Operate Infrastructure on Layer5 Documentation

Open an Interactive Terminal

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The interactive terminal opens a shell inside a running container without leaving the Operator canvas. Use it for last-mile diagnosis that logs and status cannot answer: testing connectivity from inside a pod, reading a mounted file, or checking an injected environment variable. It is a browser-based equivalent of kubectl exec, scoped to the resource you selected.

Before you start 🔗

Operator mode on a Meshery you run. The hosted kanvas.new site does not offer Operator mode. See How Kanvas Works with Meshery and Layer5 Cloud.
A connected cluster with Meshery Operator deployed. Meshery Operator runs MeshSync and a message broker in the cluster. MeshSync executes the shell, and Meshery Server relays input and output through the broker. If any of the three is unavailable, the terminal does not connect (see Failure modes).
A running container whose image contains /bin/sh. Distroless images have no shell and cannot be used.

Open a session 🔗

The action is named Initiate Terminal Session and is offered on Pod and Container resources only. Right-click the resource on the canvas, or select it and use the action in the header of the Details panel. The session starts immediately and the terminal panel opens at the bottom left of the canvas. There is no separate connect step.

Stream Container Logs

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Log streaming live-tails the output of a pod’s containers inside the Operator canvas. Each stream starts with the most recent lines and then follows new output as it is written, so you can watch a rollout, a crash loop, or a request path next to the topology that produced it.

Before you start 🔗

Operator mode on a Meshery you run. The hosted kanvas.new site does not offer Operator mode.
A connected cluster with Meshery Operator deployed. MeshSync reads the logs and Meshery Server relays them through the broker, the same path the terminal uses. See Operator.
Containers that exist. Logs come from the Kubernetes log API, so a container that has not started has nothing to stream.

Start a stream 🔗

The action is named Initiate Log Session and is offered on Pod and Container resources only. Right-click the resource, or select it and use the action in the header of the Details panel. The stream opens in the same bottom-left panel as terminal sessions, as a tab.

Run a Performance Test

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Operator mode shows a live picture of your clusters. A performance test adds the missing signal: how a service responds under load. You select a Service or Ingress on the canvas, Kanvas seeds a test from it, and Meshery runs the load and keeps the result as a reusable performance profile.

Before you start 🔗

Operator mode on a Meshery you run. The hosted kanvas.new site does not offer Operator mode.
A target Meshery Server can reach. Meshery Server generates the load, not your browser and not the cluster. The address you test must be routable from wherever Meshery Server runs. A ClusterIP address is reachable from inside the cluster only.
Performance permissions. The form needs View performance profiles to appear, and the Run Test button needs Run test. See Permissions by Role.

Start a test 🔗

The action is named Initiate Performance Test and is offered on Service and Ingress resources only, the kinds that expose an endpoint. It is not offered on pods, deployments, or any other kind. Right-click the resource, or select it and use the action in the header of the Details panel.