Get started with Kubernetes observability

However, if you're interested in gaining a more comprehensive view of your environment that includes aspects such as Application observability and user experience, you should consider a full Kubernetes observability approach, such as cloud native full stack or classic full stack.

This page provides instructions for deploying the Dynatrace Operator in host monitoring configuration to a Kubernetes cluster.

Before you begin

Before installing Dynatrace on your Kubernetes cluster, ensure that you meet the following requirements:

Your kubectl CLI is connected to the Kubernetes cluster that you want to monitor.
You have sufficient privileges on the monitored cluster to run kubectl or oc commands.

Cluster setup and configuration

You must allow egress for Dynatrace pods (default: Dynatrace namespace) to your Dynatrace environment or to your Environment ActiveGate
For OpenShift Dedicated, you need the cluster-admin role.
Helm installation Use Helm version 3.

Supported versions

See supported Kubernetes/OpenShift platform versions and distributions.

Installation options

Choose one of the installation methods that best suits your needs.

Manifest

Helm

Manifest

Create a dynatrace namespace
```
1kubectl create namespace dynatrace
```
Install Dynatrace Operator
```
1kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.14.0/kubernetes.yaml
2kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.14.0/kubernetes-csi.yaml
```
Whenever the CSI driver is in use the host file-system is mounted readonly by OneAgent. If you don't want to use the CSI driver, the file-system needs to be mounted read-write by disabling the readonly-mode. For more information how to disable readonly-mode, see Read-only file systems support.
```
1kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.14.0/kubernetes.yaml
```
For VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition (formerly PKE), follow the steps below instead.
1. Get kubernetes-csi.yaml from GitHub.
2. Adjust the YAML file by replacing the /var/lib/kubelet/ path with /var/vcap/data/kubelet/ in all instances.
3. Run the commands below.
```
1kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.14.0/kubernetes.yaml
2kubectl apply -f kubernetes-csi.yaml
```
For IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service (IKS), follow the steps below.
1. Get kubernetes-csi.yaml from GitHub.
2. Adjust the YAML file by replacing the /var/lib/kubelet/ path with /var/data/kubelet in all instances.
3. Run the commands below.
```
1kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.11.0/kubernetes.yaml
2kubectl apply -f kubernetes-csi.yaml
```
Run the following command to see when Dynatrace Operator components finish initialization:
```
1kubectl -n dynatrace wait pod --for=condition=ready --selector=app.kubernetes.io/name=dynatrace-operator,app.kubernetes.io/component=webhook --timeout=300s
```
Create secret for access token

Create a secret named dynakube for the Dynatrace Operator token obtained in Tokens and permissions required.
```
1kubectl -n dynatrace create secret generic dynakube --from-literal="apiToken=<OPERATOR_TOKEN>"
```
Apply the DynaKube custom resource

Download the DynaKube custom resource sample for host monitoring from GitHub. In addition, you can review the available parameters or how-to guides, and adapt the DynaKube custom resource according to your requirements.
Enable Infrastructure Monitoring mode in your DynaKube configuration if you want to reduce billed units.
1oneagent:
2 hostMonitoring:
3 args:
4 - --set-monitoring-mode=infra-only
Run the command below to apply the DynaKube custom resource, making sure to replace <your-DynaKube-CR> with your actual DynaKube custom resource file name. A validation webhook will provide helpful error messages if there's a problem.
```
1kubectl apply -f <your-DynaKube-CR>.yaml
```

optional Verify deployment

Verify that your DynaKube is running and all pods in your Dynatrace namespace are running and ready.

1> kubectl get dynakube -n dynatrace
2NAME         APIURL                                          STATUS     AGE
3dynakube     https://<ENVIRONMENTID>.live.dynatrace.com/api  Running    45s

In a default DynaKube configuration with CSI driver, you should see the following pods:

1> kubectl get pods -n dynatrace
2NAME                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS        AGE
3dynakube-activegate-0                 1/1     Running   0               50s
4dynakube-oneagent-b88rn               1/1     Running   0               50s
5dynakube-oneagent-m5jm4               1/1     Running   0               50s
6dynakube-oneagent-qhd9u               1/1     Running   0               50s
7dynatrace-oneagent-csi-driver-qxfwx   4/4     Running   0               2m49s
8dynatrace-oneagent-csi-driver-xk5c4   4/4     Running   0               2m49s
9dynatrace-oneagent-csi-driver-mz6ch   4/4     Running   0               2m49s
10dynatrace-operator-7dc8dc7d8c-wmh4z   1/1     Running   0               2m59s
11dynatrace-webhook-7bb6957fb5-l8fsq    1/1     Running   0               2m59s
12dynatrace-webhook-7bb6957fb5-rqnqk    1/1     Running   0               2m59s

As OneAgent and CSI-driver are deployed as DaemonSet you should have a OneAgent and CSI-driver pod on each node.

Helm

Dynatrace Operator version 0.8.0+

Add the Dynatrace Helm repository
```
1helm repo add dynatrace \
2https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/main/config/helm/repos/stable
```
Note that attempting to access the above URL will result in a 404 error page as it is only used internally by the Helm client.
Install Dynatrace Operator

You have two options:

Option 1: Install Dynatrace Operator using the default values:
```
1helm install dynatrace-operator dynatrace/dynatrace-operator \
2  --set "installCRD=true" \
3  --set "csidriver.enabled=true" \
4  --atomic \
5  --create-namespace --namespace dynatrace
```
Option 2: For additional configuration to the Helm chart, edit the values.yaml sample from GitHub, then run the install command passing the YAML file as an argument:
Whenever the CSI driver is in use the host file-system is mounted readonly by OneAgent. If you don't want to use the CSI driver, the file-system needs to be mounted read-write by disabling the readonly-mode. For more information how to disable readonly-mode, see Read-only file systems support.
```
1kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.12.1/kubernetes.yaml
```
For VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition (formerly PKE), you need to set the csidriver.kubeletPath value in values.yaml to /var/vcap/data/kubelet/.
```
1csidriver:
2    enabled: true
3    kubeletPath: "/var/vcap/data/kubelet"
```
Dynatrace Operator version 0.9.0+
For IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service (IKS), you need to set the csidriver.kubeletPath value in values.yaml to /var/data/kubelet.
```
1csidriver:
2    enabled: true
3    kubeletPath: "/var/data/kubelet"
```
```
1helm install dynatrace-operator dynatrace/dynatrace-operator \
2  -f values.yaml \
3  --atomic \
4  --create-namespace --namespace dynatrace
```
If installCRD is set to false, you need to create the custom resource definition manually before starting the Helm installation:
```
1kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.14.0/dynatrace-operator-crd.yaml
```
Create secret for access token

Create a secret named dynakube for the Dynatrace Operator token obtained in Tokens and permissions required.
```
1kubectl -n dynatrace create secret generic dynakube --from-literal="apiToken=<OPERATOR_TOKEN>"
```
Apply the DynaKube custom resource

Download the DynaKube custom resource sample for host monitoring from GitHub. In addition, you can review the available parameters or how-to guides, and adapt the DynaKube custom resource according to your requirements.

Run the command below to apply the DynaKube custom resource, making sure to replace <your-DynaKube-CR> with your actual DynaKube custom resource file name. A validation webhook will provide helpful error messages if there's a problem.
```
1kubectl apply -f <your-DynaKube-CR>.yaml
```

optional Verify deployment

Verify that your DynaKube is running and all pods in your Dynatrace namespace are running and ready.

1> kubectl get dynakube -n dynatrace
2NAME         APIURL                                          STATUS     AGE
3dynakube     https://<ENVIRONMENTID>.live.dynatrace.com/api  Running    45s

In a default DynaKube configuration with CSI driver, you should see the following pods:

1> kubectl get pods -n dynatrace
2NAME                                  READY   STATUS    RESTARTS        AGE
3dynakube-activegate-0                 1/1     Running   0               50s
4dynakube-oneagent-b88rn               1/1     Running   0               50s
5dynakube-oneagent-m5jm4               1/1     Running   0               50s
6dynakube-oneagent-qhd9u               1/1     Running   0               50s
7dynatrace-oneagent-csi-driver-qxfwx   4/4     Running   0               2m49s
8dynatrace-oneagent-csi-driver-xk5c4   4/4     Running   0               2m49s
9dynatrace-oneagent-csi-driver-mz6ch   4/4     Running   0               2m49s
10dynatrace-operator-7dc8dc7d8c-wmh4z   1/1     Running   0               2m59s
11dynatrace-webhook-7bb6957fb5-l8fsq    1/1     Running   0               2m59s
12dynatrace-webhook-7bb6957fb5-rqnqk    1/1     Running   0               2m59s

As OneAgent and CSI-driver are deployed as DaemonSet you should have a OneAgent and CSI-driver pod on each node.

Learn more

After you've successfully installed the Dynatrace Operator, you may find the following resources helpful for further learning and troubleshooting.

Get actionable answers

Start to analyze your Kubernetes clusters and containerized Apps with Dynatrace and benefit from actionable answers.

Guides

Learn how you can configure Dynatrace Operator to support specific use cases.

Troubleshooting

Troubleshoot any challenges you may encounter while working with the Dynatrace Operator and its various components.

How it works

Want to learn more about the Dynatrace components in your Kubernetes cluster?

Reference

API reference and configuration options for all Dynatrace components within your Kubernetes cluster.

Dynatrace Operator release notes

See release notes for Dynatrace Operator.

Update or uninstall

This page provides a detailed instructions on how to update and uninstall Dynatrace Operator.