[processor/k8sattributes] Only store necessary Pod data (#23272)

Only store Pod data we actually use for attributes in the informer store. By default, informers store all data about K8s objects, as they're primarily intended to act as a local cache for the API Server. For our use case, most of that data is unnecessary, and it eats a significant amount of memory in larger clusters. This PR uses a transform function to remove the unnecessary data from the informer store.

I've measured the gains synthetically, and we use nearly 70% less memory per stored Pod. I haven't included the benchmark function in this PR, as it's a bit complicated and hacky, and I'm not convinced there's value in adding it to the codebase permanently.

.chloggen/feat_k8sattributes_set-transform.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+# Use this changelog template to create an entry for release notes.
+# If your change doesn't affect end users, such as a test fix or a tooling change,
+# you should instead start your pull request title with [chore] or use the "Skip Changelog" label.
+
+# One of 'breaking', 'deprecation', 'new_component', 'enhancement', 'bug_fix'
+change_type: enhancement
+
+# The name of the component, or a single word describing the area of concern, (e.g. filelogreceiver)
+component: k8sattributesprocessor
+
+# A brief description of the change.  Surround your text with quotes ("") if it needs to start with a backtick (`).
+note: Store only necessary Pod data
+
+# Mandatory: One or more tracking issues related to the change. You can use the PR number here if no issue exists.
+issues: [23226]
+
+# (Optional) One or more lines of additional information to render under the primary note.
+# These lines will be padded with 2 spaces and then inserted directly into the document.
+# Use pipe (|) for multiline entries.
+subtext:

processor/k8sattributesprocessor/internal/kube/client.go

@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ import (
 	"go.uber.org/zap"
 	apps_v1 "k8s.io/api/apps/v1"
 	api_v1 "k8s.io/api/core/v1"
+	meta_v1 "k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/apis/meta/v1"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/fields"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/labels"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/selection"
@@ -108,6 +109,17 @@ func New(logger *zap.Logger, apiCfg k8sconfig.APIConfig, rules ExtractionRules,
 	}
 
 	c.informer = newInformer(c.kc, c.Filters.Namespace, labelSelector, fieldSelector)
+	err = c.informer.SetTransform(
+		func(object interface{}) (interface{}, error) {
+			originalPod, success := object.(*api_v1.Pod)
+			if !success { // means this is a cache.DeletedFinalStateUnknown, in which case we do nothing
+				return object, nil
+			}
+
+			return removeUnnecessaryPodData(originalPod, c.Rules), nil
+		},
+	)
+
 	if c.extractNamespaceLabelsAnnotations() {
 		c.namespaceInformer = newNamespaceInformer(c.kc)
 	} else {
@@ -398,6 +410,100 @@ func (c *WatchClient) extractPodAttributes(pod *api_v1.Pod) map[string]string {
 	return tags
 }
 
+// This function removes all data from the Pod except what is required by extraction rules and pod association
+func removeUnnecessaryPodData(pod *api_v1.Pod, rules ExtractionRules) *api_v1.Pod {
+
+	// name, namespace, uid, start time and ip are needed for identifying Pods
+	// there's room to optimize this further, it's kept this way for simplicity
+	transformedPod := api_v1.Pod{
+		ObjectMeta: meta_v1.ObjectMeta{
+			Name:      pod.GetName(),
+			Namespace: pod.GetNamespace(),
+			UID:       pod.GetUID(),
+		},
+		Status: api_v1.PodStatus{
+			PodIP:     pod.Status.PodIP,
+			StartTime: pod.Status.StartTime,
+		},
+		Spec: api_v1.PodSpec{
+			HostNetwork: pod.Spec.HostNetwork,
+		},
+	}
+
+	if rules.StartTime {
+		transformedPod.SetCreationTimestamp(pod.GetCreationTimestamp())
+	}
+
+	if rules.PodUID {
+		transformedPod.SetUID(pod.GetUID())
+	}
+
+	if rules.Node {
+		transformedPod.Spec.NodeName = pod.Spec.NodeName
+	}
+
+	if rules.PodHostName {
+		transformedPod.Spec.Hostname = pod.Spec.Hostname
+	}
+
+	if needContainerAttributes(rules) {
+		for _, containerStatus := range pod.Status.ContainerStatuses {
+			transformedPod.Status.ContainerStatuses = append(
+				transformedPod.Status.ContainerStatuses,
+				api_v1.ContainerStatus{
+					Name:         containerStatus.Name,
+					ContainerID:  containerStatus.ContainerID,
+					RestartCount: containerStatus.RestartCount,
+				},
+			)
+		}
+		for _, containerStatus := range pod.Status.InitContainerStatuses {
+			transformedPod.Status.InitContainerStatuses = append(
+				transformedPod.Status.InitContainerStatuses,
+				api_v1.ContainerStatus{
+					Name:         containerStatus.Name,
+					ContainerID:  containerStatus.ContainerID,
+					RestartCount: containerStatus.RestartCount,
+				},
+			)
+		}
+
+		removeUnnecessaryContainerData := func(c api_v1.Container) api_v1.Container {
+			transformedContainer := api_v1.Container{}
+			transformedContainer.Name = c.Name // we always need the name, it's used for identification
+			if rules.ContainerImageName || rules.ContainerImageTag {
+				transformedContainer.Image = c.Image
+			}
+			return transformedContainer
+		}
+
+		for _, container := range pod.Spec.Containers {
+			transformedPod.Spec.Containers = append(
+				transformedPod.Spec.Containers, removeUnnecessaryContainerData(container),
+			)
+		}
+		for _, container := range pod.Spec.InitContainers {
+			transformedPod.Spec.InitContainers = append(
+				transformedPod.Spec.InitContainers, removeUnnecessaryContainerData(container),
+			)
+		}
+	}
+
+	if len(rules.Labels) > 0 {
+		transformedPod.Labels = pod.Labels
+	}
+
+	if len(rules.Annotations) > 0 {
+		transformedPod.Annotations = pod.Annotations
+	}
+
+	if rules.IncludesOwnerMetadata() {
+		transformedPod.SetOwnerReferences(pod.GetOwnerReferences())
+	}
+
+	return &transformedPod
+}
+
 func (c *WatchClient) extractPodContainersAttributes(pod *api_v1.Pod) PodContainers {
 	containers := PodContainers{
 		ByID:   map[string]*Container{},

processor/k8sattributesprocessor/internal/kube/client_test.go

@@ -846,8 +846,12 @@ func TestExtractionRules(t *testing.T) {
 	for _, tc := range testCases {
 		t.Run(tc.name, func(t *testing.T) {
 			c.Rules = tc.rules
+
+			// manually call the data removal function here
+			// normally the informer does this, but fully emulating the informer in this test is annoying
+			transformedPod := removeUnnecessaryPodData(pod, c.Rules)
 			c.handleReplicaSetAdd(replicaset)
-			c.handlePodAdd(pod)
+			c.handlePodAdd(transformedPod)
 			p, ok := c.GetPod(newPodIdentifier("connection", "", pod.Status.PodIP))
 			require.True(t, ok)
 
@@ -996,8 +1000,12 @@ func TestReplicaSetExtractionRules(t *testing.T) {
 		t.Run(tc.name, func(t *testing.T) {
 			c.Rules = tc.rules
 			replicaset.OwnerReferences = tc.ownerReferences
+
+			// manually call the data removal function here
+			// normally the informer does this, but fully emulating the informer in this test is annoying
+			transformedPod := removeUnnecessaryPodData(pod, c.Rules)
 			c.handleReplicaSetAdd(replicaset)
-			c.handlePodAdd(pod)
+			c.handlePodAdd(transformedPod)
 			p, ok := c.GetPod(newPodIdentifier("connection", "", pod.Status.PodIP))
 			require.True(t, ok)
 
@@ -1462,7 +1470,10 @@ func Test_extractPodContainersAttributes(t *testing.T) {
 	for _, tt := range tests {
 		t.Run(tt.name, func(t *testing.T) {
 			c := WatchClient{Rules: tt.rules}
-			assert.Equal(t, tt.want, c.extractPodContainersAttributes(&tt.pod))
+			// manually call the data removal function here
+			// normally the informer does this, but fully emulating the informer in this test is annoying
+			transformedPod := removeUnnecessaryPodData(&tt.pod, c.Rules)
+			assert.Equal(t, tt.want, c.extractPodContainersAttributes(transformedPod))
 		})
 	}
 }

processor/k8sattributesprocessor/internal/kube/kube.go

@@ -208,6 +208,29 @@ type ExtractionRules struct {
 	Labels      []FieldExtractionRule
 }
 
+// IncludesOwnerMetadata determines whether the ExtractionRules include metadata about Pod Owners
+func (rules *ExtractionRules) IncludesOwnerMetadata() bool {
+	rulesNeedingOwnerMetadata := []bool{
+		rules.CronJobName,
+		rules.DeploymentName,
+		rules.DeploymentUID,
+		rules.DaemonSetUID,
+		rules.DaemonSetName,
+		rules.JobName,
+		rules.JobUID,
+		rules.ReplicaSetID,
+		rules.ReplicaSetName,
+		rules.StatefulSetUID,
+		rules.StatefulSetName,
+	}
+	for _, ruleEnabled := range rulesNeedingOwnerMetadata {
+		if ruleEnabled {
+			return true
+		}
+	}
+	return false
+}
+
 // FieldExtractionRule is used to specify which fields to extract from pod fields
 // and inject into spans as attributes.
 type FieldExtractionRule struct {