Documentation
Deploying Grafana + Prometheus + Contour + Cert Manager on Tanzu Community Edition ¶
The purpose of this guide is to guide the reader through a deployment of the monitoring packages that are available with Tanzu Community Edition. These packages are Contour, Cert Manager, Prometheus and Grafana. Cert Manager provides secure communication between Contour and Envoy. Contour is a control plane for an Envoy Ingress controller. Prometheus records real-time metrics in a time series database, and Grafana, an analytics and interactive visualization web application which provides charts, graphs, and alerts when connected to a supported data source, such as Prometheus.
From a dependency perspective, Prometheus and Grafana have a dependency on an Ingress, or a HTTPProxy to be more precise, which is included by the Contour package. The ingress controller is Envoy, with Contour acting as the control plane to provide dynamic configuration updates and delegation control. Lastly, in this deployment, Contour will have a dependency on a Certificate Manager, which is also provided by the Cert Manager package. Thus, the order of package deployment will be, Certificate Manager, followed by Contour, followed by Prometheus and then finally Grafana.
We will make the assumption that a Tanzu Community Edition workload cluster is already provisioned, and that is has been integrated with a load balancer. In this scenario, the deployment is to vSphere, and the Load Balancer services are being provided by the NSX Advanced Load Balancer (NSX ALB). Deployment of the Tanzu Community Edition clusters and NSX ALB are beyond the scope of this document, but details on how to do these deployment operations can be found elsewhere in the official documentation.
It is also recommended that the reader familiarize themselves with the working with packages documention as we will be using packages extensively in this procedure.
Examining the Tanzu Community Edition environment ¶
For the purposes of illustration, this is the environment that we will be using to deploy the monitoring stack. Your environment may of course be different. This environment has a Tanzu Community Edition management cluster and a single Tanzu Community Edition workload cluster. Context has been set to that of “admin” on the workload cluster. If Identity Management has been configured on the workload cluster, an LDAP or OIDC user with appropriate privileges may also be used.
% tanzu cluster list --include-management-cluster
NAME NAMESPACE STATUS CONTROLPLANE WORKERS KUBERNETES ROLES PLAN
workload default running 1/1 1/1 v1.21.2+vmware.1 <none> dev
mgmt tkg-system running 1/1 1/1 v1.21.2+vmware.1 management dev
% kubectl config get-contexts
CURRENT NAME CLUSTER AUTHINFO NAMESPACE
mgmt-admin@mgmt mgmt mgmt-admin
tanzu-cli-mgmt@mgmt mgmt tanzu-cli-mgmt
* workload-admin@workload workload workload-admin
% kubectl get nodes -o wide
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION INTERNAL-IP EXTERNAL-IP OS-IMAGE KERNEL-VERSION CONTAINER-RUNTIME
workload-control-plane-sjswp Ready control-plane,master 5d1h v1.21.2+vmware.1 xx.xx.51.50 xx.xx.51.50 VMware Photon OS/Linux 4.19.198-1.ph3 containerd://1.4.6
workload-md-0-6555d876c9-qp6ft Ready <none> 5d1h v1.21.2+vmware.1 xx.xx.51.51 xx.xx.51.51 VMware Photon OS/Linux 4.19.198-1.ph3 containerd://1.4.6
Add the Tanzu Community Edition Package Repository ¶
By default, only the tanzu core packages are available on the workload cluster. I use the -A option to check all namespaces.
% tanzu package installed list -A
| Retrieving installed packages...
NAME PACKAGE-NAME PACKAGE-VERSION STATUS NAMESPACE
antrea antrea.tanzu.vmware.com Reconcile succeeded tkg-system
load-balancer-and-ingress-service load-balancer-and-ingress-service.tanzu.vmware.com Reconcile succeeded tkg-system
metrics-server metrics-server.tanzu.vmware.com Reconcile succeeded tkg-system
pinniped pinniped.tanzu.vmware.com Reconcile succeeded tkg-system
vsphere-cpi vsphere-cpi.tanzu.vmware.com Reconcile succeeded tkg-system
vsphere-csi vsphere-csi.tanzu.vmware.com Reconcile succeeded tkg-system
To access the community packages, you will first need to add the tce repository.
% tanzu package repository add tce-repo \
--url projects.registry.vmware.com/tce/main:0.11.0
/ Adding package repository 'tce-repo'...
Added package repository 'tce-repo'
Monitor the repo until the STATUS changes to Reconcile succeeded. The community packages are now available to the cluster.
% tanzu package repository list -A
| Retrieving repositories...
NAME REPOSITORY STATUS DETAILS NAMESPACE
tce-repo projects.registry.vmware.com/tce/main:0.11.0 Reconcile succeeded default
tanzu-core projects-stg.registry.vmware.com/tkg/packages/core/repo:v1.21.2_vmware.1-tkg.1-zshippable Reconcile succeeded tkg-system
Additional packages from the Tanzu Community Edition repository should now be available.
% tanzu package available list -A
/ Retrieving available packages...
NAME DISPLAY-NAME SHORT-DESCRIPTION NAMESPACE
cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com cert-manager Certificate management default
contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com Contour An ingress controller default
external-dns.community.tanzu.vmware.com external-dns This package provides DNS synchronization functionality. default
fluent-bit.community.tanzu.vmware.com fluent-bit Fluent Bit is a fast Log Processor and Forwarder default
gatekeeper.community.tanzu.vmware.com gatekeeper policy management default
grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com grafana Visualization and analytics software default
harbor.community.tanzu.vmware.com Harbor OCI Registry default
knative-serving.community.tanzu.vmware.com knative-serving Knative Serving builds on Kubernetes to support deploying and serving of applications and functions as serverless containers default
local-path-storage.community.tanzu.vmware.com local-path-storage This package provides local path node storage and primarily supports RWO AccessMode. default
multus-cni.community.tanzu.vmware.com multus-cni This package provides the ability for enabling attaching multiple network interfaces to pods in Kubernetes default
prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com prometheus A time series database for your metrics default
velero.community.tanzu.vmware.com velero Disaster recovery capabilities default
addons-manager.tanzu.vmware.com tanzu-addons-manager This package provides TKG addons lifecycle management capabilities. tkg-system
ako-operator.tanzu.vmware.com ako-operator NSX Advanced Load Balancer using ako-operator tkg-system
antrea.tanzu.vmware.com antrea networking and network security solution for containers tkg-system
calico.tanzu.vmware.com calico Networking and network security solution for containers. tkg-system
kapp-controller.tanzu.vmware.com kapp-controller Kubernetes package manager tkg-system
load-balancer-and-ingress-service.tanzu.vmware.com load-balancer-and-ingress-service Provides L4+L7 load balancing for TKG clusters running on vSphere tkg-system
metrics-server.tanzu.vmware.com metrics-server Metrics Server is a scalable, efficient source of container resource metrics for Kubernetes built-in autoscaling pipelines. tkg-system
pinniped.tanzu.vmware.com pinniped Pinniped provides identity services to Kubernetes. tkg-system
vsphere-cpi.tanzu.vmware.com vsphere-cpi The Cluster API brings declarative, Kubernetes-style APIs to cluster creation, configuration and management. Cluster API Provider for vSphere is a concrete implementation of Cluster API for vSphere. tkg-system
vsphere-csi.tanzu.vmware.com vsphere-csi vSphere CSI provider tkg-system
Deploy Certificate Manager ¶
Cert-manager cert-manager.io is an optional package, but we shall install it anyway to make the monitoring app stack more secure. We will use it to secure communications between Contour and the Envoy Ingress. Thus, Contour has a dependency on Certificate Manager, so we will need to install this package first.
Cert-manager automates certificate management in cloud native environments. It provides certificates-as-a-service capabilities. You can install the cert-manager package on your cluster through a community package.
For some packages, bespoke changes to the configuration may be required. There is no requirement to supply any bespoke data values for the Cert Manager. Thus, the package may be deployed with its default configuration values. In this example, version 1.5.1 of the Cert Manager is being deployed. Other versions may be available and can also be used. To check which versions of a package are available, use the list option:
% tanzu package available list -A
| Retrieving available packages...
NAME DISPLAY-NAME SHORT-DESCRIPTION NAMESPACE
cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com cert-manager Certificate management default
contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com Contour An ingress controller default
external-dns.community.tanzu.vmware.com external-dns This package provides DNS synchronization functionality. default
fluent-bit.community.tanzu.vmware.com fluent-bit Fluent Bit is a fast Log Processor and Forwarder default
gatekeeper.community.tanzu.vmware.com gatekeeper policy management default
grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com grafana Visualization and analytics software default
harbor.community.tanzu.vmware.com Harbor OCI Registry default
knative-serving.community.tanzu.vmware.com knative-serving Knative Serving builds on Kubernetes to support deploying and serving of applications and functions as serverless containers default
local-path-storage.community.tanzu.vmware.com local-path-storage This package provides local path node storage and primarily supports RWO AccessMode. default
multus-cni.community.tanzu.vmware.com multus-cni This package provides the ability for enabling attaching multiple network interfaces to pods in Kubernetes default
prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com prometheus A time series database for your metrics default
velero.community.tanzu.vmware.com velero Disaster recovery capabilities default
addons-manager.tanzu.vmware.com tanzu-addons-manager This package provides TKG addons lifecycle management capabilities. tkg-system
ako-operator.tanzu.vmware.com ako-operator NSX Advanced Load Balancer using ako-operator tkg-system
antrea.tanzu.vmware.com antrea networking and network security solution for containers tkg-system
calico.tanzu.vmware.com calico Networking and network security solution for containers. tkg-system
kapp-controller.tanzu.vmware.com kapp-controller Kubernetes package manager tkg-system
load-balancer-and-ingress-service.tanzu.vmware.com load-balancer-and-ingress-service Provides L4+L7 load balancing for TKG clusters running on vSphere tkg-system
metrics-server.tanzu.vmware.com metrics-server Metrics Server is a scalable, efficient source of container resource metrics for Kubernetes built-in autoscaling pipelines. tkg-system
pinniped.tanzu.vmware.com pinniped Pinniped provides identity services to Kubernetes. tkg-system
vsphere-cpi.tanzu.vmware.com vsphere-cpi The Cluster API brings declarative, Kubernetes-style APIs to cluster creation, configuration and management. Cluster API Provider for vSphere is a concrete implementation of Cluster API for vSphere. tkg-system
vsphere-csi.tanzu.vmware.com vsphere-csi vSphere CSI provider tkg-system
% tanzu package available get cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com -n default
| Retrieving package details for cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com...
NAME: cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com
DISPLAY-NAME: cert-manager
SHORT-DESCRIPTION: Certificate management
PACKAGE-PROVIDER: VMware
LONG-DESCRIPTION: Provides certificate management provisioning within the cluster
MAINTAINERS: [{Nicholas Seemiller}]
SUPPORT: Go to https://cert-manager.io/ for documentation or the #cert-manager channel on Kubernetes slack
CATEGORY: [certificate management]
% tanzu package available list cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com -n default
\ Retrieving package versions for cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com...
NAME VERSION RELEASED-AT
cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com 1.3.1 2021-04-14T18:00:00Z
cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com 1.4.0 2021-06-15T18:00:00Z
cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com 1.5.1 2021-08-13T19:52:11Z
Once the version has been identified, it can be installed using the following command:
% tanzu package install cert-manager --package-name cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com --version 1.5.1
/ Installing package 'cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com'
| Getting namespace 'default'
- Getting package metadata for 'cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com'
| Creating service account 'cert-manager-default-sa'
| Creating cluster admin role 'cert-manager-default-cluster-role'
| Creating cluster role binding 'cert-manager-default-cluster-rolebinding'
- Creating package resource
/ Package install status: Reconciling
Added installed package 'cert-manager' in namespace 'default'
%
The following commands will verify that the package has been installed.
% tanzu package installed list
- Retrieving installed packages...
NAME PACKAGE-NAME PACKAGE-VERSION STATUS
cert-manager cert-manager.community.tanzu.vmware.com 1.5.1 Reconcile succeeded
% kubectl get pods -A | grep cert-manager
tanzu-certificates cert-manager-6476798c86-phqjh 1/1 Running 0 20m
tanzu-certificates cert-manager-cainjector-766549fd55-292j4 1/1 Running 0 20m
tanzu-certificates cert-manager-webhook-79878cbcbb-kttq9
With the Certificate Manager successfully deployed, the next step is to deploy an Ingress. Envoy, managed by Contour, is also available as a package with Tanzu Community Edition.
Deploy Contour (Ingress) ¶
Later we shall deploy Prometheus and Grafana, which have a requirement on an Ingress/HTTPProxy. Contour projectcontour.io provides this functionality via an Envoy Ingress controller.
Prometheus has a requirement on an Ingress. Contour provides this functionality. Contour is an open source Kubernetes Ingress controller that acts as a control plane for the Envoy edge and service proxy.
For our purposes of standing up a monitoring stack, we can provide a very simple data values file, in YAML format, when deploying Contour. In this manifest, we are requesting that the Envoy Ingress controller use a Load Balancer service which will be provided by NSX ALB, and that Contour leverages the previously deployed Cert-Manager to provision TLS certificates rather than using the upstream Contour cert-gen job to provision certificates. This secures communication between Contour and Envoy. You can also optionally set the number of Contour replicas.
envoy:
service:
type: LoadBalancer
certificates:
useCertManager: true
This is only a subset of the configuration parameters available in Contour. To display all configuation parameters, use the --values-schema option to display the configuration settings against the appropriate version of the package:
% tanzu package available list contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com
- Retrieving package versions for contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com...
NAME VERSION RELEASED-AT
contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com 1.15.1 2021-06-01T18:00:00Z
contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com 1.17.1 2021-07-23T18:00:00Z
% tanzu package available get contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com/1.17.1 --values-schema
| Retrieving package details for contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com/1.17.1...
KEY DEFAULT TYPE DESCRIPTION
envoy.hostNetwork false boolean Whether to enable host networking for the Envoy pods.
envoy.hostPorts.enable false boolean Whether to enable host ports. If false, http and https are ignored.
envoy.hostPorts.http 80 integer If enable == true, the host port number to expose Envoys HTTP listener on.
envoy.hostPorts.https 443 integer If enable == true, the host port number to expose Envoys HTTPS listener on.
envoy.logLevel info string The Envoy log level.
envoy.service.type LoadBalancer string The type of Kubernetes service to provision for Envoy.
envoy.service.annotations <nil> object Annotations to set on the Envoy service.
envoy.service.externalTrafficPolicy Local string The external traffic policy for the Envoy service.
envoy.service.loadBalancerIP <nil> string If type == LoadBalancer, the desired load balancer IP for the Envoy service.
envoy.service.nodePorts.http <nil> integer If type == NodePort, the node port number to expose Envoys HTTP listener on. If not specified, a node port will be auto-assigned by Kubernetes.
envoy.service.nodePorts.https <nil> integer If type == NodePort, the node port number to expose Envoys HTTPS listener on. If not specified, a node port will be auto-assigned by Kubernetes.
envoy.terminationGracePeriodSeconds 300 integer The termination grace period, in seconds, for the Envoy pods.
namespace projectcontour string The namespace in which to deploy Contour and Envoy.
certificates.renewBefore 360h string If using cert-manager, how long before expiration the certificates should be renewed. If useCertManager is false, this field is ignored.
certificates.useCertManager false boolean Whether to use cert-manager to provision TLS certificates for securing communication between Contour and Envoy. If false, the upstream Contour certgen job will be used to provision certificates. If true, the cert-manager addon must be installed in the cluster.
certificates.duration 8760h string If using cert-manager, how long the certificates should be valid for. If useCertManager is false, this field is ignored.
contour.configFileContents <nil> object The YAML contents of the Contour config file. See https://projectcontour.io/docs/v1.17.1/configuration/#configuration-file for more information.
contour.logLevel info string The Contour log level. Valid options are info and debug.
contour.replicas 2 integer How many Contour pod replicas to have.
contour.useProxyProtocol false boolean Whether to enable PROXY protocol for all Envoy listeners.
Note that there is currently no mechanism at present to display the configuration parameters in yaml format, but that further YAML examples can be found in the official package documentation.
With the above YAML manifest stored in contour-data-values.yaml, the Contour/Envoy Ingress can now be deployed:
% tanzu package install contour -p contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com --version 1.17.1 --values-file contour-data-values.yaml
/ Installing package 'contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com'
| Getting namespace 'default'
/ Getting package metadata for 'contour.community.tanzu.vmware.com'
| Creating service account 'contour-default-sa'
| Creating cluster admin role 'contour-default-cluster-role'
| Creating cluster role binding 'contour-default-cluster-rolebinding'
| Creating secret 'contour-default-values'
\ Creating package resource
\ Package install status: Reconciling
Added installed package 'contour' in namespace 'default'
%
Check Contour data values have taken effect ¶
The following command can be used to verify that the data values provided at deployment time have been implemented.
% tanzu package installed get contour -f /tmp/yyy
\ Retrieving installation details for contour... %
% cat /tmp/yyy
---
envoy:
service:
type: LoadBalancer
certificates:
useCertManager: true
%
Validating Contour functionality ¶
A good step at this point is to verify that Envoy is working as expected. To do that, we can locate the Envoy Pod, setup port-forwarding, and connect a browser to it. We should see an output similar to what is shown below:
% kubectl get pods -A | grep contour
projectcontour contour-df5cc8689-7h9kh 1/1 Running 0 17m
projectcontour contour-df5cc8689-q497w 1/1 Running 0 17m
projectcontour envoy-mfjcp 2/2 Running 0 17m
% kubectl get svc envoy -n projectcontour
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
envoy LoadBalancer 100.67.34.204 xx.xx.62.22 80:30639/TCP,443:32539/TCP 18h
% ENVOY_POD=$(kubectl -n projectcontour get pod -l app=envoy -o name | head -1)
% echo $ENVOY_POD
pod/envoy-mfjcp
% kubectl -n projectcontour port-forward $ENVOY_POD 9001
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:9001 -> 9001
Forwarding from [::1]:9001 -> 9001
Handling connection for 9001
Note that I have deliberately obfuscated the first two octets of the IP address allocated to Envoy above. Now if you point a browser to the localhost:9001, the following Envoy landing page should be displayed:
Everything is now in place to deploy Prometheus.
Deploy Prometheus ¶
Prometheus prometheus.io records real-time metrics and provides alerting capabilities. It has a requirement for an Ingress (or HTTPProxy) and that the requirement has been met by Contour. We can now proceed with the installation of the Prometheus community package. Prometheus has quite a number of configuration options, which can once again be displayed using the following commands. First determine the version, and then display the configuration options for that version. At present, there is only a single version of the Prometheus community package available:
% tanzu package available list prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com
- Retrieving package versions for prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com...
NAME VERSION RELEASED-AT
prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com 2.27.0 2021-05-12T18:00:00Z
% tanzu package available get prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com/2.27.0 --values-schema
| Retrieving package details for prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com/2.27.0...
KEY DEFAULT TYPE DESCRIPTION
pushgateway.deployment.containers.resources <nil> object pushgateway containers resource requirements (See Kubernetes OpenAPI Specification io.k8s.api.core.v1.ResourceRequirements)
pushgateway.deployment.podAnnotations <nil> object pushgateway deployments pod annotations
pushgateway.deployment.podLabels <nil> object pushgateway deployments pod labels
pushgateway.deployment.replicas 1 integer Number of pushgateway replicas.
pushgateway.service.annotations <nil> object pushgateway service annotations
pushgateway.service.labels <nil> object pushgateway service pod labels
pushgateway.service.port 9091 integer The ports that are exposed by pushgateway service.
pushgateway.service.targetPort 9091 integer Target Port to access on the pushgateway pods.
pushgateway.service.type ClusterIP string The type of Kubernetes service to provision for pushgateway.
alertmanager.service.annotations <nil> object Alertmanager service annotations
alertmanager.service.labels <nil> object Alertmanager service pod labels
alertmanager.service.port 80 integer The ports that are exposed by Alertmanager service.
alertmanager.service.targetPort 9093 integer Target Port to access on the Alertmanager pods.
alertmanager.service.type ClusterIP string The type of Kubernetes service to provision for Alertmanager.
alertmanager.config.alertmanager_yml See default values file object The contents of the Alertmanager config file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/alerting/latest/configuration/ for more information.
alertmanager.deployment.podLabels <nil> object Alertmanager deployments pod labels
alertmanager.deployment.replicas 1 integer Number of alertmanager replicas.
alertmanager.deployment.containers.resources <nil> object Alertmanager containers resource requirements (See Kubernetes OpenAPI Specification io.k8s.api.core.v1.ResourceRequirements)
alertmanager.deployment.podAnnotations <nil> object Alertmanager deployments pod annotations
alertmanager.pvc.accessMode ReadWriteOnce string The name of the AccessModes to use for persistent volume claim. By default this is null and default provisioner is used
alertmanager.pvc.annotations <nil> object Alertmanagers persistent volume claim annotations
alertmanager.pvc.storage 2Gi string The storage size for Alertmanager server persistent volume claim.
alertmanager.pvc.storageClassName <nil> string The name of the StorageClass to use for persistent volume claim. By default this is null and default provisioner is used
cadvisor.daemonset.podLabels <nil> object cadvisor deployments pod labels
cadvisor.daemonset.updatestrategy RollingUpdate string The type of DaemonSet update.
cadvisor.daemonset.containers.resources <nil> object cadvisor containers resource requirements (See Kubernetes OpenAPI Specification io.k8s.api.core.v1.ResourceRequirements)
cadvisor.daemonset.podAnnotations <nil> object cadvisor deployments pod annotations
ingress.tlsCertificate.tls.crt <nil> string Optional cert for ingress if you want to use your own TLS cert. A self signed cert is generated by default. Note that tls.crt is a key and not nested.
ingress.tlsCertificate.tls.key <nil> string Optional cert private key for ingress if you want to use your own TLS cert. Note that tls.key is a key and not nested.
ingress.tlsCertificate.ca.crt <nil> string Optional CA certificate. Note that ca.crt is a key and not nested.
ingress.virtual_host_fqdn prometheus.system.tanzu string Hostname for accessing prometheus and alertmanager.
ingress.alertmanagerServicePort 80 integer Alertmanager service port to proxy traffic to.
ingress.alertmanager_prefix /alertmanager/ string Path prefix for Alertmanager.
ingress.enabled false boolean Whether to enable Prometheus and Alertmanager Ingress. Note that this requires contour.
ingress.prometheusServicePort 80 integer Prometheus service port to proxy traffic to.
ingress.prometheus_prefix / string Path prefix for Prometheus.
kube_state_metrics.deployment.replicas 1 integer Number of kube-state-metrics replicas.
kube_state_metrics.deployment.containers.resources <nil> object kube-state-metrics containers resource requirements (See Kubernetes OpenAPI Specification io.k8s.api.core.v1.ResourceRequirements)
kube_state_metrics.deployment.podAnnotations <nil> object kube-state-metrics deployments pod annotations
kube_state_metrics.deployment.podLabels <nil> object kube-state-metrics deployments pod labels
kube_state_metrics.service.annotations <nil> object kube-state-metrics service annotations
kube_state_metrics.service.labels <nil> object kube-state-metrics service pod labels
kube_state_metrics.service.port 80 integer The ports that are exposed by kube-state-metrics service.
kube_state_metrics.service.targetPort 8080 integer Target Port to access on the kube-state-metrics pods.
kube_state_metrics.service.telemetryPort 81 integer The ports that are exposed by kube-state-metrics service.
kube_state_metrics.service.telemetryTargetPort 8081 integer Target Port to access on the kube-state-metrics pods.
kube_state_metrics.service.type ClusterIP string The type of Kubernetes service to provision for kube-state-metrics.
namespace prometheus string The namespace in which to deploy Prometheus.
node_exporter.daemonset.podLabels <nil> object node-exporter deployments pod labels
node_exporter.daemonset.updatestrategy RollingUpdate string The type of DaemonSet update.
node_exporter.daemonset.containers.resources <nil> object node-exporter containers resource requirements (See Kubernetes OpenAPI Specification io.k8s.api.core.v1.ResourceRequirements)
node_exporter.daemonset.hostNetwork false boolean The Host networking requested for this pod
node_exporter.daemonset.podAnnotations <nil> object node-exporter deployments pod annotations
node_exporter.service.labels <nil> object node-exporter service pod labels
node_exporter.service.port 9100 integer The ports that are exposed by node-exporter service.
node_exporter.service.targetPort 9100 integer Target Port to access on the node-exporter pods.
node_exporter.service.type ClusterIP string The type of Kubernetes service to provision for node-exporter.
node_exporter.service.annotations <nil> object node-exporter service annotations
prometheus.config.alerting_rules_yml See default values file object The YAML contents of the Prometheus alerting rules file.
prometheus.config.alerts_yml <nil> object Additional prometheus alerts can be configured in this YAML file.
prometheus.config.prometheus_yml See default values file object The contents of the Prometheus config file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/ for more information.
prometheus.config.recording_rules_yml See default values file object The YAML contents of the Prometheus recording rules file.
prometheus.config.rules_yml <nil> object Additional prometheus rules can be configured in this YAML file.
prometheus.deployment.configmapReload.containers.args webhook-url=http://127.0.0.1:9090/-/reload array List of arguments passed via command-line to configmap reload container. For more guidance on configuration options consult the configmap-reload docs at https://github.com/jimmidyson/configmap-reload#usage
prometheus.deployment.configmapReload.containers.resources <nil> object configmap-reload containers resource requirements (io.k8s.api.core.v1.ResourceRequirements)
prometheus.deployment.containers.args prometheus storage retention time = 42d array List of arguments passed via command-line to prometheus server. For more guidance on configuration options consult the Prometheus docs at https://prometheus.io/
prometheus.deployment.containers.resources <nil> object Prometheus containers resource requirements (See Kubernetes OpenAPI Specification io.k8s.api.core.v1.ResourceRequirements)
prometheus.deployment.podAnnotations <nil> object Prometheus deployments pod annotations
prometheus.deployment.podLabels <nil> object Prometheus deployments pod labels
prometheus.deployment.replicas 1 integer Number of prometheus replicas.
prometheus.pvc.annotations <nil> object Prometheuss persistent volume claim annotations
prometheus.pvc.storage 150Gi string The storage size for Prometheus server persistent volume claim.
prometheus.pvc.storageClassName <nil> string The name of the StorageClass to use for persistent volume claim. By default this is null and default provisioner is used
prometheus.pvc.accessMode ReadWriteOnce string The name of the AccessModes to use for persistent volume claim. By default this is null and default provisioner is used
prometheus.service.annotations <nil> object Prometheus service annotations
prometheus.service.labels <nil> object Prometheus service pod labels
prometheus.service.port 80 integer The ports that are exposed by Prometheus service.
prometheus.service.targetPort 9090 integer Target Port to access on the Prometheus pods.
prometheus.service.type ClusterIP string The type of Kubernetes service to provision for Prometheus.
This displays all of the configuration settings for Prometheus. For the purposes of this deployment, a simple manifest which enabled ingress and provides a virtual host fully qualified domain name are all that is needed. This is the sample manifest to modify the default Prometheus deployment, primarily to enable Ingress/HTTPProxy usage, and secondly to set a fully qualified domain name - fqdn - which would be used to access the Prometheus dashboard:
ingress:
enabled: true
virtual_host_fqdn: "prometheus.rainpole.com"
prometheus_prefix: "/"
alertmanager_prefix: "/alertmanager/"
prometheusServicePort: 80
alertmanagerServicePort: 80
The virtual host fully qualified domain name may be added to the DNS using the same IP as that assigned to the Envoy Ingress by the NSX ALB. In the case of this example, this should map to IP Address xx.xx.62.22 as seen in kubectl get svc output after deploying Contour. If you have admin access to your DNS server for this environment, then you could add it manually. Another alternative is to integrate your deployment with an
ExternalDNS. ExternalDNS synchronises exposed Kubernetes Services and Ingresses with DNS providers. What this means is that the ExternalDNS controller will interact with your infrastructure provider and will register the DNS name in the DNS service of the infrastructure provider. A final alternative would be to simply add the FQDN to the /etc/hosts file of the desktop where you are running the browser. Either way, assume that this step has now been done for this procedure. We can now deploy Prometheus:
% tanzu package install prometheus -p prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com -v 2.27.0 --values-file prometheus-data-values.yaml
- Installing package 'prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com'
| Getting namespace 'default'
/ Getting package metadata for 'prometheus.community.tanzu.vmware.com'
| Creating service account 'prometheus-default-sa'
| Creating cluster admin role 'prometheus-default-cluster-role'
| Creating cluster role binding 'prometheus-default-cluster-rolebinding'
| Creating secret 'prometheus-default-values'
\ Creating package resource
- Package install status: Reconciling
Added installed package 'prometheus' in namespace 'default'
%
Check Prometheus data values have taken effect ¶
The following command can be used to verify that the data values provided at deployment time have been implemented.
% tanzu package installed get prometheus -f /tmp/xxx
\ Retrieving installation details for prometheus... %
% more /tmp/xxx
---
ingress:
enabled: true
virtual_host_fqdn: "prometheus.rainpole.com"
prometheus_prefix: "/"
alertmanager_prefix: "/alertmanager/"
prometheusServicePort: 80
alertmanagerServicePort: 80
Validate Prometheus functionality ¶
The following Pods and Services should have been created successfully.
% kubectl get pods,svc -n prometheus
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
pod/alertmanager-c45d9bf8c-86p5g 1/1 Running 0 104s
pod/prometheus-cadvisor-bsbw4 1/1 Running 0 106s
pod/prometheus-kube-state-metrics-7454948844-fxbwd 1/1 Running 0 104s
pod/prometheus-node-exporter-l6j42 1/1 Running 0 104s
pod/prometheus-node-exporter-r8qcg 1/1 Running 0 104s
pod/prometheus-pushgateway-6c69cb4d9c-6sttd 1/1 Running 0 104s
pod/prometheus-server-6587f4456c-xqxj6 2/2 Running 0 104s
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
service/alertmanager ClusterIP 100.69.242.136 <none> 80/TCP 106s
service/prometheus-kube-state-metrics ClusterIP None <none> 80/TCP,81/TCP 104s
service/prometheus-node-exporter ClusterIP 100.71.136.28 <none> 9100/TCP 104s
service/prometheus-pushgateway ClusterIP 100.70.127.19 <none> 9091/TCP 106s
service/prometheus-server ClusterIP 100.66.19.135 <none> 80/TCP 104s
Contour provides an advanced resource type called HttpProxy that provides some benefits over Ingress resources. We can also examine that this resource was created successfully:
% kubectl get HTTPProxy -A
NAMESPACE NAME FQDN TLS SECRET STATUS STATUS DESCRIPTION
prometheus prometheus-httpproxy prometheus.rainpole.com prometheus-tls valid Valid HTTPProxy
To verify that Prometheus is working correctly, point to the Prometheus FQDN (e.g. http:// prometheus.rainpole.com). If everything has worked correctly, you should be able to see a Prometheus dashboard:
To do a very simple test, add a simple query, e.g. prometheus_http_requests_total and click Execute:
To check integration between Prometheus and Envoy, another query can be executed. When the Envoy landing page was displayed earlier, there was a section called prometheus/stats. These can now be queried as well, since these are the metrics that Envoy is sending to Prometheus. If we return to the Envoy landing page in the browser, and click on the prometheus/stats link and examine the metrics. one of these metrics, such as the envoy_cluster_default_total_match, and use it as a query in Prometheus (selecting Graph instead of Table this time):
If you see something similar to this, then it would appear that Prometheus is working successfully. Now let’s complete the monitoring stack by provisioning Grafana, and connecting it to our Prometheus data source.
Deploy Grafana ¶
Grafana is an analytics and interactive visualisation web application. Let’s begin by displaying all of the configuring values that are available in Grafana. Once again, the package version is required to do this.
% tanzu package available list grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com -A
\ Retrieving package versions for grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com...
NAME VERSION RELEASED-AT NAMESPACE
grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com 7.5.7 2021-05-19T18:00:00Z default
% tanzu package available get grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com/7.5.7 --values-schema
| Retrieving package details for grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com/7.5.7...
KEY DEFAULT TYPE DESCRIPTION
grafana.config.dashboardProvider_yaml See default values file object The YAML contents of the Grafana dashboard provider file. See https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/administration/provisioning/#dashboards for more information.
grafana.config.datasource_yaml Includes default prometheus package as datasource. object The YAML contents of the Grafana datasource config file. See https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/administration/provisioning/#example-data-source-config-file for more information.
grafana.config.grafana_ini See default values file object The contents of the Grafana config file. See https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/administration/configuration/ for more information.
grafana.deployment.k8sSidecar <nil> object k8s-sidecar related configuration.
grafana.deployment.podAnnotations <nil> object Grafana deployments pod annotations
grafana.deployment.podLabels <nil> object Grafana deployments pod labels
grafana.deployment.replicas 1 integer Number of grafana replicas.
grafana.deployment.containers.resources <nil> object Grafana containers resource requirements (See Kubernetes OpenAPI Specification io.k8s.api.core.v1.ResourceRequirements)
grafana.pvc.storage 2Gi string The storage size for persistent volume claim.
grafana.pvc.storageClassName <nil> string The name of the StorageClass to use for persistent volume claim. By default this is null and default provisioner is used
grafana.pvc.accessMode ReadWriteOnce string The name of the AccessModes to use for persistent volume claim. By default this is null and default provisioner is used
grafana.pvc.annotations <nil> object Grafanas persistent volume claim annotations
grafana.secret.admin_user admin string Username to access Grafana.
grafana.secret.type Opaque string The Secret Type (io.k8s.api.core.v1.Secret.type)
grafana.secret.admin_password admin string Password to access Grafana. By default is null and grafana defaults this to "admin"
grafana.service.labels <nil> object Grafana service pod labels
grafana.service.port 80 integer The ports that are exposed by Grafana service.
grafana.service.targetPort 3000 integer Target Port to access on the Grafana pods.
grafana.service.type LoadBalancer string The type of Kubernetes service to provision for Grafana. (For vSphere set this to NodePort, For others set this to LoadBalancer)
grafana.service.annotations <nil> object Grafana service annotations
ingress.servicePort 80 integer Grafana service port to proxy traffic to.
ingress.tlsCertificate.ca.crt <nil> string Optional CA certificate. Note that ca.crt is a key and not nested.
ingress.tlsCertificate.tls.crt <nil> string Optional cert for ingress if you want to use your own TLS cert. A self signed cert is generated by default. Note that tls.crt is a key and not nested.
ingress.tlsCertificate.tls.key <nil> string Optional cert private key for ingress if you want to use your own TLS cert. Note that tls.key is a key and not nested.
ingress.virtual_host_fqdn grafana.system.tanzu string Hostname for accessing grafana.
ingress.enabled true boolean Whether to enable Grafana Ingress. Note that this requires contour.
ingress.prefix / string Path prefix for Grafana.
namespace grafana string The namespace in which to deploy Grafana.
We will again try to keep it quite simple. Through the data values file, we can provide a data source (to Prometheus). The prometheus URL is an internal Kubernetes URL, made up of Pod Name and Namespace of the Prometheus Server. Since Grafana is also running in the cluster, they are able to communicate using internal K8s networking.
You will probably want to use a different virtual host fdqn, and you can add that to your DNS once the Grafana Load Balancer service has allocated it with an IP address after deployment. As mentioned other options are to use an ExternalDNS, or add the entry to the local /etc/hosts file of the desktop which will launch the browser to Grafana. Since I have admin access to my DNS server, I can simply add this manually to my DNS.
The Grafana service type is set to Load Balancer by default.
grafana:
config:
datasource_yaml: |-
apiVersion: 1
datasources:
- name: Prometheus
type: prometheus
url: prometheus-server.prometheus.svc.cluster.local
access: proxy
isDefault: true
ingress:
virtual_host_fqdn: "grafana.rainpole.com"
We can now proceed to deploy the Grafana package with the above parameters:
% tanzu package install grafana --package-name grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com --version 7.5.7 --values-file grafana-data-values.yaml
- Installing package 'grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com'
| Getting namespace 'default'
/ Getting package metadata for 'grafana.community.tanzu.vmware.com'
| Creating service account 'grafana-default-sa'
| Creating cluster admin role 'grafana-default-cluster-role'
| Creating cluster role binding 'grafana-default-cluster-rolebinding'
| Creating secret 'grafana-default-values'
\ Creating package resource
| Package install status: Reconciling
Added installed package 'grafana' in namespace 'default'
%
Check Grafana data values have taken effect ¶
The following command can be used to verify that the data values provided at deployment time have been implemented.
% tanzu package installed get grafana -f /tmp/zzz
/ Retrieving installation details for grafana... %
% cat /tmp/zzz
---
grafana:
config:
datasource_yaml: |-
apiVersion: 1
datasources:
- name: Prometheus
type: prometheus
url: prometheus-server.prometheus.svc.cluster.local
access: proxy
isDefault: true
ingress:
virtual_host_fqdn: "grafana.rainpole.com"
The following Pods, Services and HTTPProxy should have been created.
% kubectl get pods -A | grep grafana
grafana grafana-74ccf5fd4-27wm2 2/2 Running 0 109s
% kubectl get svc -A | grep grafana
grafana grafana LoadBalancer 100.70.202.170 xx.xx.62.23 80:31227/TCP 118s
$ kubectl get httpproxy -A
NAMESPACE NAME FQDN TLS SECRET STATUS STATUS DESCRIPTION
tanzu-system-dashboard grafana-httpproxy grafana.corinternal.com grafana-tls valid Valid HTTPProxy
tanzu-system-monitoring prometheus-httpproxy prometheus.corinternal.com prometheus-tls valid Valid HTTPProxy
As mentioned, Grafana uses a Load Balancer service type by default, so it has been provided with its own Load Balancer IP addess by NSX ALB. I have once more intentionally obfuscated the first two octets of the address. You can now add this to your DNS, like you did with Prometheus.
Validate Grafana functionality ¶
After adding your virtual host FQDN to your DNS, you can now connect to the Grafana dashboard using the FDQN. You connect directly to the Load Balancer IP address allocated to the Service. The login credentials are admin/admin initially, but you will need to change the password on first login. This is the landing page:
There is no need to add a datasource or create a dashboard - these have already been done for you.
To examine the data source, click on the icon representing data sources on the left hand side (which looks like a cog). Here you can see the Prometheus data source that we placed in the data values manifest file when we deployed Grafana is already in place:
Now click on the dashboards icon on the left hand side (it looks like a square of 4 smaller squares), and select Manage from the drop-down list. This will show the existing dashboards. There are 2 existing dashboards that have been provided; one is Kubernetes monitoring and the other is TKG monitoring. These dashboards are based on the Kubernetes Grafana dashboards found on
GitHub.
Finally, select the TKG dashboard which is being sent metrics via the Prometheus data source. This provides an overview of the TKG cluster:
The full monitoring stack of Contour/Envoy Ingress, with secure communication via Cert-Manager, alongside the Prometheus data scraper and Grafana visualization are now deployed through Tanzu Community Edition community packages. Happy monitoring/analyzing.
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