Skip to content

feat: added ebpf for sysdig agent #133

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
merged 7 commits into from
Jul 10, 2025
Merged
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from 1 commit
Commits
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension

Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
30 changes: 18 additions & 12 deletions solutions/fully-configurable/DA-docs.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,12 +1,18 @@
When attempting to deploy the agents to cluster nodes on RH CoreOS that have no public gateways enabled (and/or have outbound traffic disabled), the pods fail to come up with the error:
```
Download of sysdigcloud-probe for version 13.9.2 failed.
curl: (28) Failed to connect to download.sysdig.com port 443: Connection timed out
Cannot load the probe
```

This happens because the agent tries to connect to the kernel and for that it needs a kernel module (default behaviour):
- If not available in the machine already, it tries to build it with the kernel headers
- if kernel headers not available, it tries to download it

To fix this, we need the ability to set the helm values `agent.ebpf.enabled` and `agent.ebpf.kind` if cluster is using nodes based on RHCOS by setting the terraform boolean input variable called `enable_universal_ebpf` to true. Enabling universal ebpf needs kernel version to be `5.8` or higher. RHEL8 already has the kernel headers and enabling `ebpf` will not cause any impact even though kernel version is `4.18`.
## When to Enable `enable_universal_ebpf`

For Clusters using Red Hat CoreOS (RHCOS) or RHEL 9 nodes with restricted outbound internet access, the monitoring agent pods may fail to start due to the inability to retrieve kernel modules which are necessary for the agent to connect with kernel.

Setting the Terraform variable `enable_universal_ebpf` to `true` ensures the agent uses eBPF-based instrumentation, which avoids the need for external downloads and allows successful deployment in restricted environments.

### When Should You Enable It?

Set `enable_universal_ebpf` to true if:

- Your cluster nodes run on RHCOS or RHEL 9 and do not have public or outbound internet access.
- You want to avoid relying on dynamic downloads for kernel modules.

### Kernel Compatibility

- **RHCOS and RHEL9**: Since kernel version **5.14** is used. Default value for variable has been set to true.
Copy link
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Should it say 5.14 or later is used?

Copy link
Contributor Author

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

As of now 5.14 is used across all ocp versions. But in future versions it can be newer so i will add "or later".

- **RHEL 8**: Although it uses kernel version **4.18**, the necessary kernel headers are pre-installed, so enabling eBPF is safe and has no impact.

2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion solutions/fully-configurable/variables.tf
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -235,6 +235,6 @@ variable "agent_limits_memory" {

variable "enable_universal_ebpf" {
type = bool
description = "Deploy sysdig agent with universal eBPF enabled. It requires kernel version 5.8+. [Learn more](https://github.com/terraform-ibm-modules/terraform-ibm-monitoring-agent/tree/main/solutions/fully-configurable/DA-docs.md)."
description = "Deploy monitoring agent with universal eBPF enabled. It requires kernel version 5.8+. [Learn more](https://github.com/terraform-ibm-modules/terraform-ibm-monitoring-agent/tree/main/solutions/fully-configurable/DA-docs.md)."
default = true
}
2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion variables.tf
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -259,6 +259,6 @@ variable "agent_limits_memory" {

variable "enable_universal_ebpf" {
type = bool
description = "Deploy sysdig agent with universal eBPF enabled. It requires kernel version 5.8+."
description = "Deploy monitoring agent with universal eBPF enabled. It requires kernel version 5.8+. [Learn more](https://github.com/terraform-ibm-modules/terraform-ibm-monitoring-agent/tree/main/solutions/fully-configurable/DA-docs.md)."
default = true
}