up space init --token-file="${SPACES_TOKEN_PATH}" "v${SPACES_VERSION}" \
  ...
  --set "features.alpha.observability.enabled=true" \

This guide explains how to set up Space-level observability. This feature is only applicable to self-hosted Space administrators. This lets Space administrators observe the cluster infrastructure where the Space software gets installed.

When you enable observability in a Space, Upbound deploys a single OpenTelemetry Collector to collect and export metrics and logs to your configured observability backends.

Prerequisites

up space init --token-file="${SPACES_TOKEN_PATH}" "v${SPACES_VERSION}" \
  ...
  --set "features.alpha.observability.enabled=true" \

This feature requires the OpenTelemetry Operator on the Space cluster. Install this now if you haven’t already:

kubectl apply -f https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-operator/releases/download/v0.116.0/opentelemetry-operator.yaml

If running Spaces => v1.11, the OpenTelemetry Operator version needs to be => v0.110.0, as there are breaking changes in the OpenTelemetry Operator.

Configuration

To configure how Upbound exports, review the spacesCollector value in your Space installation Helm chart. Below is an example of an otlphttp compatible endpoint.

observability:
  spacesCollector:
    config:
      exporters:
        otlphttp:
          endpoint: "<your-endpoint>"
          headers:
            api-key: YOUR_API_KEY
      exportPipeline:
        logs:
          - otlphttp
        metrics:
          - otlphttp

You can export metrics and logs from your Crossplane installation, Spaces infrastructure (controller, API, router, etc.), provider-helm, and provider-kubernetes.

OpenTelemetryCollector image

Control plane (SharedTelemetry) and Space observability deploy the same custom OpenTelemetry Collector image. The OpenTelemetry Collector image supports otlhttp, datadog, and debug exporters.

For more information on observability configuration, review the Helm chart reference.

Observability in control planes

Read the observability documentation to learn about the features Upbound offers for collecting telemetry from control planes.