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Enabling monitoring for user-defined projects

In OKD, you can enable monitoring for user-defined projects in addition to the default platform monitoring. You can monitor your own projects in OKD without the need for an additional monitoring solution. Using this feature centralizes monitoring for core platform components and user-defined projects.

Versions of Prometheus Operator installed using Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) are not compatible with user-defined monitoring. Therefore, custom Prometheus instances installed as a Prometheus custom resource (CR) managed by the OLM Prometheus Operator are not supported in OKD.

Enabling monitoring for user-defined projects

Cluster administrators can enable monitoring for user-defined projects by setting the enableUserWorkload: true field in the cluster monitoring ConfigMap object.

You must remove any custom Prometheus instances before enabling monitoring for user-defined projects.

You must have access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin cluster role to enable monitoring for user-defined projects in OKD. Cluster administrators can then optionally grant users permission to configure the components that are responsible for monitoring user-defined projects.
Prerequisites

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

  • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

  • You have created the cluster-monitoring-config ConfigMap object.

  • You have optionally created and configured the user-workload-monitoring-config ConfigMap object in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project. You can add configuration options to this ConfigMap object for the components that monitor user-defined projects.

    Every time you save configuration changes to the user-workload-monitoring-config ConfigMap object, the pods in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project are redeployed. It might sometimes take a while for these components to redeploy.
Procedure

  1. Edit the cluster-monitoring-config ConfigMap object:

    $ oc -n openshift-monitoring edit configmap cluster-monitoring-config

  2. Add enableUserWorkload: true under data/config.yaml:

    apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: cluster-monitoring-config
  namespace: openshift-monitoring
data:
  config.yaml: |
    enableUserWorkload: true (1)
    1 When set to true, the enableUserWorkload parameter enables monitoring for user-defined projects in a cluster.

  3. Save the file to apply the changes. Monitoring for user-defined projects is then enabled automatically.

    If you enable monitoring for user-defined projects, the user-workload-monitoring-config ConfigMap object is created by default.

  4. Verify that the prometheus-operator, prometheus-user-workload, and thanos-ruler-user-workload pods are running in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project. It might take a short while for the pods to start:

    $ oc -n openshift-user-workload-monitoring get pod
    Example output
    NAME                                   READY   STATUS        RESTARTS   AGE
prometheus-operator-6f7b748d5b-t7nbg   2/2     Running       0          3h
prometheus-user-workload-0             4/4     Running       1          3h
prometheus-user-workload-1             4/4     Running       1          3h
thanos-ruler-user-workload-0           3/3     Running       0          3h
thanos-ruler-user-workload-1           3/3     Running       0          3h
Additional resources

Granting users permission to monitor user-defined projects

As a cluster administrator, you can monitor all core OKD and user-defined projects.

You can also grant developers and other users different permissions:

  • Monitoring user-defined projects

  • Configuring the components that monitor user-defined projects

  • Configuring alert routing for user-defined projects

  • Managing alerts and silences for user-defined projects

You can grant the permissions by assigning one of the following monitoring roles or cluster roles:

Table 1. Monitoring roles
Role name Description Project

user-workload-monitoring-config-edit

Users with this role can edit the user-workload-monitoring-config ConfigMap object to configure Prometheus, Prometheus Operator, Alertmanager, and Thanos Ruler for user-defined workload monitoring.

openshift-user-workload-monitoring

monitoring-alertmanager-api-reader

Users with this role have read access to the user-defined Alertmanager API for all projects, if the user-defined Alertmanager is enabled.

openshift-user-workload-monitoring

monitoring-alertmanager-api-writer

Users with this role have read and write access to the user-defined Alertmanager API for all projects, if the user-defined Alertmanager is enabled.

openshift-user-workload-monitoring
Table 2. Monitoring cluster roles
Cluster role name Description Project

monitoring-rules-view

Users with this cluster role have read access to PrometheusRule custom resources (CRs) for user-defined projects. They can also view the alerts and silences in the Developer perspective of the OKD web console.

Can be bound with RoleBinding to any user project.

monitoring-rules-edit

Users with this cluster role can create, modify, and delete PrometheusRule CRs for user-defined projects. They can also manage alerts and silences in the Developer perspective of the OKD web console.

Can be bound with RoleBinding to any user project.

monitoring-edit

Users with this cluster role have the same privileges as users with the monitoring-rules-edit cluster role. Additionally, users can create, read, modify, and delete ServiceMonitor and PodMonitor resources to scrape metrics from services and pods.

Can be bound with RoleBinding to any user project.

alert-routing-edit

Users with this cluster role can create, update, and delete AlertmanagerConfig CRs for user-defined projects.

Can be bound with RoleBinding to any user project.
Additional resources

Granting user permissions by using the web console

You can grant users permissions for the openshift-monitoring project or their own projects, by using the OKD web console.

Prerequisites

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

  • The user account that you are assigning the role to already exists.

Procedure

  1. In the Administrator perspective of the OKD web console, go to User Management → RoleBindings → Create binding.

  2. In the Binding Type section, select the Namespace Role Binding type.

  3. In the Name field, enter a name for the role binding.

  4. In the Namespace field, select the project where you want to grant the access.

    The monitoring role or cluster role permissions that you grant to a user by using this procedure apply only to the project that you select in the Namespace field.

  5. Select a monitoring role or cluster role from the Role Name list.

  6. In the Subject section, select User.

  7. In the Subject Name field, enter the name of the user.

  8. Select Create to apply the role binding.

Granting user permissions by using the CLI

You can grant users permissions for the openshift-monitoring project or their own projects, by using the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Whichever role or cluster role you choose, you must bind it against a specific project as a cluster administrator.
Prerequisites

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

  • The user account that you are assigning the role to already exists.

  • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  • To assign a monitoring role to a user for a project, enter the following command:

    $ oc adm policy add-role-to-user <role> <user> -n <namespace> --role-namespace <namespace> (1)
    1 Substitute <role> with the wanted monitoring role, <user> with the user to whom you want to assign the role, and <namespace> with the project where you want to grant the access.

  • To assign a monitoring cluster role to a user for a project, enter the following command:

    $ oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user <cluster-role> <user> -n <namespace> (1)
    1 Substitute <cluster-role> with the wanted monitoring cluster role, <user> with the user to whom you want to assign the cluster role, and <namespace> with the project where you want to grant the access.

Granting users permission to configure monitoring for user-defined projects

As a cluster administrator, you can assign the user-workload-monitoring-config-edit role to a user. This grants permission to configure and manage monitoring for user-defined projects without giving them permission to configure and manage core OKD monitoring components.

Prerequisites

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

  • The user account that you are assigning the role to already exists.

  • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  1. Assign the user-workload-monitoring-config-edit role to a user in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project:

    $ oc -n openshift-user-workload-monitoring adm policy add-role-to-user \
  user-workload-monitoring-config-edit <user> \
  --role-namespace openshift-user-workload-monitoring

  2. Verify that the user is correctly assigned to the user-workload-monitoring-config-edit role by displaying the related role binding:

    $ oc describe rolebinding <role_binding_name> -n openshift-user-workload-monitoring
    Example command
    $ oc describe rolebinding user-workload-monitoring-config-edit -n openshift-user-workload-monitoring
    Example output
    Name:         user-workload-monitoring-config-edit
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  <none>
Role:
  Kind:  Role
  Name:  user-workload-monitoring-config-edit
Subjects:
  Kind  Name  Namespace
  ----  ----  ---------
  User  user1           (1)
    1 In this example, user1 is assigned to the user-workload-monitoring-config-edit role.

Accessing metrics from outside the cluster for custom applications

You can query Prometheus metrics from outside the cluster when monitoring your own services with user-defined projects. Access this data from outside the cluster by using the thanos-querier route.

This access only supports using a bearer token for authentication.

Prerequisites

  • You have deployed your own service, following the "Enabling monitoring for user-defined projects" procedure.

  • You are logged in to an account with the cluster-monitoring-view cluster role, which provides permission to access the Thanos Querier API.

  • You are logged in to an account that has permission to get the Thanos Querier API route.

    If your account does not have permission to get the Thanos Querier API route, a cluster administrator can provide the URL for the route.
Procedure

  1. Extract an authentication token to connect to Prometheus by running the following command:

    $ TOKEN=$(oc whoami -t)

  2. Extract the thanos-querier API route URL by running the following command:

    $ HOST=$(oc -n openshift-monitoring get route thanos-querier -ojsonpath={.status.ingress[].host})

  3. Set the namespace to the namespace in which your service is running by using the following command:

    $ NAMESPACE=ns1

  4. Query the metrics of your own services in the command line by running the following command:

    $ curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -k "https://$HOST/api/v1/query?" --data-urlencode "query=up{namespace='$NAMESPACE'}"

    The output shows the status for each application pod that Prometheus is scraping:

    The formatted example output
    {
  "status": "success",
  "data": {
    "resultType": "vector",
    "result": [
      {
        "metric": {
          "__name__": "up",
          "endpoint": "web",
          "instance": "10.129.0.46:8080",
          "job": "prometheus-example-app",
          "namespace": "ns1",
          "pod": "prometheus-example-app-68d47c4fb6-jztp2",
          "service": "prometheus-example-app"
        },
        "value": [
          1591881154.748,
          "1"
        ]
      }
    ],
  }
}

    • The formatted example output uses a filtering tool, such as jq, to provide the formatted indented JSON. See the jq Manual (jq documentation) for more information about using jq.

    • The command requests an instant query endpoint of the Thanos Querier service, which evaluates selectors at one point in time.
Additional resources

Excluding a user-defined project from monitoring

Individual user-defined projects can be excluded from user workload monitoring. To do so, add the openshift.io/user-monitoring label to the project’s namespace with a value of false.

Procedure

  1. Add the label to the project namespace:

    $ oc label namespace my-project 'openshift.io/user-monitoring=false'

  2. To re-enable monitoring, remove the label from the namespace:

    $ oc label namespace my-project 'openshift.io/user-monitoring-'

    If there were any active monitoring targets for the project, it may take a few minutes for Prometheus to stop scraping them after adding the label.

Disabling monitoring for user-defined projects

After enabling monitoring for user-defined projects, you can disable it again by setting enableUserWorkload: false in the cluster monitoring ConfigMap object.

Alternatively, you can remove enableUserWorkload: true to disable monitoring for user-defined projects.
Procedure

  1. Edit the cluster-monitoring-config ConfigMap object:

    $ oc -n openshift-monitoring edit configmap cluster-monitoring-config

    1. Set enableUserWorkload: to false under data/config.yaml:

      apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: cluster-monitoring-config
  namespace: openshift-monitoring
data:
  config.yaml: |
    enableUserWorkload: false

  2. Save the file to apply the changes. Monitoring for user-defined projects is then disabled automatically.

  3. Check that the prometheus-operator, prometheus-user-workload and thanos-ruler-user-workload pods are terminated in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project. This might take a short while:

    $ oc -n openshift-user-workload-monitoring get pod
    Example output
    No resources found in openshift-user-workload-monitoring project.

The user-workload-monitoring-config ConfigMap object in the openshift-user-workload-monitoring project is not automatically deleted when monitoring for user-defined projects is disabled. This is to preserve any custom configurations that you may have created in the ConfigMap object.