Netdata is an opensource solution for monitoring and troubleshooting systems. It can be used to monitor a kubernetes cluster and display information about your cluster including node memory usage, CPU, network and many more.
Netdata dashboard gives you a broad view of your Kubernetes cluster including the services and pods running on each node.
In this post, we shall cover how to deploy Netdata on a Kubernetes cluster using Helm chart. This kind of installation deploys one parent pod on the master and child pods on each worker node.
The child pods collects metrics from the nodes they run on, kube-proxy, kubelet and cgroup metrics from the nodes.
The child nodes also use a generic prometheus collector and service discovery to deliver the metrics.
Pre-requisites
Before we can install Netdata on our cluster, you need to meet the following conditions:
- A fully functional Kubernetes cluster, v1.9 and above.
- Kubectl command-line tool
- Helm package manager, version 3.0.0 and above.
Install Netdata on Kubernetes using Helm
Use the steps below to install Netdata in your Kubernetes Cluster using Helm chart.
Step 1 – Install Helm on Linux | macOS
These are the steps you’ll use to install Helm on a Linux | macOS system.
- Download Helm package from this link
- Extract the package using
tar -xvzf <downloaded-package> - Move the binary file to
usr/local/bin/helm
We will use installation script which automates above steps.
curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3
chmod 700 get_helm.sh
sudo ./get_helm.sh
macOS users can also use brew package management tool.
$ brew install helmOnce installed confirm by checking the current version:
$ helm version
version.BuildInfo{Version:"v3.9.0", GitCommit:"7ceeda6c585217a19a1131663d8cd1f7d641b2a7", GitTreeState:"clean", GoVersion:"go1.17.5"}
- Add helm chart repository then update helm
$ helm repo add stable https://charts.helm.sh/stable
$ helm repo update
Hang tight while we grab the latest from your chart repositories...
...Successfully got an update from the "stable" chart repository
Update Complete. ⎈Happy Helming!⎈Step 2 – Install Netdata using Helm chart
You can install Helm chart using two methods:
- Install from Netdata’s Helm repository
- Clone Netdata Git repository.
We shall explore both methods
Option 1: Install from Helm repository
Add Netdata’s Helm repository then install Helm chart
helm repo add netdata https://netdata.github.io/helmchart/
helm install netdata netdata/netdataCheck the list of configurable parameters of the netdata chart and their default values. In below example we’re setting StorageClass name:
$ kubectl get sc
NAME PROVISIONER RECLAIMPOLICY VOLUMEBINDINGMODE ALLOWVOLUMEEXPANSION AGE
rook-ceph-block rook-ceph.rbd.csi.ceph.com Delete Immediate true 227d
rook-cephfs rook-ceph.cephfs.csi.ceph.com Delete Immediate true 227d
#Deploy Netdata while using rook-cephfs
$ helm install netdata netdata/netdata \
--set parent.database.storageclass="rook-cephfs" \
--set parent.alarms.storageclass="rook-cephfs"
#Give it sometime then check PVCs created
$ kubectl get pvc
NAME STATUS VOLUME CAPACITY ACCESS MODES STORAGECLASS AGE
netdata-parent-alarms Bound pvc-14b6b1ec-128c-4c73-a9ac-84e2019faed7 1Gi RWO rook-cephfs 37s
netdata-parent-database Bound pvc-1faa198f-b8e1-4361-a1af-bbb20a38c8f2 2Gi RWO rook-cephfs 37s
To uninstall/delete netdata deployment, run:
helm delete netdataOption 2: Clone Github repository
You can also clone repo from Github and install helm chart. But first, make sure you have git installed to your system
Clone git repository locally
git clone https://github.com/netdata/helmchart.git netdata-helmchartInstall the chart
helm install netdata ./netdata-helmchart/charts/netdataYou can now see the helm deployments by:
$ helm list
NAME NAMESPACE REVISION UPDATED STATUS CHART APP VERSION
netdata wikijs 1 2022-06-02 17:14:57.522097888 +0300 EAT deployed netdata-3.7.18 v1.34.1To check if the parent pod and the child pods have been successfully deployed:
$ kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
netdata-child-fgh5c 2/2 Running 0 16h
netdata-child-qzhjp 2/2 Running 0 16h
netdata-child-ssmhp 2/2 Running 0 16h
netdata-parent-55d88fc784-x66ss 1/1 Running 0 16hStep 3: Expose Netdata-parent with NodePort
In this guide, we will expose the netdata deployment using NodePort
Netdata is configured to run on port 19999 by default.
To expose the port, use the command below:
kubectl expose deployment netdata-parent --type="NodePort" --port 19999You can now check the port that service has been exposed use the kubectl get service command:
$ kubectl get service
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
kubernetes ClusterIP 10.96.0.1 <none> 443/TCP 21h
netdata ClusterIP 10.99.202.135 <none> 19999/TCP 17h
netdata-parent NodePort 10.97.24.181 <none> 19999:30939/TCP 16hIn our deployment, netdata-parent service has been exposed to port 30939.
You can now access the netdata dashboard in your browser by http://<yourmaster-IP>:NodePort
e.g http://172.16.1.4:30939 is the url for our dashboard.
You can check the metrics of all the nodes which are listed on the left pane as in the screenshot below.
Then you can choose any node to check the stats:
Conclusion
We have successfully installed Netdata on our Kubernetes cluster using Helm command-line tool.
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