Allow NIC json logging to use UNIX time

[AlexFenlon]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
As a user, I would like the option to configure NIC logging to output timestamps in UNIX time (seconds, milliseconds, or nanoseconds), instead of only the default RFC3339 format.

Describe the solution you'd like
Add an option to the existing LogFormat configuration option that controls the timestamp format for both JSON and text log output.

Additional inputs:

• json-unix (json format, seconds)
• json-unix-ms (json format, milliseconds)
• text-unix (text format, nanoseconds)
• text-unix-ms (text format, milliseconds)

Examples

Default JSON (RFC3339):

{"time":"2025-08-19T14:29:17.492029463Z","level":"DEBUG","source":{"file":"controller.go","line":1019},"msg":"Syncing default/my-release-nginx-ingress-controller-7tj7f"}

JSON with UNIX (seconds):

{"time":"1755613721","level":"DEBUG","source":{"file":"controller.go","line":1019},"msg":"Syncing default/my-release-nginx-ingress-controller-7tj7f"}

Default TEXT (RFC3339):

time=2025-08-19T14:31:26.485Z level=DEBUG source=controller.go:1019 msg="Syncing default/my-release-nginx-ingress-controller-7tj7f"

TEXT with UNIX-ms:

time=1755619167305 level=DEBUG source=controller.go:1019 msg="Syncing default/my-release-nginx-ingress-controller-c828v"

[github-actions]

Hi @AlexFenlon thanks for reporting!

Be sure to check out the docs and the Contributing Guidelines while you wait for a human to take a look at this 🙂

Cheers!