Configuring metrics for user workload monitoring
Configure the collection of metrics to monitor how cluster components and your own workloads are performing.
You can send ingested metrics to remote systems for long-term storage and add cluster ID labels to the metrics to identify the data coming from different clusters.
Configuring remote write storage
You can configure remote write storage to enable Prometheus to send ingested metrics to remote systems for long-term storage. Doing so has no impact on how or for how long Prometheus stores metrics.
-
You have access to the cluster as a user with the
cluster-admincluster role or as a user with theuser-workload-monitoring-config-editrole in theopenshift-user-workload-monitoringproject. -
A cluster administrator has enabled monitoring for user-defined projects.
-
You have installed the OpenShift CLI (
oc). -
You have set up a remote write compatible endpoint (such as Thanos) and know the endpoint URL. See the Prometheus remote endpoints and storage documentation for information about endpoints that are compatible with the remote write feature.
Important
Red Hat only provides information for configuring remote write senders and does not offer guidance on configuring receiver endpoints. Customers are responsible for setting up their own endpoints that are remote-write compatible. Issues with endpoint receiver configurations are not included in Red Hat production support.
-
You have set up authentication credentials in a
Secretobject for the remote write endpoint. You must create the secret in theopenshift-user-workload-monitoringnamespace.Warning
To reduce security risks, use HTTPS and authentication to send metrics to an endpoint.
-
Edit the
user-workload-monitoring-configconfig map in theopenshift-user-workload-monitoringproject:$ oc -n openshift-user-workload-monitoring edit configmap user-workload-monitoring-config -
Add a
remoteWrite:section underdata/config.yaml/prometheus, as shown in the following example:apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: user-workload-monitoring-config namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring data: config.yaml: | prometheus: remoteWrite: - url: "https://remote-write-endpoint.example.com" <endpoint_authentication_credentials>- The URL of the remote write endpoint.
- The authentication method and credentials for the endpoint.
Currently supported authentication methods are AWS Signature Version 4, authentication using HTTP in an
Authorizationrequest header, Basic authentication, OAuth 2.0, and TLS client. See Supported remote write authentication settings for sample configurations of supported authentication methods.
-
Add write relabel configuration values after the authentication credentials:
apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: user-workload-monitoring-config namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring data: config.yaml: | prometheus: remoteWrite: - url: "https://remote-write-endpoint.example.com" <endpoint_authentication_credentials> writeRelabelConfigs: - <your_write_relabel_configs>- Add configuration for metrics that you want to send to the remote endpoint.
Example of forwarding a single metric called
my_metricapiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: user-workload-monitoring-config namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring data: config.yaml: | prometheus: remoteWrite: - url: "https://remote-write-endpoint.example.com" writeRelabelConfigs: - sourceLabels: [__name__] regex: 'my_metric' action: keepExample of forwarding metrics calledmy_metric_1andmy_metric_2inmy_namespacenamespaceapiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: user-workload-monitoring-config namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring data: config.yaml: | prometheus: remoteWrite: - url: "https://remote-write-endpoint.example.com" writeRelabelConfigs: - sourceLabels: [__name__,namespace] regex: '(my_metric_1|my_metric_2);my_namespace' action: keep
- Add configuration for metrics that you want to send to the remote endpoint.
-
Save the file to apply the changes. The new configuration is applied automatically.
Supported remote write authentication settings
You can use different methods to authenticate with a remote write endpoint. Currently supported authentication methods are AWS Signature Version 4, basic authentication, authorization, OAuth 2.0, and TLS client. The following table provides details about supported authentication methods for use with remote write.
| Authentication method | Config map field | Description |
|---|---|---|
AWS Signature Version 4 |
|
This method uses AWS Signature Version 4 authentication to sign requests. You cannot use this method simultaneously with authorization, OAuth 2.0, or Basic authentication. |
Basic authentication |
|
Basic authentication sets the authorization header on every remote write request with the configured username and password. |
authorization |
|
Authorization sets the |
OAuth 2.0 |
|
An OAuth 2.0 configuration uses the client credentials grant type.
Prometheus fetches an access token from |
TLS client |
|
A TLS client configuration specifies the CA certificate, the client certificate, and the client key file information used to authenticate with the remote write endpoint server using TLS. The sample configuration assumes that you have already created a CA certificate file, a client certificate file, and a client key file. |
Example remote write authentication settings
The following samples show different authentication settings you can use to connect to a remote write endpoint. Each sample also shows how to configure a corresponding Secret object that contains authentication credentials and other relevant settings. Each sample configures authentication for use with
monitoring for user-defined projects
in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace.
Sample YAML for AWS Signature Version 4 authentication
The following shows the settings for a sigv4 secret named sigv4-credentials in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: sigv4-credentials
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
stringData:
accessKey: <AWS_access_key>
secretKey: <AWS_secret_key>
type: Opaque
- The AWS API access key.
- The AWS API secret key.
The following shows sample AWS Signature Version 4 remote write authentication settings that use a Secret object named sigv4-credentials in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: user-workload-monitoring-config
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
data:
config.yaml: |
prometheus:
remoteWrite:
- url: "https://authorization.example.com/api/write"
sigv4:
region: <AWS_region>
accessKey:
name: sigv4-credentials
key: accessKey
secretKey:
name: sigv4-credentials
key: secretKey
profile: <AWS_profile_name>
roleArn: <AWS_role_arn>
- The AWS region.
- The name of the
Secretobject containing the AWS API access credentials. - The key that contains the AWS API access key in the specified
Secretobject. - The key that contains the AWS API secret key in the specified
Secretobject. - The name of the AWS profile that is being used to authenticate.
- The unique identifier for the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) assigned to your role.
Sample YAML for Basic authentication
The following shows sample Basic authentication settings for a Secret object named rw-basic-auth in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: rw-basic-auth
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
stringData:
user: <basic_username>
password: <basic_password>
type: Opaque
- The username.
- The password.
The following sample shows a basicAuth remote write configuration that uses a Secret object named rw-basic-auth in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace.
It assumes that you have already set up authentication credentials for the endpoint.
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: user-workload-monitoring-config
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
data:
config.yaml: |
prometheus:
remoteWrite:
- url: "https://basicauth.example.com/api/write"
basicAuth:
username:
name: rw-basic-auth
key: user
password:
name: rw-basic-auth
key: password
- The name of the
Secretobject that contains the authentication credentials. - The key that contains the username in the specified
Secretobject. - The key that contains the password in the specified
Secretobject.
Sample YAML for authentication with a bearer token using a Secret Object
The following shows bearer token settings for a Secret object named rw-bearer-auth in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: rw-bearer-auth
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
stringData:
token: <authentication_token>
type: Opaque
- The authentication token.
The following shows sample bearer token config map settings that use a Secret object named rw-bearer-auth in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: user-workload-monitoring-config
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
data:
config.yaml: |
prometheus:
remoteWrite:
- url: "https://authorization.example.com/api/write"
authorization:
type: Bearer
credentials:
name: rw-bearer-auth
key: token
- The authentication type of the request. The default value is
Bearer. - The name of the
Secretobject that contains the authentication credentials. - The key that contains the authentication token in the specified
Secretobject.
Sample YAML for OAuth 2.0 authentication
The following shows sample OAuth 2.0 settings for a Secret object named oauth2-credentials in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: oauth2-credentials
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
stringData:
id: <oauth2_id>
secret: <oauth2_secret>
type: Opaque
- The Oauth 2.0 ID.
- The OAuth 2.0 secret.
The following shows an oauth2 remote write authentication sample configuration that uses a Secret object named oauth2-credentials in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace:
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: user-workload-monitoring-config
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
data:
config.yaml: |
prometheus:
remoteWrite:
- url: "https://test.example.com/api/write"
oauth2:
clientId:
secret:
name: oauth2-credentials
key: id
clientSecret:
name: oauth2-credentials
key: secret
tokenUrl: https://example.com/oauth2/token
scopes:
- <scope_1>
- <scope_2>
endpointParams:
param1: <parameter_1>
param2: <parameter_2>
- The name of the corresponding
Secretobject. Note thatClientIdcan alternatively refer to aConfigMapobject, althoughclientSecretmust refer to aSecretobject. - The key that contains the OAuth 2.0 credentials in the specified
Secretobject. - The URL used to fetch a token with the specified
clientIdandclientSecret. - The OAuth 2.0 scopes for the authorization request. These scopes limit what data the tokens can access.
- The OAuth 2.0 authorization request parameters required for the authorization server.
Sample YAML for TLS client authentication
The following shows sample TLS client settings for a tls Secret object named mtls-bundle in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: mtls-bundle
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
data:
ca.crt: <ca_cert>
client.crt: <client_cert>
client.key: <client_key>
type: tls
- The CA certificate in the Prometheus container with which to validate the server certificate.
- The client certificate for authentication with the server.
- The client key.
The following sample shows a tlsConfig remote write authentication configuration that uses a TLS Secret object named mtls-bundle.
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: user-workload-monitoring-config
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
data:
config.yaml: |
prometheus:
remoteWrite:
- url: "https://remote-write-endpoint.example.com"
tlsConfig:
ca:
secret:
name: mtls-bundle
key: ca.crt
cert:
secret:
name: mtls-bundle
key: client.crt
keySecret:
name: mtls-bundle
key: client.key
- The name of the corresponding
Secretobject that contains the TLS authentication credentials. Note thatcaandcertcan alternatively refer to aConfigMapobject, thoughkeySecretmust refer to aSecretobject. - The key in the specified
Secretobject that contains the CA certificate for the endpoint. - The key in the specified
Secretobject that contains the client certificate for the endpoint. - The key in the specified
Secretobject that contains the client key secret.
Example remote write queue configuration
You can use the queueConfig object for remote write to tune the remote write queue parameters. The following example shows the queue parameters with their default values for
monitoring for user-defined projects
in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace.
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: user-workload-monitoring-config
namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
data:
config.yaml: |
prometheus:
remoteWrite:
- url: "https://remote-write-endpoint.example.com"
<endpoint_authentication_credentials>
queueConfig:
capacity: 10000
minShards: 1
maxShards: 50
maxSamplesPerSend: 2000
batchSendDeadline: 5s
minBackoff: 30ms
maxBackoff: 5s
retryOnRateLimit: false
sampleAgeLimit: 0s
- The number of samples to buffer per shard before they are dropped from the queue.
- The minimum number of shards.
- The maximum number of shards.
- The maximum number of samples per send.
- The maximum time for a sample to wait in buffer.
- The initial time to wait before retrying a failed request. The time gets doubled for every retry up to the
maxbackofftime. - The maximum time to wait before retrying a failed request.
- Set this parameter to
trueto retry a request after receiving a 429 status code from the remote write storage. - The samples that are older than the
sampleAgeLimitlimit are dropped from the queue. If the value is undefined or set to0s, the parameter is ignored.
Table of remote write metrics
The following table contains remote write and remote write-adjacent metrics with further description to help solve issues during remote write configuration.
| Metric | Description |
|---|---|
|
Shows the newest timestamp that Prometheus stored in the write-ahead log (WAL) for any sample. |
|
Shows the newest timestamp that the remote write queue successfully sent. |
|
The number of samples that remote write failed to send and had to resend to remote storage. A steady high rate for this metric indicates problems with the network or remote storage endpoint. |
|
Shows how many shards are currently running for each remote endpoint. |
|
Shows the calculated needed number of shards based on the current write throughput and the rate of incoming versus sent samples. |
|
Shows the maximum number of shards based on the current configuration. |
|
Shows the minimum number of shards based on the current configuration. |
|
The WAL segment file that Prometheus is currently writing new data to. |
|
The WAL segment file that each remote write instance is currently reading from. |
Creating cluster ID labels for metrics
You can create cluster ID labels for metrics by adding the write_relabel settings for remote write storage in the user-workload-monitoring-config config map in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring namespace.
Note
When Prometheus scrapes user workload targets that expose a namespace label, the system stores this label as exported_namespace.
This behavior ensures that the final namespace label value is equal to the namespace of the target pod.
You cannot override this default configuration by setting the value of the honorLabels field to true for PodMonitor or ServiceMonitor objects.
-
You have access to the cluster as a user with the
cluster-admincluster role, or as a user with theuser-workload-monitoring-config-editrole in theopenshift-user-workload-monitoringproject. -
A cluster administrator has enabled monitoring for user-defined projects.
-
You have installed the OpenShift CLI (
oc). -
You have configured remote write storage.
-
Edit the
user-workload-monitoring-configconfig map in theopenshift-user-workload-monitoringproject:$ oc -n openshift-user-workload-monitoring edit configmap user-workload-monitoring-config -
In the
writeRelabelConfigs:section underdata/config.yaml/prometheus/remoteWrite, add cluster ID relabel configuration values:apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: user-workload-monitoring-config namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring data: config.yaml: | prometheus: remoteWrite: - url: "https://remote-write-endpoint.example.com" <endpoint_authentication_credentials> writeRelabelConfigs: - <relabel_config>- Add a list of write relabel configurations for metrics that you want to send to the remote endpoint.
- Substitute the label configuration for the metrics sent to the remote write endpoint.
The following sample shows how to forward a metric with the cluster ID label
cluster_id:apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: user-workload-monitoring-config namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring data: config.yaml: | prometheus: remoteWrite: - url: "https://remote-write-endpoint.example.com" writeRelabelConfigs: - sourceLabels: - __tmp_openshift_cluster_id__ targetLabel: cluster_id action: replace - The system initially applies a temporary cluster ID source label named
__tmp_openshift_cluster_id__. This temporary label gets replaced by the cluster ID label name that you specify. - Specify the name of the cluster ID label for metrics sent to remote write storage.
If you use a label name that already exists for a metric, that value is overwritten with the name of this cluster ID label.
For the label name, do not use
__tmp_openshift_cluster_id__. The final relabeling step removes labels that use this name. - The
replacewrite relabel action replaces the temporary label with the target label for outgoing metrics. This action is the default and is applied if no action is specified.
-
Save the file to apply the changes. The new configuration is applied automatically.
Setting up metrics collection for user-defined projects
You can create a ServiceMonitor resource to scrape metrics from a service endpoint in a user-defined project. This assumes that your application uses a Prometheus client library to expose metrics to the /metrics canonical name.
This section describes how to deploy a sample service in a user-defined project and then create a ServiceMonitor resource that defines how that service should be monitored.
Deploying a sample service
To test monitoring of a service in a user-defined project, you can deploy a sample service.
-
You have access to the cluster as a user with the
cluster-admincluster role or as a user with administrative permissions for the namespace.
-
Create a YAML file for the service configuration. In this example, it is called
prometheus-example-app.yaml. -
Add the following deployment and service configuration details to the file:
apiVersion: v1 kind: Namespace metadata: name: ns1 --- apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: labels: app: prometheus-example-app name: prometheus-example-app namespace: ns1 spec: replicas: 1 selector: matchLabels: app: prometheus-example-app template: metadata: labels: app: prometheus-example-app spec: containers: - image: ghcr.io/rhobs/prometheus-example-app:0.4.2 imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent name: prometheus-example-app --- apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: labels: app: prometheus-example-app name: prometheus-example-app namespace: ns1 spec: ports: - port: 8080 protocol: TCP targetPort: 8080 name: web selector: app: prometheus-example-app type: ClusterIPThis configuration deploys a service named
prometheus-example-appin the user-definedns1project. This service exposes the customversionmetric. -
Apply the configuration to the cluster:
$ oc apply -f prometheus-example-app.yamlIt takes some time to deploy the service.
-
You can check that the pod is running:
$ oc -n ns1 get podExample outputNAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE prometheus-example-app-7857545cb7-sbgwq 1/1 Running 0 81m
Specifying how a service is monitored
To use the metrics exposed by your service, you must configure OpenShift Container Platform monitoring to scrape metrics from the /metrics endpoint. You can do this using a ServiceMonitor custom resource definition (CRD) that specifies how a service should be monitored, or a PodMonitor CRD that specifies how a pod should be monitored. The former requires a Service object, while the latter does not, allowing Prometheus to directly scrape metrics from the metrics endpoint exposed by a pod.
This procedure shows you how to create a ServiceMonitor resource for a service in a user-defined project.
-
You have access to the cluster as a user with the
cluster-admincluster role or themonitoring-editcluster role. -
You have enabled monitoring for user-defined projects.
-
For this example, you have deployed the
prometheus-example-appsample service in thens1project.Note
The
prometheus-example-appsample service does not support TLS authentication.
-
Create a new YAML configuration file named
example-app-service-monitor.yaml. -
Add a
ServiceMonitorresource to the YAML file. The following example creates a service monitor namedprometheus-example-monitorto scrape metrics exposed by theprometheus-example-appservice in thens1namespace:apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1 kind: ServiceMonitor metadata: name: prometheus-example-monitor namespace: ns1 spec: endpoints: - interval: 30s port: web scheme: http selector: matchLabels: app: prometheus-example-app- Specify a user-defined namespace where your service runs.
- Specify endpoint ports to be scraped by Prometheus.
- Configure a selector to match your service based on its metadata labels.
Note
A
ServiceMonitorresource in a user-defined namespace can only discover services in the same namespace. That is, thenamespaceSelectorfield of theServiceMonitorresource is always ignored.
-
Apply the configuration to the cluster:
$ oc apply -f example-app-service-monitor.yamlIt takes some time to deploy the
ServiceMonitorresource. -
Verify that the
ServiceMonitorresource is running:$ oc -n <namespace> get servicemonitorExample outputNAME AGE prometheus-example-monitor 81m
Example service endpoint authentication settings
You can configure authentication for service endpoints for user-defined project monitoring by using ServiceMonitor and PodMonitor custom resource definitions (CRDs).
The following samples show different authentication settings for a ServiceMonitor resource.
Each sample shows how to configure a corresponding Secret object that contains authentication credentials and other relevant settings.
Sample YAML authentication with a bearer token
The following sample shows bearer token settings for a Secret object named example-bearer-auth in the ns1 namespace:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: example-bearer-auth
namespace: ns1
stringData:
token: <authentication_token>
- Specify an authentication token.
The following sample shows bearer token authentication settings for a ServiceMonitor CRD. The example uses a Secret object named example-bearer-auth:
apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
name: prometheus-example-monitor
namespace: ns1
spec:
endpoints:
- authorization:
credentials:
key: token
name: example-bearer-auth
port: web
selector:
matchLabels:
app: prometheus-example-app
- The key that contains the authentication token in the specified
Secretobject. - The name of the
Secretobject that contains the authentication credentials.
Important
Do not use bearerTokenFile to configure bearer token. If you use the bearerTokenFile configuration, the ServiceMonitor resource is rejected.
Sample YAML for Basic authentication
The following sample shows Basic authentication settings for a Secret object named example-basic-auth in the ns1 namespace:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: example-basic-auth
namespace: ns1
stringData:
user: <basic_username>
password: <basic_password>
- Specify a username for authentication.
- Specify a password for authentication.
The following sample shows Basic authentication settings for a ServiceMonitor CRD. The example uses a Secret object named example-basic-auth:
apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
name: prometheus-example-monitor
namespace: ns1
spec:
endpoints:
- basicAuth:
username:
key: user
name: example-basic-auth
password:
key: password
name: example-basic-auth
port: web
selector:
matchLabels:
app: prometheus-example-app
- The key that contains the username in the specified
Secretobject. - The name of the
Secretobject that contains the Basic authentication. - The key that contains the password in the specified
Secretobject.
Sample YAML authentication with OAuth 2.0
The following sample shows OAuth 2.0 settings for a Secret object named example-oauth2 in the ns1 namespace:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: example-oauth2
namespace: ns1
stringData:
id: <oauth2_id>
secret: <oauth2_secret>
- Specify an Oauth 2.0 ID.
- Specify an Oauth 2.0 secret.
The following sample shows OAuth 2.0 authentication settings for a ServiceMonitor CRD. The example uses a Secret object named example-oauth2:
apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
name: prometheus-example-monitor
namespace: ns1
spec:
endpoints:
- oauth2:
clientId:
secret:
key: id
name: example-oauth2
clientSecret:
key: secret
name: example-oauth2
tokenUrl: https://example.com/oauth2/token
port: web
selector:
matchLabels:
app: prometheus-example-app
- The key that contains the OAuth 2.0 ID in the specified
Secretobject. - The name of the
Secretobject that contains the OAuth 2.0 credentials. - The key that contains the OAuth 2.0 secret in the specified
Secretobject. - The URL used to fetch a token with the specified
clientIdandclientSecret.