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Engine Log Access

Borealis keeps Engine log reading and cleanup outside the WebUI. Use host CLI access for diagnostics, and let automatic retention prune Borealis-owned rotated file logs.

K3s Pod Logs

List Borealis pods first so container names and restart counts are visible.

sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis get pods -o wide

Tail core workload logs.

sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis logs deployment/api-backend -c api-backend --tail=200 --timestamps
sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis logs deployment/job-scheduler -c job-scheduler --tail=200 --timestamps
sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis logs statefulset/postgres-db -c postgres-db --tail=200 --timestamps
sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis logs deployment/remote-desktop-guacd --tail=200 --timestamps
sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis logs deployment/wireguard-tunnel -c wireguard-tunnel --tail=200 --timestamps
sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis logs deployment/traefik-edge -c traefik-edge --tail=200 --timestamps

Tail all current site-worker pods.

sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis logs -l app.kubernetes.io/name=site-worker -c site-worker --tail=200 --timestamps --prefix=true

Read previous container logs after crash/restart by selecting pod name first.

POD="$(sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis get pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=api-backend -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')"
sudo k3s kubectl --kubeconfig /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml -n borealis logs "pod/${POD}" -c api-backend --previous --tail=200 --timestamps

Borealis File Logs

Some Engine components still write Borealis-owned file logs under Engine/Services/<role>/logs/.

sudo find \
  /opt/Borealis/Engine/Services/api-backend/logs \
  /opt/Borealis/Engine/Services/traefik-edge/logs \
  /opt/Borealis/Engine/Services/wireguard-tunnel/logs \
  -type f -name '*.log*' -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %s %p\n' 2>/dev/null | sort

sudo tail -n 200 /opt/Borealis/Engine/Services/api-backend/logs/engine.log
sudo tail -n 200 /opt/Borealis/Engine/Services/api-backend/logs/error.log
sudo tail -n 200 /opt/Borealis/Engine/Services/api-backend/logs/VPN_Tunnel/tunnel.log

Warning

Do not manually delete /var/log/pods, /var/log/containers, or container runtime log files. Kubelet owns those files and rotates them by configured size/count policy.

Retention

Borealis-owned rotated file logs default to 30-day retention. The API backend sweeps configured log roots at startup and then every six hours while API background loops are enabled.

K3s pod logs use Kubernetes kubelet rotation, which is size/count based instead of date based. To set optional Borealis-managed kubelet log rotation values, export the values before deploy.

BOREALIS_K3S_CONTAINER_LOG_MAX_SIZE=10Mi \
BOREALIS_K3S_CONTAINER_LOG_MAX_FILES=30 \
bash /opt/Borealis/Engine.sh --network-mode local deploy prod

Info

Changing K3s kubelet log rotation changes the Borealis-managed K3s config file. Engine.sh restarts K3s only when that config changes.

Detailed Codex Breakdown

API endpoints

  • /api/server/logs* routes are retired and return 410 Gone for authenticated administrators.
  • WebUI log browsing, retention overrides, deletion, and purge actions are not exposed.

Source map

  • Retired log routes and file retention: Data/Engine/Containers/api-backend/cmd/api-backend/server_logs.go
  • API startup/background loop wiring: Data/Engine/Containers/api-backend/cmd/api-backend/main.go
  • K3s log rotation config rendering: Engine.sh

Runtime behavior

  • borealis-operator does not receive Kubernetes pods/log RBAC.
  • Automatic retention only removes rotated files matching *.log.YYYY-MM-DD under Borealis-owned file log roots.
  • Active .log files, non-rotation files, and Kubernetes pod/container log files are left alone.
  • BOREALIS_ENGINE_FILE_LOG_RETENTION_DAYS controls Borealis file-log retention and defaults to 30.
  • BOREALIS_K3S_CONTAINER_LOG_MAX_SIZE and BOREALIS_K3S_CONTAINER_LOG_MAX_FILES render optional K3s kubelet-arg values when set.