Using Retina for Enhanced Kubernetes Flow Visualization in Coordimap

Coordimap leverages data sources to create detailed diagrams of your infrastructure, including visualizing the communication flows between components in your Kubernetes clusters. To capture this network-level traffic data effectively within Kubernetes, Coordimap can utilize Retina.

What is Retina

Retina is a cloud-agnostic, open-source Kubernetes Network Observability platform developed by Microsoft. It provides deep insights into network traffic patterns, connectivity, and performance within your cluster. By deploying Retina, you enable the collection of the necessary network flow data that Coordimap uses to enrich your Kubernetes diagrams, showing exactly how your services communicate.

You can learn more about Retina on their official website: https://retina.sh/

Installing Retina for Coordimap

To enable network flow data collection for Coordimap, you need to install Retina in your Kubernetes cluster. You can do this easily using the official Retina Helm chart.

Run the following command to install or upgrade Retina with settings suitable for observability data collection:

helm upgrade --install retina oci://ghcr.io/microsoft/retina/charts/retina \
    --version v0.0.12 \
    --namespace kube-system \
    --set image.tag=v0.0.12 \
    --set operator.tag=v0.0.12 \
    --set image.pullPolicy=Always \
    --set logLevel=info \
    --set os.windows=true \
    --set operator.enabled=true \
    --set operator.enableRetinaEndpoint=true \
    --skip-crds \
    --set enabledPlugin_linux="\[dropreason\,packetforward\,dns\,packetparser\]" \
    --set enablePodLevel=true \
    --set remoteContext=true \
    --set enableAnnotations=true