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Using Prometheus with KubeDB

This tutorial will show you how to monitor KubeDB databases using Prometheus.

Before You Begin

At first, you need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using Minikube.

Now, install KubeDB cli on your workstation and KubeDB operator in your cluster following the steps here.

To keep things isolated, this tutorial uses a separate namespace called demo throughout this tutorial. Run the following command to prepare your cluster for this tutorial:

$ kubectl create ns demo
namespace "demo" created

$ kubectl get ns
NAME          STATUS    AGE
default       Active    45m
demo          Active    10s
kube-public   Active    45m
kube-system   Active    45m

Note that the yaml files that are used in this tutorial, stored in docs/examples folder in GitHub repository kubedb/cli.

Create a Memcached database

KubeDB implements a Memcached CRD to define the specification of a Memcached database. Below is the Memcached object created in this tutorial.

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha1
kind: Memcached
metadata:
  name: memcd-mon-prometheus
  namespace: demo
spec:
  replicas: 3
  version: "1.5.4"
  doNotPause: true
  resources:
    requests:
      memory: 64Mi
      cpu: 250m
    limits:
      memory: 128Mi
      cpu: 500m
  monitor:
    agent: prometheus.io/builtin
$ kubedb create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubedb/cli/0.8.0/docs/examples/memcached/monitoring/builtin-prometheus/demo-1.yaml
memcached "memcd-mon-prometheus" created

Here,

  • spec.version is the version of Memcached database. In this tutorial, a Memcached 1.5.4 database is going to be created.
  • spec.resource is an optional field that specifies how much CPU and memory (RAM) each Container needs. To learn details about Managing Compute Resources for Containers, please visit here.
  • spec.monitor specifies that built-in Prometheus is used to monitor this database instance. KubeDB operator will configure the service of this database in a way that the Prometheus server will automatically find out the service endpoint aka Memcached Exporter and will receive metrics from exporter.

KubeDB operator watches for Memcached objects using Kubernetes api. When a Memcached object is created, KubeDB operator will create a new Deployment and a ClusterIP Service with the matching crd name.

$ kubedb get mc -n demo
NAME                   STATUS    AGE
memcd-mon-prometheus   Running   50s


$ kubedb describe mc -n demo memcd-mon-prometheus
Name:		memcd-mon-prometheus
Namespace:	demo
StartTimestamp:	Tue, 13 Feb 2018 12:24:34 +0600
Status:		Running

Deployment:
  Name:			memcd-mon-prometheus
  Replicas:		3 current / 3 desired
  CreationTimestamp:	Tue, 13 Feb 2018 12:24:35 +0600
  Pods Status:		3 Running / 0 Waiting / 0 Succeeded / 0 Failed

Service:
  Name:		memcd-mon-prometheus
  Type:		ClusterIP
  IP:		10.99.92.24
  Port:		db		11211/TCP
  Port:		prom-http	56790/TCP

Monitoring System:
  Agent:	prometheus.io/builtin
  Prometheus:
    Namespace:
    Interval:

Events:
  FirstSeen   LastSeen   Count     From                 Type       Reason       Message
  ---------   --------   -----     ----                 --------   ------       -------
  45s         45s        1         Memcached operator   Normal     Successful   Successfully patched Deployment
  45s         45s        1         Memcached operator   Normal     Successful   Successfully patched Memcached
  46s         46s        1         Memcached operator   Normal     Successful   Successfully created Deployment
  46s         46s        1         Memcached operator   Normal     Successful   Successfully created Memcached
  1m          1m         1         Memcached operator   Normal     Successful   Successfully created Service

Since spec.monitoring was configured, the database service object is configured accordingly. You can verify it running the following commands:

$ kubectl get services -n demo
NAME                   TYPE        CLUSTER-IP    EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)               AGE
memcd-mon-prometheus   ClusterIP   10.99.92.24   <none>        11211/TCP,56790/TCP   1m
$ kubectl get services memcd-mon-prometheus -n demo -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  annotations:
    monitoring.appscode.com/agent: prometheus.io/builtin
    prometheus.io/path: /kubedb.com/v1alpha1/namespaces/demo/memcacheds/memcd-mon-prometheus/metrics
    prometheus.io/port: "56790"
    prometheus.io/scrape: "true"
  creationTimestamp: 2018-02-13T06:24:34Z
  labels:
    kubedb.com/kind: Memcached
    kubedb.com/name: memcd-mon-prometheus
  name: memcd-mon-prometheus
  namespace: demo
  resourceVersion: "5191"
  selfLink: /api/v1/namespaces/demo/services/memcd-mon-prometheus
  uid: 8efa423f-1086-11e8-801e-080027e82bd4
spec:
  clusterIP: 10.99.92.24
  ports:
  - name: db
    port: 11211
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: db
  - name: prom-http
    port: 56790
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: prom-http
  selector:
    kubedb.com/kind: Memcached
    kubedb.com/name: memcd-mon-prometheus
  sessionAffinity: None
  type: ClusterIP
status:
  loadBalancer: {}

We can see that the service contains these specific annotations. The Prometheus server will discover the exporter using these specifications.

prometheus.io/path: ...
prometheus.io/port: ...
prometheus.io/scrape: ...

Deploy and configure Prometheus Server

The Prometheus server is needed to configure so that it can discover endpoints of services. If a Prometheus server is already running in cluster and if it is configured in a way that it can discover service endpoints, no extra configuration will be needed. If there is no existing Prometheus server running, rest of this tutorial will create a Prometheus server with appropriate configuration.

The configuration file to Prometheus-Server will be provided by ConfigMap. The below config map will be created:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: prometheus-server-conf
  labels:
    name: prometheus-server-conf
  namespace: demo
data:
  prometheus.yml: |-
    global:
      scrape_interval: 5s
      evaluation_interval: 5s
    scrape_configs:
    - job_name: 'kubernetes-service-endpoints'

      kubernetes_sd_configs:
      - role: endpoints

      relabel_configs:
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_service_annotation_prometheus_io_scrape]
        action: keep
        regex: true
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_service_annotation_prometheus_io_scheme]
        action: replace
        target_label: __scheme__
        regex: (https?)
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_service_annotation_prometheus_io_path]
        action: replace
        target_label: __metrics_path__
        regex: (.+)
      - source_labels: [__address__, __meta_kubernetes_service_annotation_prometheus_io_port]
        action: replace
        target_label: __address__
        regex: ([^:]+)(?::\d+)?;(\d+)
        replacement: $1:$2
      - action: labelmap
        regex: __meta_kubernetes_service_label_(.+)
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_namespace]
        action: replace
        target_label: kubernetes_namespace
      - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_service_name]
        action: replace
        target_label: kubernetes_name    
$ kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubedb/cli/0.8.0/docs/examples/monitoring/builtin-prometheus/demo-1.yaml
configmap "prometheus-server-conf" created

Now, the below yaml is used to deploy Prometheus in kubernetes :

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: prometheus-server
  namespace: demo
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: prometheus-server
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: prometheus-server
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: prometheus
          image: prom/prometheus:v2.1.0
          args:
            - "--config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
            - "--storage.tsdb.path=/prometheus/"
          ports:
            - containerPort: 9090
          volumeMounts:
            - name: prometheus-config-volume
              mountPath: /etc/prometheus/
            - name: prometheus-storage-volume
              mountPath: /prometheus/
      volumes:
        - name: prometheus-config-volume
          configMap:
            defaultMode: 420
            name: prometheus-server-conf
        - name: prometheus-storage-volume
          emptyDir: {}

In RBAC enabled cluster

If RBAC is enabled, Run the following command to deploy prometheus in kubernetes:

$ kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubedb/cli/0.8.0/docs/examples/monitoring/builtin-prometheus/rbac/demo-2.yaml
clusterrole "prometheus-server" created
serviceaccount "prometheus-server" created
clusterrolebinding "prometheus-server" created
deployment "prometheus-server" created
service "prometheus-service" created

# Verify RBAC stuffs
$ kubectl get clusterroles
NAME                AGE
prometheus-server   57s

$ kubectl get clusterrolebindings
NAME                AGE
prometheus-server   1m

$ kubectl get serviceaccounts -n demo
NAME                SECRETS   AGE
default             1         48m
prometheus-server   1         1m

In RBAC *not* enabled cluster

If RBAC is not enabled, Run the following command to prepare your cluster for this tutorial:

$ kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubedb/cli/0.8.0/docs/examples/monitoring/builtin-prometheus/demo-2.yaml
deployment "prometheus-server" created
service "prometheus-service" created

$ kubectl get pods -n demo
NAME                                    READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
memcd-mon-prometheus-5b5dc7b6bd-7gszv   2/2       Running   0          4m
memcd-mon-prometheus-5b5dc7b6bd-mm8vc   2/2       Running   0          4m
memcd-mon-prometheus-5b5dc7b6bd-nvwlg   2/2       Running   0          4m
prometheus-server-79c7cf44fc-wwmwv      1/1       Running   0          1m

Prometheus Dashboard

Now to open prometheus dashboard on Browser:

$ kubectl get svc -n demo
NAME                   TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)               AGE
memcd-mon-prometheus   ClusterIP      10.99.92.24    <none>        11211/TCP,56790/TCP   4m
prometheus-service     LoadBalancer   10.99.73.172   <pending>     9090:30901/TCP        1m

$ minikube ip
192.168.99.100

$ minikube service prometheus-service -n demo --url
http://192.168.99.100:30901

Now, open your browser and go to the following URL: http://{minikube-ip}:{prometheus-svc-nodeport} to visit Prometheus Dashboard. According to the above example, this URL will be http://192.168.99.100:30901.

Now, if you go the Prometheus Dashboard, you should see that this database endpoint as one of the targets. prometheus-builtin

Cleaning up

To cleanup the Kubernetes resources created by this tutorial, run:

$ kubectl patch -n demo mc/memcd-mon-prometheus -p '{"spec":{"doNotPause":false}}' --type="merge"
$ kubectl delete -n demo mc/memcd-mon-prometheus

$ kubectl patch -n demo drmn/memcd-mon-prometheus -p '{"spec":{"wipeOut":true}}' --type="merge"
$ kubectl delete -n demo drmn/memcd-mon-prometheus

# In rbac enabled cluster,
# $ kubectl delete clusterrole prometheus-server
# $ kubectl delete clusterrolebindings  prometheus-server
# $ kubectl delete serviceaccounts -n demo  prometheus-server

$ kubectl delete ns demo
namespace "demo" deleted

Next Steps