Enable AKS Container insights

March 21, 2025 · View on GitHub

SYNOPSIS

Enable Container insights to monitor AKS cluster workloads.

With Container insights, you can use performance charts and health status to monitor AKS clusters, nodes and pods. Container insights delivers quick, visual and actionable information: from the CPU and memory pressure of your nodes to the logs of individual Kubernetes pods.

RECOMMENDATION

Consider enabling Container insights for AKS clusters. Monitoring containers is critical, especially when running production AKS clusters at scale with multiple applications.

EXAMPLES

Configure with Azure template

To enable Container insights for an AKS cluster:

Set properties.addonProfiles.omsAgent.enabled to true.
Set Log Analytics workspace ID with properties.addonProfiles.omsAgent.config.logAnalyticsWorkspaceResourceID.

For example:

{
    "comments": "Azure Kubernetes Cluster",
    "apiVersion": "2020-12-01",
    "dependsOn": [
        "[resourceId('Microsoft.ManagedIdentity/userAssignedIdentities', parameters('identityName'))]"
    ],
    "type": "Microsoft.ContainerService/managedClusters",
    "location": "[parameters('location')]",
    "name": "[parameters('clusterName')]",
    "identity": {
        "type": "UserAssigned",
        "userAssignedIdentities": {
            "[resourceId('Microsoft.ManagedIdentity/userAssignedIdentities', parameters('identityName'))]": {}
        }
    },
    "properties": {
        "kubernetesVersion": "[parameters('kubernetesVersion')]",
        "disableLocalAccounts": true,
        "enableRBAC": true,
        "dnsPrefix": "[parameters('dnsPrefix')]",
        "agentPoolProfiles": [
            {
                "name": "system",
                "osDiskSizeGB": 32,
                "count": 3,
                "minCount": 3,
                "maxCount": 10,
                "enableAutoScaling": true,
                "maxPods": 50,
                "vmSize": "Standard_D2s_v3",
                "osType": "Linux",
                "type": "VirtualMachineScaleSets",
                "vnetSubnetID": "[variables('clusterSubnetId')]",
                "mode": "System",
                "osDiskType": "Ephemeral",
                "scaleSetPriority": "Regular"
            }
        ],
        "aadProfile": {
            "managed": true,
            "enableAzureRBAC": true,
            "adminGroupObjectIDs": "[parameters('clusterAdmins')]",
            "tenantID": "[subscription().tenantId]"
        },
        "networkProfile": {
            "networkPlugin": "azure",
            "networkPolicy": "azure",
            "loadBalancerSku": "Standard",
            "serviceCidr": "192.168.0.0/16",
            "dnsServiceIP": "192.168.0.4",
            "dockerBridgeCidr": "172.17.0.1/16"
        },
        "autoUpgradeProfile": {
            "upgradeChannel": "stable"
        },
        "addonProfiles": {
            "azurepolicy": {
                "enabled": true,
                "config": {
                    "version": "v2"
                }
            },
            "omsagent": {
                "enabled": true,
                "config": {
                    "logAnalyticsWorkspaceResourceID": "[parameters('workspaceId')]"
                }
            },
            "kubeDashboard": {
                "enabled": false
            }
        }
    }
}

Configure with Azure CLI

Enable for default Log Analytics workspace

az aks enable-addons \
  --addons monitoring \
  --name '<cluster_name>' \
  --resource-group '<cluster_resource_group>'

Enable for an existing Log Analytics workspace

az aks enable-addons \
  --addons monitoring \
  --name '<cluster_name>' \
  --resource-group '<cluster_resource_group>' \
  --workspace-resource-id '<workspace_id>'