Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.

Documentation Grafana Agent Static mode Kubernetes operator Deploy Operator resources

Deploy Operator resources

To start collecting telemetry data, you need to roll out Grafana Agent Operator custom resources into your Kubernetes cluster. Before you can create the custom resources, you must first apply the Agent Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and install Agent Operator, with or without Helm. If you haven’t yet taken these steps, follow the instructions in one of the following topics:

• Install Agent Operator
• Install Agent Operator with Helm

Follow the steps in this guide to roll out the Grafana Agent Operator custom resources to:

• Scrape and ship cAdvisor and kubelet metrics to a Prometheus-compatible metrics endpoint.
• Collect and ship your Pods’ container logs to a Loki-compatible logs endpoint.

The hierarchy of custom resources is as follows:

• GrafanaAgent
  • MetricsInstance
    • PodMonitor
    • Probe
    • ServiceMonitor
  • LogsInstance
    • PodLogs

To learn more about the custom resources Agent Operator provides and their hierarchy, see Grafana Agent Operator architecture.

Before you begin

Before you begin, make sure that you have deployed the Grafana Agent Operator CRDs and installed Agent Operator into your cluster. See Install Grafana Agent Operator with Helm or Install Grafana Agent Operator for instructions.

Deploy the GrafanaAgent resource

In this section, you’ll roll out a GrafanaAgent resource. See Grafana Agent Operator architecture for a discussion of the resources in the GrafanaAgent resource hierarchy.

To deploy the GrafanaAgent resource:

1. Copy the following manifests to a file:

   yaml Copy

   apiVersion: monitoring.grafana.com/v1alpha1
   kind: GrafanaAgent
   metadata:
     name: grafana-agent
     namespace: default
     labels:
       app: grafana-agent
   spec:
     image: grafana/agent:v0.40.5
     integrations:
       selector:
         matchLabels:
             agent: grafana-agent-integrations
     logLevel: info
     serviceAccountName: grafana-agent
     metrics:
       instanceSelector:
         matchLabels:
           agent: grafana-agent-metrics
       externalLabels:
         cluster: cloud
   
     logs:
       instanceSelector:
         matchLabels:
           agent: grafana-agent-logs
   
   ---
   
   apiVersion: v1
   kind: ServiceAccount
   metadata:
     name: grafana-agent
     namespace: default
   
   ---
   
   apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
   kind: ClusterRole
   metadata:
     name: grafana-agent
   rules:
   - apiGroups:
     - ""
     resources:
     - nodes
     - nodes/proxy
     - nodes/metrics
     - services
     - endpoints
     - pods
     - events
     verbs:
     - get
     - list
     - watch
   - apiGroups:
     - networking.k8s.io
     resources:
     - ingresses
     verbs:
     - get
     - list
     - watch
   - nonResourceURLs:
     - /metrics
     - /metrics/cadvisor
     verbs:
     - get
   
   ---
   
   apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
   kind: ClusterRoleBinding
   metadata:
     name: grafana-agent
   roleRef:
     apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
     kind: ClusterRole
     name: grafana-agent
   subjects:
   - kind: ServiceAccount
     name: grafana-agent
     namespace: default

   In the first manifest, the GrafanaAgent resource:

   • Specifies an Agent image version.
   • Specifies MetricsInstance and LogsInstance selectors. These search for MetricsInstances and LogsInstances in the same namespace with labels matching agent: grafana-agent-metrics and agent: grafana-agent-logs, respectively.
   • Sets a cluster: cloud label for all metrics shipped to your Prometheus-compatible endpoint. Change this label to your cluster name. To search for MetricsInstances or LogsInstances in a different namespace, use the instanceNamespaceSelector field. To learn more about this field, see the GrafanaAgent CRD specification.

2. Customize the manifests as needed and roll them out to your cluster using kubectl apply -f followed by the filename.

   This step creates a ServiceAccount, ClusterRole, and ClusterRoleBinding for the GrafanaAgent resource.

   Deploying a GrafanaAgent resource on its own does not spin up Agent Pods. Agent Operator creates Agent Pods once MetricsInstance and LogsIntance resources have been created. Follow the instructions in the Deploy a MetricsInstance resource and Deploy LogsInstance and PodLogs resources sections to create these resources.

Disable feature flags reporting

To disable the reporting usage of feature flags to Grafana, set disableReporting field to true.

Disable support bundle generation

To disable the support bundles functionality, set the disableSupportBundle field to true.

Deploy a MetricsInstance resource

Next, you’ll roll out a MetricsInstance resource. MetricsInstance resources define a remote_write sink for metrics and configure one or more selectors to watch for creation and updates to *Monitor objects. These objects allow you to define Agent scrape targets via Kubernetes manifests:

• ServiceMonitors
• PodMonitors
• Probes

To deploy a MetricsInstance resource:

1. Copy the following manifest to a file:

   yaml Copy

   apiVersion: monitoring.grafana.com/v1alpha1
   kind: MetricsInstance
   metadata:
     name: primary
     namespace: default
     labels:
       agent: grafana-agent-metrics
   spec:
     remoteWrite:
     - url: your_remote_write_URL
       basicAuth:
         username:
           name: primary-credentials-metrics
           key: username
         password:
           name: primary-credentials-metrics
           key: password
   
     # Supply an empty namespace selector to look in all namespaces. Remove
     # this to only look in the same namespace as the MetricsInstance CR
     serviceMonitorNamespaceSelector: {}
     serviceMonitorSelector:
       matchLabels:
         instance: primary
   
     # Supply an empty namespace selector to look in all namespaces. Remove
     # this to only look in the same namespace as the MetricsInstance CR.
     podMonitorNamespaceSelector: {}
     podMonitorSelector:
       matchLabels:
         instance: primary
   
     # Supply an empty namespace selector to look in all namespaces. Remove
     # this to only look in the same namespace as the MetricsInstance CR.
     probeNamespaceSelector: {}
     probeSelector:
       matchLabels:
         instance: primary

2. Replace the remote_write URL and customize the namespace and label configuration as necessary.

   This step associates the MetricsInstance resource with the agent: grafana-agent GrafanaAgent resource deployed in the previous step. The MetricsInstance resource watches for creation and updates to *Monitors with the instance: primary label.

3. Once you’ve rolled out the manifest, create the basicAuth credentials using a Kubernetes Secret:

   yaml Copy

   apiVersion: v1
   kind: Secret
   metadata:
     name: primary-credentials-metrics
     namespace: default
   stringData:
     username: 'your_cloud_prometheus_username'
     password: 'your_cloud_prometheus_API_key'

If you’re using Grafana Cloud, you can find your hosted Loki endpoint username and password by clicking Details on the Loki tile on the Grafana Cloud Portal. If you want to base64-encode these values yourself, use data instead of stringData.

Once you’ve rolled out the MetricsInstance and its Secret, you can confirm that the MetricsInstance Agent is up and running using kubectl get pod. Since you haven’t defined any monitors yet, this Agent doesn’t have any scrape targets defined. In the next section, you’ll create scrape targets for the cAdvisor and kubelet endpoints exposed by the kubelet service in the cluster.

Create ServiceMonitors for kubelet and cAdvisor endpoints

Next, you’ll create ServiceMonitors for kubelet and cAdvisor metrics exposed by the kubelet service. Every Node in your cluster exposes kubelet and cAdvisor metrics at /metrics and /metrics/cadvisor, respectively. Agent Operator creates a kubelet service that exposes these Node endpoints so that they can be scraped using ServiceMonitors.

To scrape the kubelet and cAdvisor endpoints:

1. Copy the following kubelet ServiceMonitor manifest to a file, then roll it out in your cluster using kubectl apply -f followed by the filename.

   yaml Copy

   apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
   kind: ServiceMonitor
   metadata:
     labels:
       instance: primary
     name: kubelet-monitor
     namespace: default
   spec:
     endpoints:
     - bearerTokenFile: /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token
       honorLabels: true
       interval: 60s
       metricRelabelings:
       - action: keep
         regex: kubelet_cgroup_manager_duration_seconds_count|go_goroutines|kubelet_pod_start_duration_seconds_count|kubelet_runtime_operations_total|kubelet_pleg_relist_duration_seconds_bucket|volume_manager_total_volumes|kubelet_volume_stats_capacity_bytes|container_cpu_usage_seconds_total|container_network_transmit_bytes_total|kubelet_runtime_operations_errors_total|container_network_receive_bytes_total|container_memory_swap|container_network_receive_packets_total|container_cpu_cfs_periods_total|container_cpu_cfs_throttled_periods_total|kubelet_running_pod_count|node_namespace_pod_container:container_cpu_usage_seconds_total:sum_rate|container_memory_working_set_bytes|storage_operation_errors_total|kubelet_pleg_relist_duration_seconds_count|kubelet_running_pods|rest_client_request_duration_seconds_bucket|process_resident_memory_bytes|storage_operation_duration_seconds_count|kubelet_running_containers|kubelet_runtime_operations_duration_seconds_bucket|kubelet_node_config_error|kubelet_cgroup_manager_duration_seconds_bucket|kubelet_running_container_count|kubelet_volume_stats_available_bytes|kubelet_volume_stats_inodes|container_memory_rss|kubelet_pod_worker_duration_seconds_count|kubelet_node_name|kubelet_pleg_relist_interval_seconds_bucket|container_network_receive_packets_dropped_total|kubelet_pod_worker_duration_seconds_bucket|container_start_time_seconds|container_network_transmit_packets_dropped_total|process_cpu_seconds_total|storage_operation_duration_seconds_bucket|container_memory_cache|container_network_transmit_packets_total|kubelet_volume_stats_inodes_used|up|rest_client_requests_total
         sourceLabels:
         - __name__
       port: https-metrics
       relabelings:
       - sourceLabels:
         - __metrics_path__
         targetLabel: metrics_path
       - action: replace
         targetLabel: job
         replacement: integrations/kubernetes/kubelet
       scheme: https
       tlsConfig:
         insecureSkipVerify: true
     namespaceSelector:
       matchNames:
       - default
     selector:
       matchLabels:
         app.kubernetes.io/name: kubelet

2. Copy the following cAdvisor ServiceMonitor manifest to a file, then roll it out in your cluster using kubectl apply -f followed by the filename.

   yaml Copy

   apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
   kind: ServiceMonitor
   metadata:
     labels:
       instance: primary
     name: cadvisor-monitor
     namespace: default
   spec:
     endpoints:
     - bearerTokenFile: /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token
       honorLabels: true
       honorTimestamps: false
       interval: 60s
       metricRelabelings:
       - action: keep
         regex: kubelet_cgroup_manager_duration_seconds_count|go_goroutines|kubelet_pod_start_duration_seconds_count|kubelet_runtime_operations_total|kubelet_pleg_relist_duration_seconds_bucket|volume_manager_total_volumes|kubelet_volume_stats_capacity_bytes|container_cpu_usage_seconds_total|container_network_transmit_bytes_total|kubelet_runtime_operations_errors_total|container_network_receive_bytes_total|container_memory_swap|container_network_receive_packets_total|container_cpu_cfs_periods_total|container_cpu_cfs_throttled_periods_total|kubelet_running_pod_count|node_namespace_pod_container:container_cpu_usage_seconds_total:sum_rate|container_memory_working_set_bytes|storage_operation_errors_total|kubelet_pleg_relist_duration_seconds_count|kubelet_running_pods|rest_client_request_duration_seconds_bucket|process_resident_memory_bytes|storage_operation_duration_seconds_count|kubelet_running_containers|kubelet_runtime_operations_duration_seconds_bucket|kubelet_node_config_error|kubelet_cgroup_manager_duration_seconds_bucket|kubelet_running_container_count|kubelet_volume_stats_available_bytes|kubelet_volume_stats_inodes|container_memory_rss|kubelet_pod_worker_duration_seconds_count|kubelet_node_name|kubelet_pleg_relist_interval_seconds_bucket|container_network_receive_packets_dropped_total|kubelet_pod_worker_duration_seconds_bucket|container_start_time_seconds|container_network_transmit_packets_dropped_total|process_cpu_seconds_total|storage_operation_duration_seconds_bucket|container_memory_cache|container_network_transmit_packets_total|kubelet_volume_stats_inodes_used|up|rest_client_requests_total
         sourceLabels:
         - __name__
       path: /metrics/cadvisor
       port: https-metrics
       relabelings:
       - sourceLabels:
         - __metrics_path__
         targetLabel: metrics_path
       - action: replace
         targetLabel: job
         replacement: integrations/kubernetes/cadvisor
       scheme: https
       tlsConfig:
         insecureSkipVerify: true
     namespaceSelector:
       matchNames:
       - default
     selector:
       matchLabels:
         app.kubernetes.io/name: kubelet

These two ServiceMonitors configure Agent to scrape all the kubelet and cAdvisor endpoints in your Kubernetes cluster (one of each per Node). In addition, it defines a job label which you can update (it is preset here for compatibility with Grafana Cloud’s Kubernetes integration). It also provides an allowlist containing a core set of Kubernetes metrics to reduce remote metrics usage. If you don’t need this allowlist, you can omit it, however, your metrics usage will increase significantly.

When you’re done, Agent should now be shipping kubelet and cAdvisor metrics to your remote Prometheus endpoint. To check this in Grafana Cloud, go to your dashboards, select Integration - Kubernetes, then select Kubernetes / Kubelet.

Deploy LogsInstance and PodLogs resources

Next, you’ll deploy a LogsInstance resource to collect logs from your cluster Nodes and ship these to your remote Loki endpoint. Agent Operator deploys a DaemonSet of Agents in your cluster that will tail log files defined in PodLogs resources.

To deploy the LogsInstance resource into your cluster:

1. Copy the following manifest to a file, then roll it out in your cluster using kubectl apply -f followed by the filename.

   yaml Copy

   apiVersion: monitoring.grafana.com/v1alpha1
   kind: LogsInstance
   metadata:
     name: primary
     namespace: default
     labels:
       agent: grafana-agent-logs
   spec:
     clients:
     - url: your_remote_logs_URL
       basicAuth:
         username:
           name: primary-credentials-logs
           key: username
         password:
           name: primary-credentials-logs
           key: password
   
     # Supply an empty namespace selector to look in all namespaces. Remove
     # this to only look in the same namespace as the LogsInstance CR
     podLogsNamespaceSelector: {}
     podLogsSelector:
       matchLabels:
         instance: primary

   This LogsInstance picks up PodLogs resources with the instance: primary label. Be sure to set the Loki URL to the correct push endpoint. For Grafana Cloud, this will look similar to logs-prod-us-central1.grafana.net/loki/api/v1/push, however check the Grafana Cloud Portal to confirm by clicking Details on the Loki tile.

   Also note that this example uses the agent: grafana-agent-logs label, which associates this LogsInstance with the GrafanaAgent resource defined earlier. This means that it will inherit requests, limits, affinities and other properties defined in the GrafanaAgent custom resource.

2. To create the Secret for the LogsInstance resource, copy the following Secret manifest to a file, then roll it out in your cluster using kubectl apply -f followed by the filename.

   yaml Copy

   apiVersion: v1
   kind: Secret
   metadata:
     name: primary-credentials-logs
     namespace: default
   stringData:
     username: 'your_username_here'
     password: 'your_password_here'

   If you’re using Grafana Cloud, you can find your hosted Loki endpoint username and password by clicking Details on the Loki tile on the Grafana Cloud Portal. If you want to base64-encode these values yourself, use data instead of stringData.

3. Copy the following PodLogs manifest to a file, then roll it to your cluster using kubectl apply -f followed by the filename. The manifest defines your logging targets. Agent Operator turns this into Agent configuration for the logs subsystem, and rolls it out to the DaemonSet of logging Agents.

   Note

   The following is a minimal working example which you should adapt to your production needs.

   yaml Copy

   apiVersion: monitoring.grafana.com/v1alpha1
   kind: PodLogs
   metadata:
     labels:
       instance: primary
     name: kubernetes-pods
     namespace: default
   spec:
     pipelineStages:
       - docker: {}
     namespaceSelector:
       matchNames:
       - default
     selector:
       matchLabels: {}

   This example tails container logs for all Pods in the default namespace. You can restrict the set of matched Pods by using the matchLabels selector. You can also set additional pipelineStages and create relabelings to add or modify log line labels. To learn more about the PodLogs specification and available resource fields, see the PodLogs CRD.

   The above PodLogs resource adds the following labels to log lines:

   • namespace
   • service
   • pod
   • container
   • job (set to PodLogs_namespace/PodLogs_name)
   • __path__ (the path to log files, set to /var/log/pods/*$1/*.log where $1 is __meta_kubernetes_pod_uid/__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_name)

   To learn more about this configuration format and other available labels, see the Promtail Scraping documentation. Agent Operator loads this configuration into the LogsInstance agents automatically.

The DaemonSet of logging agents should be tailing your container logs, applying default labels to the log lines, and shipping them to your remote Loki endpoint.

Summary

You’ve now rolled out the following into your cluster:

• A GrafanaAgent resource that discovers one or more MetricsInstance and LogsInstances resources.
• A MetricsInstance resource that defines where to ship collected metrics.
• A ServiceMonitor resource to collect cAdvisor and kubelet metrics.
• A LogsInstance resource that defines where to ship collected logs.
• A PodLogs resource to collect container logs from Kubernetes Pods.

What’s next

You can verify that everything is working correctly by navigating to your Grafana instance and querying your Loki and Prometheus data sources.

Tip: You can deploy multiple GrafanaAgent resources to isolate allocated resources to the agent pods. By default, the GrafanaAgent resource determines the resources of all deployed agent containers. However, you might want different memory limits for metrics versus logs.