If you’re using AWS EKS to deploy your app, Subtrace is a great way to monitor your network requests in realtime.
Subtrace requires Linux kernel version 5.14 or newer. Some AMIs like Amazon Linux 2 use an older version of the kernel. If your nodes run one of these images, you’ll need to upgrade nodes running Subtrace to a newer image like Amazon Linux 2023.
  1. Add Subtrace to your container by making this change to your Dockerfile:
- CMD ["node", "./app.js"]
+ RUN curl -fsSL https://subtrace.dev/install.sh | sh
+ CMD ["subtrace", "run", "--", "node", "./app.js"]
  1. Build and push your Docker image as usual.
  2. Update your Kubernetes pod spec to point to the new image. Here is an example deployment.yaml file: 
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: node-app
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: node-app
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: node-app
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: node-app
          image: USERID.dkr.ecr.REGION.amazonaws.com/node-app:v2
          ports:
            - containerPort: 3000
          env:
            - name: SUBTRACE_TOKEN
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: env-secrets
                  key: SUBTRACE_TOKEN
          securityContext:
            capabilities:
              add: ["SYS_PTRACE"]
Make sure the container has the SUBTRACE_TOKEN environment variable in your deployment YAML. Typically, this is done with a Kubernetes secret, but if you’re using an external secret manager, consult its documentation. If you don’t have a Subtrace token yet, go to the Tokens page on the dashboard and create a tracer token.
Don’t forget to set the securityContext field in the container spec. Subtrace needs the SYS_PTRACE capability in order to trace your app’s requests.
  1. Apply your changes to the EKS cluster. You can do this using the AWS CLI:
aws eks update-kubeconfig --name my-cluster --region cluster-region
kubectl apply -f deployment.yaml
You can verify that your deployments are healthy in the Overview tab for your cluster in AWS: Cluster overview And that’s it! You should now be able to see your pod’s HTTP requests on the Subtrace dashboard.