View logs of running and crashed pods in Kubernetes

Last Updated on 15/11/2020

This tutorial will show you how to view logs of running and crashed pods in Kubernetes, also the ability to “tail” the log content.

First, find your pod’s name

Discover your pod’s name by running the following command, and picking the desired pod’s name from the list:

kubectl get pods
NAME                          READY     STATUS             RESTARTS   AGE
customer-96f4985b5-9h5pp      1/1       Running            7          11d
order-569b7f8f55-drd9t        1/1       Running            0          7d

View logs of a running pod

Just run:

kubectl logs <POD_NAME>

View and tail logs of a running pod

Add the -f parameter:

kubectl logs -f <POD_NAME>

View logs of a crashed pod

Use the --previous parameter:

kubectl logs <POD_NAME> --previous

I hope it helps. Cya!