Yes, journald would definitely be superior, conceptually, to just writing to plain files. I can't help you there, though, as I've never tried setting it up.
(As an aside, I don't understand why more Unix software doesn't consistently use syslog() — we already have a good, standard, abstract logging interface which can be implemented however you want on the host. The syslog protocol is awful, but the syslog() call should be reliable.)
As for kube-up: It's a nice way to bootstrap, but it's an opaque setup that doesn't give you full control over your boxes, or of upgrades. I believe it's idempotent, but I wouldn't trust it to my production environment. Personally, I set up K8s from scratch on AWS via Salt + Debian/Ubuntu packages from Kismatic, and I recommend this approach. I have a Github repo that I'm planning to make semi-generic and public. Email me if you're interested.
(As an aside, I don't understand why more Unix software doesn't consistently use syslog() — we already have a good, standard, abstract logging interface which can be implemented however you want on the host. The syslog protocol is awful, but the syslog() call should be reliable.)
As for kube-up: It's a nice way to bootstrap, but it's an opaque setup that doesn't give you full control over your boxes, or of upgrades. I believe it's idempotent, but I wouldn't trust it to my production environment. Personally, I set up K8s from scratch on AWS via Salt + Debian/Ubuntu packages from Kismatic, and I recommend this approach. I have a Github repo that I'm planning to make semi-generic and public. Email me if you're interested.