Troubleshooting monitoring issues

    Prerequisites

    • You have access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

    • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

    • You have enabled and configured monitoring for user-defined workloads.

    • You have created the user-workload-monitoring-config ConfigMap object.

    • You have created a ServiceMonitor resource.

    Procedure

    1. Check that the corresponding labels match in the service and ServiceMonitor resource configurations.

      1. Obtain the label defined in the service. The following example queries the prometheus-example-app service in the ns1 project:

        Example output

        1.   labels:
        2.     app: prometheus-example-app

      2. Check that the matchLabels app label in the ServiceMonitor resource configuration matches the label output in the preceding step:

        1. $ oc -n ns1 get servicemonitor prometheus-example-monitor -o yaml

        Example output

        1. spec:
        2.   endpoints:
        3.   - interval: 30s
        4.     port: web
        5.     scheme: http
        6.   selector:
        7.     matchLabels:
        8.       app: prometheus-example-app

    2. Inspect the logs for the Prometheus Operator in the project.

      1. List the pods in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project:

        1. $ oc -n openshift-user-workload-monitoring get pods

        Example output

        1. NAME                                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
        2. prometheus-user-workload-0             5/5     Running   1          132m
        3. prometheus-user-workload-1             5/5     Running   1          132m
        4. thanos-ruler-user-workload-0           3/3     Running   0          132m
        5. thanos-ruler-user-workload-1           3/3     Running   0          132m

      2. Obtain the logs from the prometheus-operator container in the prometheus-operator pod. In the following example, the pod is called prometheus-operator-776fcbbd56-2nbfm:

        If there is a issue with the service monitor, the logs might include an error similar to this example:

        1. level=warn ts=2020-08-10T11:48:20.906739623Z caller=operator.go:1829 component=prometheusoperator msg="skipping servicemonitor" error="it accesses file system via bearer token file which Prometheus specification prohibits" servicemonitor=eagle/eagle namespace=openshift-user-workload-monitoring prometheus=user-workload

    3. Review the target status for your endpoint on the Metrics targets page in the OKD web console UI.

      2. Locate the metrics endpoint in the list, and review the status of the target in the Status column.

      3. If the Status is Down, click the URL for the endpoint to view more information on the Target Details page for that metrics target.

    4. Configure debug level logging for the Prometheus Operator in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project.

      1. Edit the user-workload-monitoring-config ConfigMap object in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project:

        1. $ oc -n openshift-user-workload-monitoring edit configmap user-workload-monitoring-config

      2. Add logLevel: debug for prometheusOperator under data/config.yaml to set the log level to debug:

        1. apiVersion: v1
        2. kind: ConfigMap
        3. metadata:
        5.   namespace: openshift-user-workload-monitoring
        6. data:
        7.   config.yaml: |
        8.     prometheusOperator:
        9.       logLevel: debug

      3. Save the file to apply the changes.

      4. Confirm that the debug log-level has been applied to the prometheus-operator deployment in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project:

          Example output

          1.         - --log-level=debug

          Debug level logging will show all calls made by the Prometheus Operator.

        1. Check that the prometheus-operator pod is running:

        2. Review the debug logs to see if the Prometheus Operator is using the ServiceMonitor resource. Review the logs for other related errors.

      Additional resources

      Determining why Prometheus is consuming a lot of disk space

      Developers can create labels to define attributes for metrics in the form of key-value pairs. The number of potential key-value pairs corresponds to the number of possible values for an attribute. An attribute that has an unlimited number of potential values is called an unbound attribute. For example, a customer_id attribute is unbound because it has an infinite number of possible values.

      Every assigned key-value pair has a unique time series. The use of many unbound attributes in labels can result in an exponential increase in the number of time series created. This can impact Prometheus performance and can consume a lot of disk space.

      • Check the number of scrape samples that are being collected.

      • Check the time series database (TSDB) status using the Prometheus HTTP API for more information about which labels are creating the most time series. Doing so requires cluster administrator privileges.

      • Reduce the number of unique time series that are created by reducing the number of unbound attributes that are assigned to user-defined metrics.

      • Enforce limits on the number of samples that can be scraped across user-defined projects. This requires cluster administrator privileges.

      Prerequisites

      • You have access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

      • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

      Procedure

      1. In the Administrator perspective, navigate to Observe → Metrics.

      2. Run the following Prometheus Query Language (PromQL) query in the Expression field. This returns the ten metrics that have the highest number of scrape samples:

        1. topk(10,count by (job)({__name__=~".+"}))

      3. Investigate the number of unbound label values assigned to metrics with higher than expected scrape sample counts.

        • If the metrics relate to a user-defined project, review the metrics key-value pairs assigned to your workload. These are implemented through Prometheus client libraries at the application level. Try to limit the number of unbound attributes referenced in your labels.

        • If the metrics relate to a core OKD project, create a Red Hat support case on the .

      4. Review the TSDB status using the Prometheus HTTP API by running the following commands as a cluster administrator:

        1. $ oc login -u <username> -p <password>
        1. $ host=$(oc -n openshift-monitoring get route prometheus-k8s -ojsonpath={.spec.host})
        1. $ curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" -k "https://$host/api/v1/status/tsdb"

        Example output

      Additional resources