/observability/logs/access-log/index.md

title	description	weight	keywords	aliases	owner	test
Getting Envoy's Access Logs	This task shows you how to configure Envoy proxies to print access logs to their standard output.	10	telemetry	/docs/tasks/telemetry/access-log /docs/tasks/telemetry/logs/access-log/	istio/wg-policies-and-telemetry-maintainers	yes

The simplest kind of Istio logging is Envoy's access logging. Envoy proxies print access information to their standard output. The standard output of Envoy's containers can then be printed by the kubectl logs command.

{{< boilerplate before-you-begin-egress >}}

{{< boilerplate start-httpbin-service >}}

Enable Envoy's access logging

If you used an IstioOperator CR to install Istio, add the following field to your configuration:

{{< text yaml >}} spec: meshConfig: accessLogFile: /dev/stdout {{< /text >}}

Otherwise, add the equivalent setting to your original istioctl install command, for example:

{{< text syntax=bash snip_id=none >}} $ istioctl install --set meshConfig.accessLogFile=/dev/stdout {{< /text >}}

You can also choose between JSON and text by setting accessLogEncoding to JSON or TEXT.

You may also want to customize the format of the access log by editing accessLogFormat.

Refer to global mesh options for more information on all three of these settings:

• meshConfig.accessLogFile
• meshConfig.accessLogEncoding
• meshConfig.accessLogFormat

Test the access log

1. Send a request from sleep to httpbin:

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl exec "$SOURCE_POD" -c sleep -- curl -v httpbin:8000/status/418 ... < HTTP/1.1 418 Unknown < server: envoy ... -=[ teapot ]=-

      _...._
    .'  _ _ `.
   | ."` ^ `". _,
   \_;`"---"`|//
     |       ;/
     \_     _/
       `"""`
   

   {{< /text >}}

2. Check sleep's log:

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl logs -l app=sleep -c istio-proxy [2020-10-30T12:36:44.547Z] "GET /status/418 HTTP/1.1" 418 - "-" 0 135 25 24 "-" "curl/7.69.1" "f13c2118-3ef9-9ed9-91b7-5d21358029c3" "httpbin:8000" "10.244.0.30:80" outbound|8000||httpbin.default.svc.cluster.local 10.244.0.29:46348 10.96.148.56:8000 10.244.0.29:44678 - default {{< /text >}}

3. Check httpbin's log:

   {{< text bash >}} $ kubectl logs -l app=httpbin -c istio-proxy [2020-10-30T12:36:44.553Z] "GET /status/418 HTTP/1.1" 418 - "-" 0 135 3 2 "-" "curl/7.69.1" "f13c2118-3ef9-9ed9-91b7-5d21358029c3" "httpbin:8000" "127.0.0.1:80" inbound|8000|| 127.0.0.1:42940 10.244.0.30:80 10.244.0.29:46348 outbound_.8000_._.httpbin.default.svc.cluster.local default {{< /text >}}

Note that the messages corresponding to the request appear in logs of the Istio proxies of both the source and the destination, sleep and httpbin, respectively. You can see in the log the HTTP verb (GET), the HTTP path (/status/418), the response code (418) and other request-related information.

Cleanup

Shutdown the [sleep]({{< github_tree >}}/samples/sleep) and [httpbin]({{< github_tree >}}/samples/httpbin) services:

{{< text bash >}} $ kubectl delete -f @samples/sleep/sleep.yaml@ $ kubectl delete -f @samples/httpbin/httpbin.yaml@ {{< /text >}}

Disable Envoy's access logging

Remove, or set to "", the meshConfig.accessLogFile setting in your Istio install configuration.

{{< tip >}} In the example below, replace default with the name of the profile you used when you installed Istio. {{< /tip >}}

{{< text bash >}} $ istioctl install --set profile=default ✔ Istio core installed ✔ Istiod installed ✔ Ingress gateways installed ✔ Installation complete {{< /text >}}