Install the Kubernetes Operator for OpenTelemetry

To install and configure a collector, you need to add the Kubernetes Operator for OpenTelemetry to your cluster. The Operator requires a Cert Manager installation to be present.

You can learn more about the Operator pattern in Kubernetes here.

  1. Configure Helm for installation. 
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    % helm repo add open-telemetry https://open-telemetry.github.io/opentelemetry-helm-charts
% helm repo add jetstack https://charts.jetstack.io
% helm repo update
  2. Install the Cert Manager. 
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    % helm install \
  cert-manager jetstack/cert-manager \
  --namespace cert-manager \
  --create-namespace \
  --version v1.8.0 \
  --set installCRDs=true
  3. Install the OpenTelemetry Operator. 
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    % helm install \
  opentelemetry-operator open-telemetry/opentelemetry-operator \
  -n opentelemetry-operator \
  --create-namespace
  4. Verify the components have been correctly installed. 
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    ## this should show “cert-manager” and “opentelemetry-operator” installed
% helm list -A
## this will complete when the opentelemetry operator pod is finished
% kubectl wait --for=condition=ready pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=opentelemetry-operator -n opentelemetry-operator

What Did we learn?

  • Use Helm to install the Kubernetes Operator for OpenTelemetry using existing charts.