Monitoring Windows Worker Clusters and Nodes

Wavefront
Prometheus with Grafana
- Prerequisites
- Overview
Install Prometheus and Grafana

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This topic describes how to set up Wavefront, or Prometheus with Grafana, to capture metrics from Windows worker-based Kubernetes clusters deployed by Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition (TKGI).

Wavefront

Wavefront runs as an external service that you set up to monitor Windows worker-based clusters the same way that you set it up to monitor clusters running Linux worker nodes:

Install Helm on your local machine, if you do not already have it, by following Install and Configure Helm in the topic Using Helm with Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition.

Use the Helm CLI to deploy Wavefront to the target cluster:

helm install wavefront wavefront/wavefront --namespace wavefront \
--set clusterName=CLUSTER-NAME \
--set wavefront.url=https://INSTANCE-NAME.wavefront.com \
--set wavefront.token=API-TOKEN \
--set collector.usePKSPrefix=true \
--set collector.useDaemonset=false

Where:

CLUSTER-NAME is the name of your Kubernetes cluster.
INSTANCE-NAME is the subdomain name for your Wavefront instance.
API-TOKEN is the Wavefront API token for your Wavefront subscription.

Do one of the following:
- Configure Wavefront Integration in Ops Manager using the VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Integrated Edition Integration procedure in the Wavefront documentation.
- Set up a metric sink to send metrics to Wavefront following the instructions in Creating and Managing Sink Resources.

Prometheus with Grafana

Prerequisites

Before installing Prometheus ensure you have installed kubectl. For more information about installing kubectl, see Install and Set Up kubectl in the Kubernetes documentation.

For additional Prometheus and Grafana prerequisites, see Prerequisites in the kube-prometheus GitHub repository.

Overview

Prometheus and Grafana are open source tools you can use to monitor your Kubernetes Windows clusters and worker nodes, and to visualize and alert on events occurring in those clusters and worker nodes.

To monitor Windows clusters and worker node metrics using Prometheus and Grafana:

Install Prometheus and Grafana
Install the Windows Node Exporter
Administer Prometheus and Grafana

Install Prometheus and Grafana

To install Prometheus and Grafana:

Download the Prometheus Source Code
Generate Your Prometheus Dashboard Configuration
Generate Monitoring Rules
Deploy Prometheus and Grafana
Verify Grafana is Running

Download the Prometheus Source Code

To download the Prometheus source code:

Clone or download the Prometheus operator source code from Latest release in the prometheus-operator/kube-prometheus GitHub repository.
Clone or download the Prometheus monitoring mixin for kubernetes source code from
Latest release in the kubernetes-monitoring/kubernetes-mixin GitHub repository.

Generate Your Prometheus Dashboard Configuration

To generate a Prometheus dashboard configuration:

Open a command line.
Change directory to the kubernetes-mixin/dashboards source code directory.
Edit the dashboards.libsonnet configuration file.
To add the Windows dashboard to the configuration add the following to the dashboards.libsonnet file:
```
(import 'windows.libsonnet')
```
Save the file.
Change directory to the kubernetes-mixin source code root directory.
To generate the Prometheus dashboard, run:
```
make dashboards_out
```

Review the kubernetes-mixin/dashboards_out directory and confirm the following Windows dashboard definition files were created:

k8s-resources-windows-cluster.json
k8s-resources-windows-namespace.json
k8s-resources-windows-pod.json
k8s-windows-cluster-rsrc-use.json
k8s-windows-node-rsrc-use.json

Generate Monitoring Rules

To generate Prometheus monitoring rules:

Open a command line.
Copy the rule definition file from the kubernetes_mixin/rules directory to the kube-prometheus/jsonnet/kube-prometheus/rules directory:
```
cp KUBERNETES-MIXIN-PATH/rules/windows.libsonnet PROMETHEUS-OP-PATH/jsonnet/kube-prometheus/rules/windows.libsonnet
```
Where:
- KUBERNETES-MIXIN-PATH is the kubernetes_mixin source directory.
- PROMETHEUS-OP-PATH is the Prometheus operator path.
Change directory to the kube-prometheus/jsonnet/kube-prometheus/rules source code directory.
Edit the rules.libsonnet configuration file.
To add the Windows rule to the configuration add the following to the rules.libsonnet file:
```
(import 'windows.libsonnet')
```
Save the file.
Change directory to the kube-prometheus Prometheus source code root directory.
To generate all rules, run:
```
make manifests
```

Deploy Prometheus and Grafana

To deploy Prometheus and Grafana:

Get kubeconfig for your Windows cluster. For more information, see Retrieving Cluster Credentials and Configuration.
Open a command line.
Change directory to the kube-prometheus Prometheus source code root directory.

To deploy Prometheus and Grafana, run:

kubectl create -f manifests/setup
until kubectl get servicemonitors --all-namespaces ; do date; sleep 1; echo ""; done
kubectl create -f manifests/

To forward the Prometheus and Grafana ports to localhost run:
```
kubectl --namespace monitoring port-forward svc/prometheus-k8s PROMETHEUS-PORT
kubectl --namespace monitoring port-forward svc/grafana GRAFANA-PORT
```
Where:
- PROMETHEUS-PORT is a localhost port for Prometheus, for example 9090.
- GRAFANA-PORT is a localhost port for Grafana, for example 3000.

For more information about installing Prometheus and Grafana, see Quickstart in the prometheus-operator/kube-prometheus GitHub repository.

Verify Grafana is Running

To verify Grafana is running:

To open the Grafana Dashboard, open a browser to:
```
http://localhost:GRAFANA-PORT
```
Where GRAFANA-PORT is the localhost port for Grafana, for example 3000.
To log in to the Grafana Dashboard authenticate with user admin, password admin.
To view Kubelet metrics from all of your windows workers, navigate to Dashboard > Default > Kubernetes/Kubelet.

Install the Windows Node Exporter

To monitor Windows worker node metrics, you need endpoints, the Windows Node Exporter service, and the Windows Node Exporter service monitor.

To install and configure the Windows Node Exporter:

Deploy the Windows Node Exporter
Configure the Windows Node Exporter
Set Up the Grafana Windows Node Dashboard

Deploy the Windows Node Exporter

The Windows Node Exporter must be installed on all of the Windows worker nodes you want to monitor.

To determine the names and IP addresses of all of your Windows worker nodes:

Open a command line.
Run the following:
```
kubectl get nodes -L spec.ip
```
Note the names and IP addresses of the Windows worker nodes.

To deploy the Windows Node Exporter to all of your Windows worker nodes, repeat the steps below for each Windows worker node you want to monitor:

Start an SSH session to the Windows worker.
To download the windows_exporter-0.13.0-amd64.msi to the worker from v0.13.0 in the prometheus-community/windows_exporter repository on GitHub:
```
Powershell Invoke-WebRequest https://github.com/prometheus-community/windows_exporter/releases/download/v0.13.0/windows_exporter-0.13.0-amd64.msi ^
    -OutFile DOWNLOAD-PATH 
```
Where DOWNLOAD-PATH is the full path to the output location and filename for the retrieved file. For example, c:\windows_exporter-0.13.0-amd64.msi.
To start the windows_exporter msi as a Windows service, open a command line:
```
msiexec /i DOWNLOAD-PATH ENABLED_COLLECTORS="cpu,cs,logical_disk,net,os,system,container,memory"
```
Where DOWNLOAD-PATH is the full path to the output location and filename for the retrieved file. For example, c:\windows_exporter-0.13.0-amd64.msi.

Configure the Windows Node Exporter

To support monitoring by Prometheus and Grafana, the Windows Node Exporter service must be configured to access your Windows worker node metrics.

To configure the Windows Node Exporter:

Create a file named windows-exporter.yml.

Populate the file with the following:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Endpoints
metadata:
  labels:
    k8s-app: APP-NAME
  name: ENDPOINT-NAME
  namespace: kube-system
subsets:
- addresses:
  - ip: NODE-IP
    targetRef:
      kind: Node
      name: NODE-NAME
  ports:
  - name: http-metrics
    port: 9182
    protocol: TCP
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    k8s-app: APP-NAME
  name: SERVICE-NAME
  namespace: kube-system
spec:
  clusterIP: None
  ports:
  - name: http-metrics
    port: 9182
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 9182
  sessionAffinity: None
  type: ClusterIP
---
apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
  labels:
    k8s-app: APP-NAME
  name: SERVICEMONITOR-NAME
  namespace: monitoring
spec:
  endpoints:
  - interval: 30s
    port: http-metrics
  jobLabel: k8s-app
  namespaceSelector:
    matchNames:
    - kube-system
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      k8s-app: APP-NAME

Where:

APP-NAME is the name for the Kubernetes app.
ENDPOINT-NAME is the name for the endpoint.
SERVICE-NAME is the name for the service.
SERVICEMONITOR-NAME is the name for the service monitor.
NODE-IP is the IP address of the Windows worker node to monitor.
NODE-NAME is the name of the Windows worker node to monitor.

For example:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Endpoints
metadata:
  labels:
    k8s-app: wmi-exporter
  name: wmi-exporter
  namespace: kube-system
subsets:
- addresses:
  - ip: 192.168.1.1
    targetRef:
      kind: Node
      name: nodeone
  - ip: 192.168.1.1
    targetRef:
      kind: Node
      name: nodetwo
  ports:
  - name: http-metrics
    port: 9182
    protocol: TCP
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    k8s-app: wmi-exporter
  name: wmi-exporter
  namespace: kube-system
spec:
  clusterIP: None
  ports:
  - name: http-metrics
    port: 9182
    protocol: TCP
    targetPort: 9182
  sessionAffinity: None
  type: ClusterIP
---
apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
  labels:
    k8s-app: wmi-exporter
  name: wmi-exporter
  namespace: monitoring
spec:
  endpoints:
  - interval: 30s
    port: http-metrics
  jobLabel: k8s-app
  namespaceSelector:
    matchNames:
    - kube-system
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      k8s-app: wmi-exporter

Create an additional subsets.addresses item for each Windows worker node you want to monitor:
```
subsets:
- addresses:
  - ip: NODE-ONE-IP
    targetRef:
      kind: Node
      name: NODE-ONE-NAME
  - ip: NODE-TWO-IP
    targetRef:
      kind: Node
      name: NODE-TWO-NAME
  - ip: NODE-THREE-IP
    targetRef:
      kind: Node
      name: NODE-THREE-NAME
```
Where:
- NODE-ONE-IP is the IP address of the first Windows worker node to monitor.
- NODE-ONE-NAME is the name of the first Windows worker node to monitor.
- NODE-TWO-IP is the IP address of the second Windows worker node to monitor.
- NODE-TWO-NAME is the name of the second Windows worker node to monitor.
- NODE-THREE-IP is the IP address of the third Windows worker node to monitor.
- NODE-THREE-NAME is the name of the third Windows worker node to monitor.
Save your changes to the windows-exporter.yml file.
To create the Windows node exporter objects, run:
```
kubectl create -f windows-exporter.yml
```
Wait a few seconds for the service to be ready.
To verify your new targets in Prometheus, open a browser to:
```
http://localhost:PROMETHEUS-PORT/targets
```
Where PROMETHEUS-PORT is the localhost port for Prometheus, for example 9090.

Set Up the Grafana Windows Node Dashboard

To import the dashboard files generated above to Grafana:

Open a browser to your Grafana dashboard.
To open the Import tab, click + on the Grafana side menu.
Click Upload .json file.

Upload the five dashboard files from the kubernetes-mixin/dashboards_out directory one at a time:

k8s-resources-windows-cluster.json
k8s-resources-windows-namespace.json
k8s-resources-windows-pod.json
k8s-windows-cluster-rsrc-use.json
k8s-windows-node-rsrc-use.json

To verify the dashboard, open a browser to your Grafana dashboard.

If you prefer to use a different Grafana dashboard, you can use and configure the preferred dashboard to monitor the Windows Node Exporter. For more information, see Dashboards at the Grafana Labs site.

Administer Prometheus and Grafana

After completing the minimum installation steps described above:

Change your Grafana installation’s account authentication to not use the default admin/admin user/password pair.
Review the Grafana and Prometheus documentation for any additional steps you should complete:
- For information about managing Grafana, see Administration in the Grafana documentation.
- For information about managing Prometheus, see Customizing Kube-Prometheus in the kube-prometheus documentation.

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