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Metrics Docker Collection Using Prometheus

Prometheus can be used to monitor Docker metrics by configuring the Docker daemon to expose metrics on port 9323. Prometheus then scrapes these metrics by targeting localhost:9323. To set it up, modify the Docker daemon configuration file to enable metrics and restart Docker. Then deploy Prometheus as a Docker container using a configuration file that scrapes both Prometheus itself and the Docker daemon. Graphs of Docker metrics can then be viewed in the Prometheus UI.

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71 views

Metrics Docker Collection Using Prometheus

Prometheus can be used to monitor Docker metrics by configuring the Docker daemon to expose metrics on port 9323. Prometheus then scrapes these metrics by targeting localhost:9323. To set it up, modify the Docker daemon configuration file to enable metrics and restart Docker. Then deploy Prometheus as a Docker container using a configuration file that scrapes both Prometheus itself and the Docker daemon. Graphs of Docker metrics can then be viewed in the Prometheus UI.

Uploaded by

deepesh_tr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Collect Docker metrics with

Prometheus
Estimated reading time:  8 minutes

Prometheus is an open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit. You can configure Docker as
a Prometheus target. This topic shows you how to configure Docker, set up Prometheus to run as a
Docker container, and monitor your Docker instance using Prometheus.

Warning: The available metrics and the names of those metrics are in active development and may
change at any time.

Currently, you can only monitor Docker itself. You cannot currently monitor your application using
the Docker target.

Configure Docker
To configure the Docker daemon as a Prometheus target, you need to specify the metrics-address.
The best way to do this is via the daemon.json, which is located at one of the following locations by
default. If the file does not exist, create it.

 Linux: /etc/docker/daemon.json
 Windows Server: C:\ProgramData\docker\config\daemon.json
 Docker Desktop for Mac / Docker Desktop for Windows: Click the Docker icon in the
toolbar, select Preferences, then select Daemon. Click Advanced.

If the file is currently empty, paste the following:

{
"metrics-addr" : "127.0.0.1:9323",
"experimental" : true
}

If the file is not empty, add those two keys, making sure that the resulting file is valid JSON. Be
careful that every line ends with a comma (,) except for the last line.

Save the file, or in the case of Docker Desktop for Mac or Docker Desktop for Windows, save the
configuration. Restart Docker.
Docker now exposes Prometheus-compatible metrics on port 9323.

Configure and run Prometheus


Prometheus runs as a Docker service on a Docker swarm.

Prerequisites

1. One or more Docker engines are joined into a Docker swarm, using docker swarm init on
one manager and docker swarm join on other managers and worker nodes.

2. You need an internet connection to pull the Prometheus image.

Copy one of the following configuration files and save it to /tmp/prometheus.yml (Linux or Mac)
or C:\tmp\prometheus.yml (Windows). This is a stock Prometheus configuration file, except for the
addition of the Docker job definition at the bottom of the file. Docker Desktop for Mac and Docker
Desktop for Windows need a slightly different configuration.

 Docker for Linux


 Docker Desktop for Mac
 Docker Desktop for Windows
# my global config
global:
scrape_interval: 15s # Set the scrape interval to every 15 seconds. Default is
every 1 minute.
evaluation_interval: 15s # Evaluate rules every 15 seconds. The default is every 1
minute.
# scrape_timeout is set to the global default (10s).

# Attach these labels to any time series or alerts when communicating with
# external systems (federation, remote storage, Alertmanager).
external_labels:
monitor: 'codelab-monitor'

# Load rules once and periodically evaluate them according to the global
'evaluation_interval'.
rule_files:
# - "first.rules"
# - "second.rules"
# A scrape configuration containing exactly one endpoint to scrape:
# Here it's Prometheus itself.
scrape_configs:
# The job name is added as a label `job=<job_name>` to any timeseries scraped from
this config.
- job_name: 'prometheus'

# metrics_path defaults to '/metrics'


# scheme defaults to 'http'.

static_configs:
- targets: ['localhost:9090']

- job_name: 'docker'
# metrics_path defaults to '/metrics'
# scheme defaults to 'http'.

static_configs:
- targets: ['localhost:9323']

Next, start a single-replica Prometheus service using this configuration.

 Docker for Linux


 Docker Desktop for Mac
 Docker Desktop for Windows or Windows Server
$ docker service create --replicas 1 --name my-prometheus \
--mount
type=bind,source=/tmp/prometheus.yml,destination=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml \
--publish published=9090,target=9090,protocol=tcp \
prom/prometheus

Verify that the Docker target is listed at http://localhost:9090/targets/.


You can’t access the endpoint URLs directly if you use Docker Desktop for Mac or Docker Desktop
for Windows.
Use Prometheus
Create a graph. Click the Graphs link in the Prometheus UI. Choose a metric from the combo box to
the right of the Execute button, and click Execute. The screenshot below shows the graph
for engine_daemon_network_actions_seconds_count .
The above graph shows a pretty idle Docker instance. Your graph might look different if you are
running active workloads.

To make the graph more interesting, create some network actions by starting a service with 10 tasks
that just ping Docker non-stop (you can change the ping target to anything you like):

$ docker service create \


--replicas 10 \
--name ping_service \
alpine ping docker.com

Wait a few minutes (the default scrape interval is 15 seconds) and reload your graph.
When you are ready, stop and remove the ping_service service, so that you are not flooding a host
with pings for no reason.
$ docker service remove ping_service

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