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diff --git a/docs/guides/using-host-labels.md b/docs/guides/using-host-labels.md index 7937d589..b9b15611 100644 --- a/docs/guides/using-host-labels.md +++ b/docs/guides/using-host-labels.md @@ -1,23 +1,81 @@ -<!-- -title: "Use host labels to organize systems, metrics, and alarms" -custom_edit_url: https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/docs/guides/using-host-labels.md ---> +# Organize systems, metrics, and alerts -# Use host labels to organize systems, metrics, and alarms +When you use Netdata to monitor and troubleshoot an entire infrastructure, you need sophisticated ways of keeping everything organized. +Netdata allows to organize your observability infrastructure with spaces, war rooms, virtual nodes, host labels, and metric labels. -When you use Netdata to monitor and troubleshoot an entire infrastructure, whether that's dozens or hundreds of systems, -you need sophisticated ways of keeping everything organized. You need alarms that adapt to the system's purpose, or -whether the parent or child in a streaming setup. You need properly-labeled metrics archiving so you can sort, -correlate, and mash-up your data to your heart's content. You need to keep tabs on ephemeral Docker containers in a -Kubernetes cluster. +## Spaces and war rooms -You need **host labels**: a powerful new way of organizing your Netdata-monitored systems. We introduced host labels in -[v1.20 of Netdata](https://blog.netdata.cloud/posts/release-1.20/), and they come pre-configured out of the box. +[Spaces](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/cloud/spaces.md) are used for organization-level or infrastructure-level +grouping of nodes and people. A node can only appear in a single space, while people can have access to multiple spaces. + +The [war rooms](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/docs/cloud/war-rooms.md) in a space bring together nodes and people in +collaboration areas. War rooms can also be used for fine-tuned +[role based access control](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/cloud/manage/role-based-access.md). + +## Virtual nodes + +Netdata’s virtual nodes functionality allows you to define nodes in configuration files and have them be treated as regular nodes +in all of the UI, dashboards, tabs, filters etc. For example, you can create a virtual node each for all your Windows machines +and monitor them as discrete entities. Virtual nodes can help you simplify your infrastructure monitoring and focus on the +individual node that matters. + +To define your windows server as a virtual node you need to: + + * Define virtual nodes in `/etc/netdata/vnodes/vnodes.conf` + + ```yaml + - hostname: win_server1 + guid: <value> + ``` + Just remember to use a valid guid (On Linux you can use `uuidgen` command to generate one, on Windows just use the `[guid]::NewGuid()` command in PowerShell) + + * Add the vnode config to the data collection job. e.g. in `go.d/windows.conf`: + ```yaml + jobs: + - name: win_server1 + vnode: win_server1 + url: http://203.0.113.10:9182/metrics + ``` + +## Host labels + +Host labels can be extremely useful when: + +- You need alarms that adapt to the system's purpose +- You need properly-labeled metrics archiving so you can sort, correlate, and mash-up your data to your heart's content. +- You need to keep tabs on ephemeral Docker containers in a Kubernetes cluster. Let's take a peek into how to create host labels and apply them across a few of Netdata's features to give you more organization power over your infrastructure. -## Create unique host labels +### Default labels + +When Netdata starts, it captures relevant information about the system and converts them into automatically generated +host labels. You can use these to logically organize your systems via health entities, exporting metrics, +parent-child status, and more. + +They capture the following: + +- Kernel version +- Operating system name and version +- CPU architecture, system cores, CPU frequency, RAM, and disk space +- Whether Netdata is running inside of a container, and if so, the OS and hardware details about the container's host +- Whether Netdata is running inside K8s node +- What virtualization layer the system runs on top of, if any +- Whether the system is a streaming parent or child + +If you want to organize your systems without manually creating host labels, try the automatic labels in some of the +features below. You can see them under `http://HOST-IP:19999/api/v1/info`, beginning with an underscore `_`. +```json +{ + ... + "host_labels": { + "_is_k8s_node": "false", + "_is_parent": "false", + ... +``` + +### Custom labels Host labels are defined in `netdata.conf`. To create host labels, open that file using `edit-config`. @@ -68,28 +126,8 @@ read the status of your agent. For example, from a VPS system running Debian 10: } ``` -You may have noticed a handful of labels that begin with an underscore (`_`). These are automatic labels. - -### Automatic labels - -When Netdata starts, it captures relevant information about the system and converts them into automatically-generated -host labels. You can use these to logically organize your systems via health entities, exporting metrics, -parent-child status, and more. - -They capture the following: - -- Kernel version -- Operating system name and version -- CPU architecture, system cores, CPU frequency, RAM, and disk space -- Whether Netdata is running inside of a container, and if so, the OS and hardware details about the container's host -- Whether Netdata is running inside K8s node -- What virtualization layer the system runs on top of, if any -- Whether the system is a streaming parent or child - -If you want to organize your systems without manually creating host labels, try the automatic labels in some of the -features below. -## Host labels in streaming +### Host labels in streaming You may have noticed the `_is_parent` and `_is_child` automatic labels from above. Host labels are also now streamed from a child to its parent node, which concentrates an entire infrastructure's OS, hardware, container, @@ -108,7 +146,7 @@ child system. It's a vastly simplified way of accessing critical information abo You can also use `_is_parent`, `_is_child`, and any other host labels in both health entities and metrics exporting. Speaking of which... -## Host labels in health entities +### Host labels in alerts You can use host labels to logically organize your systems by their type, purpose, or location, and then apply specific alarms to them. @@ -156,7 +194,7 @@ Or when ephemeral Docker nodes are involved: Of course, there are many more possibilities for intuitively organizing your systems with host labels. See the [health documentation](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/health/REFERENCE.md#alarm-line-host-labels) for more details, and then get creative! -## Host labels in metrics exporting +### Host labels in metrics exporting If you have enabled any metrics exporting via our experimental [exporters](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/exporting/README.md), any new host labels you created manually are sent to the destination database alongside metrics. You can change this behavior by @@ -185,28 +223,31 @@ send automatic labels = yes By applying labels to exported metrics, you can more easily parse historical metrics with the labels applied. To learn more about exporting, read the [documentation](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/exporting/README.md). -## What's next? +## Metric labels -Host labels are a brand-new feature to Netdata, and yet they've already propagated deeply into some of its core -functionality. We're just getting started with labels, and will keep the community apprised of additional functionality -as it's made available. You can also track [issue #6503](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/issues/6503), which is where -the Netdata team first kicked off this work. +The Netdata aggregate charts allow you to filter and group metrics based on label name-value pairs. -It should be noted that while the Netdata dashboard does not expose either user-configured or automatic host labels, API -queries _do_ showcase this information. As always, we recommend you secure Netdata +All go.d plugin collectors support the specification of labels at the "collection job" level. Some collectors come with out of the box +labels (e.g. generic Prometheus collector, Kubernetes, Docker and more). But you can also add your own custom labels, by configuring +the data collection jobs. -- [Expose Netdata only in a private LAN](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/netdata-security.md#expose-netdata-only-in-a-private-lan) -- [Enable TLS/SSL for web/API requests](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/web/server/README.md#enabling-tls-support) -- Put Netdata behind a proxy - - [Use an authenticating web server in proxy - mode](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/netdata-security.md#use-an-authenticating-web-server-in-proxy-mode) - - [Nginx proxy](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/Running-behind-nginx.md) - - [Apache proxy](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/Running-behind-apache.md) - - [Lighttpd](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/Running-behind-lighttpd.md) - - [Caddy](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/Running-behind-caddy.md) +For example, suppose we have a single Netdata agent, collecting data from two remote Apache web servers, located in different data centers. +The web servers are load balanced and provide access to the service "Payments". -If you have issues or questions around using host labels, don't hesitate to [file an -issue](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/issues/new?assignees=&labels=bug%2Cneeds+triage&template=BUG_REPORT.yml) on GitHub. We're -excited to make host labels even more valuable to our users, which we can only do with your input. +You can define the following in `go.d.conf`, to be able to group the web requests by service or location: +``` +jobs: + - name: mywebserver1 + url: http://host1/server-status?auto + labels: + service: "Payments" + location: "Atlanta" + - name: mywebserver2 + url: http://host2/server-status?auto + labels: + service: "Payments" + location: "New York" +``` +Of course you may define as many custom label/value pairs as you like, in as many data collection jobs you need. |