Check the Logs

Logs provide valuable information. It makes sense to check the logs of the database Pods and the Operator Pod. Following flags are helpful for checking the logs with the kubectl logs command:

Flag	Description
--container=<container-name>	Print log of a specific container in case of multiple containers in a Pod
--follow	Follows the logs for a live output
--since=<time>	Print logs newer than the specified time, for example: --since="10s"
--timestamps	Print timestamp in the logs (timezone is taken from the container)
--previous	Print previous instantiation of a container. This is extremely useful in case of container restart, where there is a need to check the logs on why the container restarted. Logs of previous instantiation might not be available in all the cases.

In the following examples we will access containers of the cluster1-mysql-0 Pod.

• Check logs of the mysql container:

  $ kubectl logs cluster1-mysql-0 -c mysql
  

• Check logs of the xtrabackup container:

  $ kubectl logs cluster1-mysql-0 -c xtrabackup
  

• Filter logs of the mysql container which are not older than 600 seconds:

  $ kubectl logs cluster1-mysql-0 -c mysql --since=600s
  

• Check logs of a previous instantiation of the mysql container, if any:

  $ kubectl logs cluster1-mysql-0 -c mysql --previous
  

• Check logs of the mysql container, parsing the output with jq JSON processor :

  $ kubectl logs cluster1-mysql-0 -c mysql -f | jq -R 'fromjson?'
  

---

Last update: 2025-06-13