Kubernetes Operator

Deploy OpenTelemetry Operator, Collector, and Cluster Monitoring via automated setup script.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes cluster (v1.19+), kubectl configured, helm 3.9+
• Cluster admin access
• Last9 credentials from the Integrations page

Installation

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/last9/last9-k8s-observability/main/last9-otel-setup.sh
chmod +x last9-otel-setup.sh

./last9-otel-setup.sh \
  endpoint="$last9_otlp_endpoint" \
  token="$last9_otlp_auth_header" \
  monitoring-endpoint="$last9_remote_write_url" \
  username="$last9_remote_write_username" \
  password="$last9_remote_write_password"

./last9-otel-setup.sh operator-only \
  endpoint="$last9_otlp_endpoint" \
  token="$last9_otlp_auth_header"

./last9-otel-setup.sh logs-only \
  endpoint="$last9_otlp_endpoint" \
  token="$last9_otlp_auth_header"

./last9-otel-setup.sh monitoring-only \
  monitoring-endpoint="$last9_remote_write_url" \
  username="$last9_remote_write_username" \
  password="$last9_remote_write_password"

Verification

kubectl get pods -n last9

Resource Enrichment

The operator-deployed OpenTelemetry Collector includes the k8sattributes processor with the required RBAC pre-configured. Every span and metric flowing through the collector is automatically stamped with the following resource attributes — no application or manifest changes needed:

• k8s.pod.name
• k8s.pod.uid
• k8s.namespace.name
• k8s.deployment.name
• k8s.node.name
• k8s.container.name

These power Last9 features that key off pod identity:

• Discover → Services → Infrastructure Metrics — pod-grouped CPU, memory, network, restart, and CPU-throttling panels from cAdvisor + kube-state-metrics
• Discover → Kubernetes — service-to-pod correlation in the resource graph
• Trace filters — filter by k8s.pod.name, k8s.namespace.name, and other k8s.* labels

If you ship traces directly from your application to Last9 without going through the operator-managed collector — for example, a self-managed gateway collector, or direct OTLP from the SDK — see the per-language Kubernetes Resource Attributes guide for the Downward API alternative:

• Go
• Ruby

Auto-Instrumentation

Add the annotation to your deployment:

annotations:
  instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-java: "last9/l9-instrumentation"

annotations:
  instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-nodejs: "last9/l9-instrumentation"

annotations:
  instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-python: "last9/l9-instrumentation"

annotations:
  instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-dotnet: "last9/l9-instrumentation"

Then restart your deployment:

kubectl rollout restart deployment/my-app -n <namespace>

Advanced Configuration

Set environment and cluster name:

./last9-otel-setup.sh \
  endpoint="$last9_otlp_endpoint" \
  token="$last9_otlp_auth_header" \
  monitoring-endpoint="$last9_remote_write_url" \
  username="$last9_remote_write_username" \
  password="$last9_remote_write_password" \
  env=production \
  cluster=my-cluster

Deploy on tainted nodes:

./last9-otel-setup.sh \
  endpoint="$last9_otlp_endpoint" \
  token="$last9_otlp_auth_header" \
  monitoring-endpoint="$last9_remote_write_url" \
  username="$last9_remote_write_username" \
  password="$last9_remote_write_password" \
  tolerations-file=/absolute/path/to/tolerations.yaml

Uninstall

./last9-otel-setup.sh uninstall-all

Troubleshooting

# Operator not starting
kubectl logs -n opentelemetry-operator-system deployment/opentelemetry-operator-controller-manager

# App not instrumented
kubectl describe pod <your-app-pod> | grep instrumentation.opentelemetry.io
kubectl get instrumentation -n last9 -o yaml

# Collector issues
kubectl logs -n last9 <collector-pod-name> | grep -i error

Please get in touch with us on Discord or Email if you have any questions.