Configure Prometheus and Grafana to Monitor SUSE® Storage

Longhorn natively exposes metrics in Prometheus text format on a REST endpoint http://LONGHORN_MANAGER_IP:PORT/metrics.

You can use any collecting tools such as Prometheus, Graphite, Telegraf to scrape these metrics then visualize the collected data by tools such as Grafana.

See Longhorn Metrics for Monitoring for available metrics.

High-level Overview

The monitoring system uses Prometheus for collecting data and alerting, and Grafana for visualizing/dashboarding the collected data.

Prometheus server which scrapes and stores time-series data from Longhorn metrics endpoints. The Prometheus is also responsible for generating alerts based on configured rules and collected data. Prometheus servers then send alerts to an Alertmanager.
AlertManager then manages those alerts, including silencing, inhibition, aggregation, and sending out notifications via methods such as email, on-call notification systems, and chat platforms.
Grafana which queries Prometheus server for data and draws a dashboard for visualization.

The below picture describes the detailed architecture of the monitoring system.

There are 2 unmentioned components in the above picture:

Longhorn Backend service is a service pointing to the set of Longhorn manager pods. Longhorn’s metrics are exposed in Longhorn manager pods at the endpoint http://LONGHORN_MANAGER_IP:PORT/metrics.
Prometheus operator makes running Prometheus on top of Kubernetes very easy. The operator watches 3 custom resources: ServiceMonitor, Prometheus ,and AlertManager. When you create those custom resources, Prometheus Operator deploys and manages the Prometheus server, AlertManager with the user-specified configurations.

Installation

This document uses the default namespace for the monitoring system. To install on a different namespace, change the field namespace: <OTHER_NAMESPACE> in manifests.

Install Prometheus Operator

Follow instructions in Prometheus Operator - Quickstart.

NOTE: You may need to choose a release that is compatible with the Kubernetes version of the cluster.

Install Longhorn ServiceMonitor

Install Longhorn ServiceMonitor with Kubectl

Create a ServiceMonitor for Longhorn Manager.

```yaml
apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
  name: longhorn-prometheus-servicemonitor
  namespace: default
  labels:
    name: longhorn-prometheus-servicemonitor
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: longhorn-manager
  namespaceSelector:
    matchNames:
    - longhorn-system
  endpoints:
  - port: manager
```

Install Longhorn ServiceMonitor with Helm

Modify the YAML file longhorn/chart/values.yaml.

 metrics:
   serviceMonitor:
     # -- Setting that allows the creation of a [Prometheus Operator](https://prometheus-operator.dev/) ServiceMonitor resource for Longhorn Manager components.
     enabled: true

Create a ServiceMonitor for Longhorn Manager using Helm.

   helm upgrade longhorn longhorn/longhorn --namespace longhorn-system -f values.yaml

Longhorn ServiceMonitor is a Prometheus Operator custom resource. This setup allows the Prometheus server to discover all Longhorn Manager pods and their respective endpoints.

You can use the label selector app: longhorn-manager to select the longhorn-backend service, which points to the set of Longhorn Manager pods.

Install and configure Prometheus AlertManager

Create a highly available Alertmanager deployment with 3 instances.

 apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
 kind: Alertmanager
 metadata:
   name: longhorn
   namespace: default
 spec:
   replicas: 3

The Alertmanager instances will not start unless a valid configuration is given. See Prometheus - Configuration for more explanation.

 global:
   resolve_timeout: 5m
 route:
   group_by: [alertname]
   receiver: email_and_slack
 receivers:
 - name: email_and_slack
   email_configs:
   - to: <the email address to send notifications to>
     from: <the sender address>
     smarthost: <the SMTP host through which emails are sent>
     # SMTP authentication information.
     auth_username: <the username>
     auth_identity: <the identity>
     auth_password: <the password>
     headers:
       subject: 'Longhorn-Alert'
     text: |-
       {{ range .Alerts }}
         *Alert:* {{ .Annotations.summary }} - `{{ .Labels.severity }}`
         *Description:* {{ .Annotations.description }}
         *Details:*
         {{ range .Labels.SortedPairs }} • *{{ .Name }}:* `{{ .Value }}`
         {{ end }}
       {{ end }}
   slack_configs:
   - api_url: <the Slack webhook URL>
     channel: <the channel or user to send notifications to>
     text: |-
       {{ range .Alerts }}
         *Alert:* {{ .Annotations.summary }} - `{{ .Labels.severity }}`
         *Description:* {{ .Annotations.description }}
         *Details:*
         {{ range .Labels.SortedPairs }} • *{{ .Name }}:* `{{ .Value }}`
         {{ end }}
       {{ end }}

Save the above Alertmanager config in a file called alertmanager.yaml and create a secret from it using kubectl.

Alertmanager instances require the secret resource naming to follow the format alertmanager-<ALERTMANAGER_NAME>. In the previous step, the name of the Alertmanager is longhorn, so the secret name must be alertmanager-longhorn

 $ kubectl create secret generic alertmanager-longhorn --from-file=alertmanager.yaml -n default

To be able to view the web UI of the Alertmanager, expose it through a Service. A simple way to do this is to use a Service of type NodePort.
```
 apiVersion: v1
 kind: Service
 metadata:
   name: alertmanager-longhorn
   namespace: default
 spec:
   type: NodePort
   ports:
   - name: web
     nodePort: 30903
     port: 9093
     protocol: TCP
     targetPort: web
   selector:
     alertmanager: longhorn
```
After creating the above service, you can access the web UI of Alertmanager via a Node’s IP and the port 30903.

Use the above NodePort service for quick verification only because it doesn’t communicate over the TLS connection. You may want to change the service type to ClusterIP and set up an Ingress-controller to expose the web UI of Alertmanager over a TLS connection.

Install and configure Prometheus server

Create PrometheusRule custom resource to define alert conditions. See more examples about Longhorn alert rules at Longhorn Alert Rule Examples.

 apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
 kind: PrometheusRule
 metadata:
   labels:
     prometheus: longhorn
     role: alert-rules
   name: prometheus-longhorn-rules
   namespace: default
 spec:
   groups:
   - name: longhorn.rules
     rules:
     - alert: LonghornVolumeUsageCritical
       annotations:
         description: Longhorn volume {{$labels.volume}} on {{$labels.node}} is at {{$value}}% used for
           more than 5 minutes.
         summary: Longhorn volume capacity is over 90% used.
       expr: 100 * (longhorn_volume_usage_bytes / longhorn_volume_capacity_bytes) > 90
       for: 5m
       labels:
         issue: Longhorn volume {{$labels.volume}} usage on {{$labels.node}} is critical.
         severity: critical

See Prometheus - Alerting rules for more information.

If RBAC authorization is activated, Create a ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding for the Prometheus Pods.

 apiVersion: v1
 kind: ServiceAccount
 metadata:
   name: prometheus
   namespace: default

 apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
 kind: ClusterRole
 metadata:
   name: prometheus
   namespace: default
 rules:
 - apiGroups: [""]
   resources:
   - nodes
   - services
   - endpoints
   - pods
   verbs: ["get", "list", "watch"]
 - apiGroups: [""]
   resources:
   - configmaps
   verbs: ["get"]
 - nonResourceURLs: ["/metrics"]
   verbs: ["get"]

 apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
 kind: ClusterRoleBinding
 metadata:
   name: prometheus
 roleRef:
   apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
   kind: ClusterRole
   name: prometheus
 subjects:
 - kind: ServiceAccount
   name: prometheus
   namespace: default

Create a Prometheus custom resource. Notice that we select the Longhorn service monitor and Longhorn rules in the spec.

 apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
 kind: Prometheus
 metadata:
   name: longhorn
   namespace: default
 spec:
   replicas: 2
   serviceAccountName: prometheus
   alerting:
     alertmanagers:
       - namespace: default
         name: alertmanager-longhorn
         port: web
   serviceMonitorSelector:
     matchLabels:
       name: longhorn-prometheus-servicemonitor
   ruleSelector:
     matchLabels:
       prometheus: longhorn
       role: alert-rules

To be able to view the web UI of the Prometheus server, expose it through a Service. A simple way to do this is to use a Service of type NodePort.
```
 apiVersion: v1
 kind: Service
 metadata:
   name: prometheus-longhorn
   namespace: default
 spec:
   type: NodePort
   ports:
   - name: web
     nodePort: 30904
     port: 9090
     protocol: TCP
     targetPort: web
   selector:
     prometheus: longhorn
```
After creating the above service, you can access the web UI of the Prometheus server via a Node’s IP and the port 30904.

At this point, you should be able to see all Longhorn manager targets as well as Longhorn rules in the targets and rules section of the Prometheus server UI.

Use the above NodePort service for quick verification only because it doesn’t communicate over the TLS connection. You may want to change the service type to ClusterIP and set up an Ingress controller to expose the web UI of the Prometheus server over a TLS connection.

Setup Grafana

Create Grafana datasource ConfigMap.

 apiVersion: v1
 kind: ConfigMap
 metadata:
   name: grafana-datasources
   namespace: default
 data:
   prometheus.yaml: |-
     {
         "apiVersion": 1,
         "datasources": [
             {
                "access":"proxy",
                 "editable": true,
                 "name": "prometheus-longhorn",
                 "orgId": 1,
                 "type": "prometheus",
                 "url": "http://prometheus-longhorn.default.svc:9090",
                 "version": 1
             }
         ]
     }

NOTE: change field url if you are installing the monitoring stack in a different namespace. http://prometheus-longhorn.<NAMESPACE>.svc:9090"

Create Grafana Deployment.

 apiVersion: apps/v1
 kind: Deployment
 metadata:
   name: grafana
   namespace: default
   labels:
     app: grafana
 spec:
   replicas: 1
   selector:
     matchLabels:
       app: grafana
   template:
     metadata:
       name: grafana
       labels:
         app: grafana
     spec:
       containers:
       - name: grafana
         image: grafana/grafana:7.1.5
         ports:
         - name: grafana
           containerPort: 3000
         resources:
           limits:
             memory: "500Mi"
             cpu: "300m"
           requests:
             memory: "500Mi"
             cpu: "200m"
         volumeMounts:
           - mountPath: /var/lib/grafana
             name: grafana-storage
           - mountPath: /etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources
             name: grafana-datasources
             readOnly: false
       volumes:
         - name: grafana-storage
           emptyDir: {}
         - name: grafana-datasources
           configMap:
               defaultMode: 420
               name: grafana-datasources

Create Grafana Service.

 apiVersion: v1
 kind: Service
 metadata:
   name: grafana
   namespace: default
 spec:
   selector:
     app: grafana
   type: ClusterIP
   ports:
     - port: 3000
       targetPort: 3000

Expose Grafana on NodePort 32000.
```
 kubectl -n default patch svc grafana --type='json' -p '[{"op":"replace","path":"/spec/type","value":"NodePort"},{"op":"replace","path":"/spec/ports/0/nodePort","value":32000}]'
```
Use the above NodePort service for quick verification only because it doesn’t communicate over the TLS connection. You may want to change the service type to ClusterIP and set up an Ingress controller to expose Grafana over a TLS connection.
Access the Grafana dashboard using any node IP on port 32000.
```
 # Default Credential
 User: admin
 Pass: admin
```
Setup Longhorn dashboard.

Once inside Grafana, import the prebuilt Longhorn example dashboard.

See Grafana Lab - Export and import for instructions on how to import a Grafana dashboard.

You should see the following dashboard at successful setup: