Reminder:

✅ Where Are Your App Logs Then?

Spring Boot logs (by default) go to stdout.

Here’s where those logs actually end up in a real Kubernetes setup:

What You’re Seeing Where Logs Actually Go
Inside your container (/var/log) ❌ Not used for app logs
kubectl logs <pod> ✅ Shows stdout/stderr captured by Kubernetes
Node filesystem (/var/log/containers/, /var/log/pods/) ✅ Where Kubernetes stores container logs
External logging systems (Loki, Fluentd, etc) ✅ If configured, logs are shipped here

🧱 What Really Happens When a Pod Logs

Let’s say you have a Spring Boot app running in Kubernetes.

You do something like:


System.out.println("App started");

That message needs to go somewhere. But where?

🖥️ stdout and stderr: The “Default Print Destinations”

When your app prints something, it goes to:

These are not files or folders — they’re just default destinations that the OS (Linux) gives to every program.

Think of it like this: