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Kubernetes Data Collector

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Cloud Insights uses this data collector to gather Kubernetes Pod, Node, and Container metrics.

Installation

It is strongly recommended to deploy the Telegraf agent as a DaemonSet and a ReplicaSet within the Kubernetes environment itself, by selecting Kubernetes as the platform during agent installation.

  1. From Admin > Data Collectors, click +Data Collector. Under Services, choose Kubernetes.

    If you haven’t configured an Agent for collection, you are prompted to install an agent in your environment.

    If you have an agent already configured, select the appropriate Operating System or Platform and click Continue.

  2. Follow the instructions in the Kubernetes Configuration screen to configure the data collector. The instructions vary depending on the type of Operating System or Platform you are using to collect data. The example below shows the instructions for installing the Kubernetes data collector on the Kubernetes platform:

Kubernetes Configuration

Note that there are two different config maps that need updating: telegraf-conf for the DaemonSet and telegraf-conf-rs for the ReplicaSet. The latter is used to obtain kube-state-metrics data.

Setup

The Telegraf input plugin for Kubernetes collects metrics through the /stats/summary endpoint of the kubelet REST API as well as the kube-state-metrics server (if it exists).

Compatibility

Configuration was developed against Kubernetes version 1.9.1.

Configuring an Agent to Collect Data from Kubernetes

For Kubernetes environments, Cloud Insights deploys the Telegraf agent as a DaemonSet and a ReplicaSet. The pods in which the agents run need to have access to the following:

  • hostPath

  • configMap

  • secrets

These Kubernetes objects are automatically created as part of the Kubernetes agent install command provided in the Cloud Insights UI. Some variants of Kubernetes, such as OpenShift, implement an added level of security that may block access to these components. The SecurityContextConstraint is not created as part of the Kubernetes agent install command provided in the Cloud Insights UI, and must be created manually. Once created, restart the Telegraf pod(s).

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: SecurityContextConstraints
    metadata:
      name: telegraf-hostaccess
      creationTimestamp:
      annotations:
        kubernetes.io/description: telegraf-hostaccess allows hostpath volume mounts for restricted SAs.
      labels:
        app: ci-telegraf
    priority: 10
    allowPrivilegedContainer: false
    defaultAddCapabilities: []
    requiredDropCapabilities: []
    allowedCapabilities: []
    allowedFlexVolumes: []
    allowHostDirVolumePlugin: true
    volumes:
    - hostPath
    - configMap
    - secret
    allowHostNetwork: false
    allowHostPorts: false
    allowHostPID: false
    allowHostIPC: false
    seLinuxContext:
      type: MustRunAs
    runAsUser:
      type: RunAsAny
    supplementalGroups:
      type: RunAsAny
    fsGroup:
      type: RunAsAny
    readOnlyRootFilesystem: false
    users:
    - system:serviceaccount:monitoring:telegraf-user
    groups: []

Setting Up

For collecting Kubernetes metrics, the best practice is to deploy the Telegraf agent as a DaemonSet and a ReplicaSet within the Kubernetes environment of interest itself. The Cloud Insights agent install command does this if run on one of the Kubernetes nodes in the cluster. With the DaemonSet that is created, you can simply specify the "$HOSTIP" environment variable for <INSERT_KUBELET_ADDRESS> in the telegraf-conf ConfigMap.

The pods in which the Telegraf agents run need to have access to a valid Kubernetes access token file in order to use the required kubelet API. To configure a Telegraf agent running outside the Kubernetes cluster of interest, you must manually generate this Kubernetes access token file, and configure the Telegraf agent to use this access token file.

To manually generate the Kubernetes access token, run the following in a Bash shell:

SECRET=$(sudo kubectl --namespace kube-system describe sa default |grep Tokens |awk '{print $2}')
TOKEN=$(sudo kubectl --namespace kube-system describe secrets $SECRET |grep ^token |awk '{print $2}')

To verify that the access token works as needed, run the following to confirm the kubelet API is accessible:

curl -v -X GET -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" https://<KUBELET_ADDRESS>:<KUBELET_PORT>/stats/summary

To create the required access token file, run the following:

mkdir -p /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/
echo -n $TOKEN | sudo tee /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token

By default, the Kubernetes input plugin configuration provided by CloudInsights is set up to look for the required access token file in the location used above. After performing the steps above, restart the Telegraf agent for the changes to take effect.

Objects and Counters

The following objects and their counters are collected:

Object: Identifiers: Attributes: Datapoints:

Kubernetes Container

Namespace
Pod
Container
Cluster

Kubernetes Node
Node Name
Node OS
Node UUID
Node IP

CPU Nanoseconds
CPU Usage Nanocores
Memory Major Page Faults
Memory Resident Set Size (RSS)
Memory Working Set
Memory Page Faults
Memory Usage
Root Filesystem Available
Root Filesystem Capacity
Root Filesystem Used

Kubernetes Node

Kubernetes Node
Cluster

Node Name
Node OS
Node UUID
Node IP

CPU Usage Nanocores
CPU Usage Nanoseconds
Filesystem Available
Filesystem Total
Filesystem Used
Memory Available
Memory Usage
Memory Major Page Faults
Memory Page Faults
Memory Resident Set Size (RSS)
Memory Working Set
Network RX Errors (per sec)
Network RX Bytes (per sec)
Network TX Errors (per sec)
Network TX Bytes (per sec)
Runtime Image Filesystem Available
Runtime Image Filesystem Used
Runtime Image Filesystem Capacity

Kubernetes Pod

Namespace
Pod
Cluster

Kubernetes Node
Node Name
Node IP
Node OS
Node UUID

Network TX Bytes (per sec)
Network TX Errors (per sec)
Network RX Bytes (per sec)
Network RX Errors (per sec)

Kubernetes Pod Volume

Volume
Pod
Cluster
Namespace

Kubernetes Node
Node Name
Node UUID
Node IP
Node OS

Available
Capacity
Used

Kubernetes System Container

System Container
Kubernetes Node
Cluster

Node Name
Node IP
Node OS
Node UUID

CPU Usage Nanocores
CPU Usage Core Nanoseconds
Memory Major Page Faults
Memory Page Faults
Memory Resident Set Size (RSS)
Memory Usage
Memory Working Set
Root Filesystem Available
Root Filesystem Capacity
Logs Filesystem Available
Logs Filesystem Capacity

Installing the kube-state-metrics server

When you install the kube-state-metrics server you can enable collection of the following Kubernetes objects: StatefulSet, DaemonSet, Deployment, PV, PVC, ReplicaSet, Service, Namespace, Secret, ConfigMap, Pod Volume, and Ingress.

Use the following steps to install the kube-state-metrics server:

Steps

  1. Create a temporary folder (for example, /tmp/kube-state-yaml-files/) and copy the .yaml files from https://github.com/kubernetes/kube-state-metrics/tree/master/examples/standard to this folder.

  2. Run the following command to apply the .yaml files needed for installing kube-state-metrics:

    kubectl apply -f /tmp/kube-state-yaml-files/

kube-state-metrics Counters

Use the following links to access information for the kube state metrics counters:

  1. Cronjob Metrics

  2. DaemonSet Metrics

  3. Deployment Metrics

  4. Endpoint Metrics

  5. Horizontal Pod Autoscaler Metrics

  6. Ingress Metrics

  7. Job Metrics

  8. LimitRange Metrics

  9. Namespace Metrics

  10. Node Metrics

  11. Persistent Volume Metrics

  12. Persistant Volume Claim Metrics

  13. Pod Metrics

  14. Pod Disruption Budget Metrics

  15. ReplicaSet metrics

  16. ReplicationController Metrics

Troubleshooting

Problem: Try this:

I ran the Kubernetes agent installer command, but I do not see a Telegraf agent pod running via:

sudo kubectl --namespace monitoring get pods

Check if there were any errors deploying the DaemonSet:

sudo kubectl --namespace monitoring describe ds telegraf-ds

If there are errors related to SecurityContextConstraints, do the following:

1. Generate the Telegraf DaemonSet YAML

sudo kubectl --namespace monitoring get ds telegraf-ds -o yaml > /tmp/telegraf-ds.yaml

2. Stop the Telegraf service

sudo kubectl --namespace monitoring delete ds telegraf-ds

3. Create the necessary SecurityContextConstraint (see "Configuring Agent to Collect Data" section)

4. Re-create the Telegraf DaemonSet

I configured Telegraf to obtain information about my Kubernetes cluster, but I don’t see any information in Cloud Insights. I see "invalid header field value" errors in the Telegraf log file pertaining to the kubernetes input plugin I configured.

Ensure the referenced bearer_token file does not have a trailing newline. To verify, run the following command, and confirm that it returns 0:

tail -c1 <bearer_token_file>

Additional information may be found from the Support page.

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