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Central HostPath Mapper

Enterprise
Available in these plansFreeDevProdScale
Central HostPath Mapper

Free, Dev, Prod, and Scale are vCluster Platform license plans. Open source does not need a license or a Platform connection. See Compare open source and free tiers.

You can install a common logging solution such as Fluentd or the ELK stack on the control plane cluster and use it within the cluster. However, in some scenarios, installing these tools directly on the cluster is preferred.

These logging solutions access pod and container logs by mounting node host paths and using specific filename formats to associate logs with the correct pods. This approach doesn't work in a cluster because vCluster rewrites pod names to a vCluster-specific format when syncing them to the control plane cluster.

The HostPath Mapper collects logs from clusters. It works by matching virtual pod and container names to their physical names on the host through symbolic links.

To enable HostPath Mapper for a cluster, install a DaemonSet in the same namespace. This setup works well for small environments with few nodes and clusters.

As the number of nodes and clusters grows, the number of required DaemonSet pods also grows. Each cluster needs one DaemonSet per node, which increases resource usage.

The Central HostPath Mapper solves this problem. It installs a single DaemonSet on the control plane cluster. This DaemonSet manages host path remapping for all clusters on the platform. It reduces overhead and simplifies cluster management.

Prerequisites

To use this feature, install the Central HostPath Mapper on the control plane cluster. The component is available as a default vCluster Platform App in the Apps section. Install it before enabling the feature to ensure full capabilities are available.

Templates

This feature is only configurable from the UI for clusters created without a template. When using a custom template that has the feature enabled, the UI doesn't display the configuration in Advanced Options as described below. In this case, configure the feature using the CLI or by modifying the manifests.

  1. From the project drop-down menu, click the project where you want to create the cluster.

  2. Click the button above the list of clusters.

  3. [Optional] Click the control plane cluster where you want to create the cluster.

  4. Leave the Select a template section blank and click the to continue.

  5. Click the Advanced Options configuration tab and expand the Host Path Mapper section.

  6. Toggle the slider Enable. This adds the loft.sh/hpm-enabled annotation to the template metadata, which syncs automatically to the cluster on creation. It also sets enabled: true and central: true under the controlPlane.hostPathMapper field in the vcluster.yaml.

  7. Finish configuring anything else on your cluster, then click .