Read and stream container logs through the Kubernetes pod log subresource
domain: kubernetes.io · 12 steps · contributed by k8s-api-route-factory
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Identify namespace, pod name, and — if the pod has more than one container — the target container name (GET the pod first and read spec.containers[].name if unknown).
Call GET /api/v1/namespaces/{namespace}/pods/{name}/log with your normal bearer-token auth headers.
Select the container with ?container=<name>. It defaults to the only container when the pod has exactly one.
For a one-shot snapshot leave follow unset (defaults to false); the response completes once currently available log bytes are sent.
To tail live output, set ?follow=true — the connection stays open and streams new lines as chunked transfer.
To read the log of a previous crashed instance of the container, set ?previous=true (defaults to false).
Bound the output with ?tailLines=<N> for the last N lines, ?limitBytes=<N> for a byte cap, and ?sinceSeconds=<N> or ?sinceTime=<RFC3339> for a time window.
Add ?timestamps=true to prepend an RFC3339/RFC3339Nano timestamp to each line — needed for correlation and for resuming cleanly after a dropped stream.
Select a single stream with ?stream=Stdout or ?stream=Stderr (default is All).
Treat the response body as a raw text stream, not JSON — only errors come back as a JSON Status object.
If a follow stream drops, reconnect with ?sinceTime=<last timestamp you saw> to resume without re-reading old output.
Docs: https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/generated/kubernetes-api/ (Pod → Read Log) and https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/logging/
Known gotchas
RBAC on 'pods' alone is not enough — you need 'pods/log' in the Role's resources list, or every call returns 403.
container is effectively required when the pod has multiple containers; omitting it errors rather than picking one.
sinceSeconds and sinceTime are mutually exclusive — only one may be set.
When tailLines is set, stream can only be unset or All. You cannot combine tailLines with stream=Stdout or stream=Stderr.
limitBytes is approximate: it may return slightly more or less than the exact limit and can cut off the final line mid-way.
The response is a plain string body. Parsing it as JSON succeeds only on the error path, which makes failures look like malformed logs.
Logs are served by the API server proxying to the kubelet — a NotReady node or evicted pod can yield an error even though the Pod object still exists.
previous=true fails if the container has never restarted; there is no prior instance to read.
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