Node Exporter

This document describes how to configure your Google Kubernetes Engine deployment so that you can use Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus to collect metrics from Node Exporter. This document shows you how to do the following:

• Set up Node Exporter to report metrics.
• Configure a PodMonitoring resource for Managed Service for Prometheus to collect the exported metrics.
• Access a dashboard in Cloud Monitoring to view the metrics.
• Configure alerting rules to monitor the metrics.

These instructions apply only if you are using managed collection with Managed Service for Prometheus for GKE Standard clusters. You can't use Node Exporter for GKE Autopilot clusters. If you are using self-deployed collection, then see the source repository for Node Exporter for installation information.

These instructions are provided as an example and are expected to work in most Kubernetes environments. If you are having trouble installing an application or exporter due to restrictive security or organizational policies, we recommend you consult open-source documentation for support.

Prerequisites

To collect metrics from Node Exporter by using Managed Service for Prometheus and managed collection, your deployment must meet the following requirements:

• Your cluster must be running Google Kubernetes Engine version 1.21.4-gke.300 or later.
• You must be running Managed Service for Prometheus with managed collection enabled. For more information, see Get started with managed collection.

• To use dashboards available in Cloud Monitoring for the integration, you must use node_exporter version 1.3.1 or later.

  For more information about available dashboards, see Install dashboards.

Install Node Exporter

You can use the following configuration to install Node Exporter:

# Copyright 2022 Google LLC
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#     https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: DaemonSet
metadata:
  namespace: gmp-public
  name: node-exporter
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: node-exporter
    app.kubernetes.io/version: 1.3.1
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app.kubernetes.io/name: node-exporter
  updateStrategy:
    type: RollingUpdate
    rollingUpdate:
      maxUnavailable: 10%
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app.kubernetes.io/name: node-exporter
        app.kubernetes.io/version: 1.3.1
    spec:
      affinity:
        nodeAffinity:
          requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
            nodeSelectorTerms:
            - matchExpressions:
              - key: kubernetes.io/arch
                operator: In
                values:
                - arm64
                - amd64
              - key: kubernetes.io/os
                operator: In
                values:
                - linux
      containers:
      - name: node-exporter
        image: quay.io/prometheus/node-exporter:v1.3.1
        args:
        - --web.listen-address=:8080
        - --path.sysfs=/host/sys
        - --path.rootfs=/host/root
        - --no-collector.wifi
        - --no-collector.hwmon
        - --collector.filesystem.ignored-mount-points=^/(dev|proc|sys|var/lib/docker/.+|var/lib/kubelet/pods/.+)($|/)
        - --collector.netclass.ignored-devices=^(veth.*)$
        - --collector.netdev.device-exclude=^(veth.*)$
        ports:
        - name: metrics
          containerPort: 8080
        resources:
          limits:
            memory: 180Mi
          requests:
            cpu: 102m
            memory: 180Mi
        volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /host/sys
          mountPropagation: HostToContainer
          name: sys
          readOnly: true
        - mountPath: /host/root
          mountPropagation: HostToContainer
          name: root
          readOnly: true
      hostNetwork: true
      hostPID: true
      securityContext:
        runAsNonRoot: true
        runAsUser: 65534
      volumes:
      - hostPath:
          path: /sys
        name: sys
      - hostPath:
          path: /
        name: root
---
apiVersion: monitoring.googleapis.com/v1
kind: PodMonitoring
metadata:
  namespace: gmp-public
  name: node-exporter
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: node-exporter
    app.kubernetes.io/part-of: google-cloud-managed-prometheus
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app.kubernetes.io/name: node-exporter
  endpoints:
  - port: metrics
    interval: 30s

To apply configuration changes from a local file, run the following command:

kubectl apply -f FILE_NAME

You can also use Terraform to manage your configurations.

Define rules and alerts

You can use the following Rules configuration to define alerts on your metrics:

# Copyright 2022 Google LLC
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#     https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

apiVersion: monitoring.googleapis.com/v1
kind: Rules
metadata:
  namespace: gmp-public
  name: node-exporter-rules
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/component: rules
    app.kubernetes.io/name: node-exporter-rules
    app.kubernetes.io/part-of: google-cloud-managed-prometheus
spec:
  groups:
  - name: node-exporter
    interval: 30s
    rules:
    - alert: NodeFilesystemSpaceFillingUp
      annotations:
        description: Filesystem on {{ $labels.device }} at {{ $labels.instance }}
          has only {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}% available space left and is filling
          up.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefilesystemspacefillingup
        summary: Filesystem is predicted to run out of space within the next 24 hours.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filesystem_avail_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} / node_filesystem_size_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} * 100 < 15
        and
          predict_linear(node_filesystem_avail_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""}[6h], 24 * 60 * 60) < 0
        and
          node_filesystem_readonly{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} == 0
        )
      for: 1h
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeFilesystemSpaceFillingUp
      annotations:
        description: Filesystem on {{ $labels.device }} at {{ $labels.instance }}
          has only {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}% available space left and is filling
          up fast.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefilesystemspacefillingup
        summary: Filesystem is predicted to run out of space within the next 4 hours.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filesystem_avail_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} / node_filesystem_size_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} * 100 < 10
        and
          predict_linear(node_filesystem_avail_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""}[6h], 4*60*60) < 0
        and
          node_filesystem_readonly{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} == 0
        )
      for: 1h
      labels:
        severity: critical
    - alert: NodeFilesystemAlmostOutOfSpace
      annotations:
        description: Filesystem on {{ $labels.device }} at {{ $labels.instance }}
          has only {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}% available space left.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefilesystemalmostoutofspace
        summary: Filesystem has less than 5% space left.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filesystem_avail_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} / node_filesystem_size_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} * 100 < 5
        and
          node_filesystem_readonly{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} == 0
        )
      for: 30m
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeFilesystemAlmostOutOfSpace
      annotations:
        description: Filesystem on {{ $labels.device }} at {{ $labels.instance }}
          has only {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}% available space left.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefilesystemalmostoutofspace
        summary: Filesystem has less than 3% space left.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filesystem_avail_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} / node_filesystem_size_bytes{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} * 100 < 3
        and
          node_filesystem_readonly{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} == 0
        )
      for: 30m
      labels:
        severity: critical
    - alert: NodeFilesystemFilesFillingUp
      annotations:
        description: Filesystem on {{ $labels.device }} at {{ $labels.instance }}
          has only {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}% available inodes left and is filling
          up.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefilesystemfilesfillingup
        summary: Filesystem is predicted to run out of inodes within the next 24 hours.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filesystem_files_free{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} / node_filesystem_files{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} * 100 < 40
        and
          predict_linear(node_filesystem_files_free{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""}[6h], 24*60*60) < 0
        and
          node_filesystem_readonly{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} == 0
        )
      for: 1h
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeFilesystemFilesFillingUp
      annotations:
        description: Filesystem on {{ $labels.device }} at {{ $labels.instance }}
          has only {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}% available inodes left and is filling
          up fast.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefilesystemfilesfillingup
        summary: Filesystem is predicted to run out of inodes within the next 4 hours.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filesystem_files_free{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} / node_filesystem_files{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} * 100 < 20
        and
          predict_linear(node_filesystem_files_free{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""}[6h], 4*60*60) < 0
        and
          node_filesystem_readonly{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} == 0
        )
      for: 1h
      labels:
        severity: critical
    - alert: NodeFilesystemAlmostOutOfFiles
      annotations:
        description: Filesystem on {{ $labels.device }} at {{ $labels.instance }}
          has only {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}% available inodes left.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefilesystemalmostoutoffiles
        summary: Filesystem has less than 5% inodes left.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filesystem_files_free{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} / node_filesystem_files{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} * 100 < 5
        and
          node_filesystem_readonly{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} == 0
        )
      for: 1h
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeFilesystemAlmostOutOfFiles
      annotations:
        description: Filesystem on {{ $labels.device }} at {{ $labels.instance }}
          has only {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}% available inodes left.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefilesystemalmostoutoffiles
        summary: Filesystem has less than 3% inodes left.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filesystem_files_free{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} / node_filesystem_files{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} * 100 < 3
        and
          node_filesystem_readonly{job="node-exporter",fstype!=""} == 0
        )
      for: 1h
      labels:
        severity: critical
    - alert: NodeNetworkReceiveErrs
      annotations:
        description: '{{ $labels.instance }} interface {{ $labels.device }} has encountered
          {{ printf "%.0f" $value }} receive errors in the last two minutes.'
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodenetworkreceiveerrs
        summary: Network interface is reporting many receive errors.
      expr: |
        rate(node_network_receive_errs_total[2m]) / rate(node_network_receive_packets_total[2m]) > 0.01
      for: 1h
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeNetworkTransmitErrs
      annotations:
        description: '{{ $labels.instance }} interface {{ $labels.device }} has encountered
          {{ printf "%.0f" $value }} transmit errors in the last two minutes.'
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodenetworktransmiterrs
        summary: Network interface is reporting many transmit errors.
      expr: |
        rate(node_network_transmit_errs_total[2m]) / rate(node_network_transmit_packets_total[2m]) > 0.01
      for: 1h
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeHighNumberConntrackEntriesUsed
      annotations:
        description: '{{ $value | humanizePercentage }} of conntrack entries are used.'
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodehighnumberconntrackentriesused
        summary: Number of conntrack are getting close to the limit.
      expr: |
        (node_nf_conntrack_entries / node_nf_conntrack_entries_limit) > 0.75
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeTextFileCollectorScrapeError
      annotations:
        description: Node Exporter text file collector failed to scrape.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodetextfilecollectorscrapeerror
        summary: Node Exporter text file collector failed to scrape.
      expr: |
        node_textfile_scrape_error{job="node-exporter"} == 1
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeClockSkewDetected
      annotations:
        description: Clock on {{ $labels.instance }} is out of sync by more than 300s.
          Ensure NTP is configured correctly on this host.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodeclockskewdetected
        summary: Clock skew detected.
      expr: |
        (
          node_timex_offset_seconds{job="node-exporter"} > 0.05
        and
          deriv(node_timex_offset_seconds{job="node-exporter"}[5m]) >= 0
        )
        or
        (
          node_timex_offset_seconds{job="node-exporter"} < -0.05
        and
          deriv(node_timex_offset_seconds{job="node-exporter"}[5m]) <= 0
        )
      for: 10m
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeClockNotSynchronising
      annotations:
        description: Clock on {{ $labels.instance }} is not synchronising. Ensure
          NTP is configured on this host.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodeclocknotsynchronising
        summary: Clock not synchronising.
      expr: |
        min_over_time(node_timex_sync_status{job="node-exporter"}[5m]) == 0
        and
        node_timex_maxerror_seconds{job="node-exporter"} >= 16
      for: 10m
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeRAIDDegraded
      annotations:
        description: RAID array '{{ $labels.device }}' on {{ $labels.instance }} is
          in degraded state due to one or more disks failures. Number of spare drives
          is insufficient to fix issue automatically.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/noderaiddegraded
        summary: RAID Array is degraded
      expr: |
        node_md_disks_required{job="node-exporter",device=~"(/dev/)?(mmcblk.p.+|nvme.+|rbd.+|sd.+|vd.+|xvd.+|dm-.+|dasd.+)"} - ignoring (state) (node_md_disks{state="active",job="node-exporter",device=~"(/dev/)?(mmcblk.p.+|nvme.+|rbd.+|sd.+|vd.+|xvd.+|dm-.+|dasd.+)"}) > 0
      for: 15m
      labels:
        severity: critical
    - alert: NodeRAIDDiskFailure
      annotations:
        description: At least one device in RAID array on {{ $labels.instance }} failed.
          Array '{{ $labels.device }}' needs attention and possibly a disk swap.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/noderaiddiskfailure
        summary: Failed device in RAID array
      expr: |
        node_md_disks{state="failed",job="node-exporter",device=~"(/dev/)?(mmcblk.p.+|nvme.+|rbd.+|sd.+|vd.+|xvd.+|dm-.+|dasd.+)"} > 0
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeFileDescriptorLimit
      annotations:
        description: File descriptors limit at {{ $labels.instance }} is currently
          at {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}%.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefiledescriptorlimit
        summary: Kernel is predicted to exhaust file descriptors limit soon.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filefd_allocated{job="node-exporter"} * 100 / node_filefd_maximum{job="node-exporter"} > 70
        )
      for: 15m
      labels:
        severity: warning
    - alert: NodeFileDescriptorLimit
      annotations:
        description: File descriptors limit at {{ $labels.instance }} is currently
          at {{ printf "%.2f" $value }}%.
        runbook_url: https://runbooks.prometheus-operator.dev/runbooks/node/nodefiledescriptorlimit
        summary: Kernel is predicted to exhaust file descriptors limit soon.
      expr: |
        (
          node_filefd_allocated{job="node-exporter"} * 100 / node_filefd_maximum{job="node-exporter"} > 90
        )
      for: 15m
      labels:
        severity: critical
  - name: node-exporter.rules
    interval: 30s
    rules:
    - expr: |
        count without (cpu, mode) (
          node_cpu_seconds_total{job="node-exporter",mode="idle"}
        )
      record: instance:node_num_cpu:sum
    - expr: |
        1 - avg without (cpu) (
          sum without (mode) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{job="node-exporter", mode=~"idle|iowait|steal"}[5m]))
        )
      record: instance:node_cpu_utilisation:rate5m
    - expr: |
        (
          node_load1{job="node-exporter"}
        /
          instance:node_num_cpu:sum{job="node-exporter"}
        )
      record: instance:node_load1_per_cpu:ratio
    - expr: |
        1 - (
          (
            node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes{job="node-exporter"}
            or
            (
              node_memory_Buffers_bytes{job="node-exporter"}
              +
              node_memory_Cached_bytes{job="node-exporter"}
              +
              node_memory_MemFree_bytes{job="node-exporter"}
              +
              node_memory_Slab_bytes{job="node-exporter"}
            )
          )
        /
          node_memory_MemTotal_bytes{job="node-exporter"}
        )
      record: instance:node_memory_utilisation:ratio
    - expr: |
        rate(node_vmstat_pgmajfault{job="node-exporter"}[5m])
      record: instance:node_vmstat_pgmajfault:rate5m
    - expr: |
        rate(node_disk_io_time_seconds_total{job="node-exporter", device=~"(/dev/)?(mmcblk.p.+|nvme.+|rbd.+|sd.+|vd.+|xvd.+|dm-.+|dasd.+)"}[5m])
      record: instance_device:node_disk_io_time_seconds:rate5m
    - expr: |
        rate(node_disk_io_time_weighted_seconds_total{job="node-exporter", device=~"(/dev/)?(mmcblk.p.+|nvme.+|rbd.+|sd.+|vd.+|xvd.+|dm-.+|dasd.+)"}[5m])
      record: instance_device:node_disk_io_time_weighted_seconds:rate5m
    - expr: |
        sum without (device) (
          rate(node_network_receive_bytes_total{job="node-exporter", device!="lo"}[5m])
        )
      record: instance:node_network_receive_bytes_excluding_lo:rate5m
    - expr: |
        sum without (device) (
          rate(node_network_transmit_bytes_total{job="node-exporter", device!="lo"}[5m])
        )
      record: instance:node_network_transmit_bytes_excluding_lo:rate5m
    - expr: |
        sum without (device) (
          rate(node_network_receive_drop_total{job="node-exporter", device!="lo"}[5m])
        )
      record: instance:node_network_receive_drop_excluding_lo:rate5m
    - expr: |
        sum without (device) (
          rate(node_network_transmit_drop_total{job="node-exporter", device!="lo"}[5m])
        )
      record: instance:node_network_transmit_drop_excluding_lo:rate5m

To apply configuration changes from a local file, run the following command:

kubectl apply -f FILE_NAME

You can also use Terraform to manage your configurations.

For more information about applying rules to your cluster, see Managed rule evaluation and alerting.

This Rules configuration was adapted from the rules and alerts contributed to the kube-prometheus repository.

Verify the configuration

You can use Metrics Explorer to verify that you correctly configured the exporter. It might take one or two minutes for Cloud Monitoring to ingest your metrics.

To verify the metrics are ingested, do the following:

1. In the navigation panel of the Google Cloud console, select Monitoring, and then select  Metrics explorer:

   Go to Metrics explorer

2. In the toolbar of the query-builder pane, select the button whose name is either  MQL or  PromQL.
3. Verify that PromQL is selected in the Language toggle. The language toggle is in the same toolbar that lets you format your query.
4. Enter and run the following query:
   

   up{job="node-exporter", cluster="CLUSTER_NAME", namespace="gmp-public"}
   

Install dashboards

Cloud Monitoring provides a library of sample dashboards for integrations. The sample library includes "Prometheus" dashboards, which you can install to view your data in the Google Cloud console.

Note that the Kubernetes Cluster Prometheus Overview dashboard requires Kube State Metrics to be installed. The Kubernetes Pod Prometheus Overview dashboard requires Kube State Metrics and Kubelet/cAdvisor to be installed.

To install a dashboard from the sample library, do the following:

1. In the navigation panel of the Google Cloud console, select Monitoring, and then select  Dashboards:

   Go to Dashboards

2. Select the Sample Library tab.
3. Choose the Other category.
4. (Optional) To view a static preview of a dashboard without installing it, click Preview.
5. Select the dashboards you want to install, then click  Import.

For more information about installing dashboards, see Installing sample dashboards.

Troubleshooting

For information about troubleshooting metric ingestion problems, see Problems with collection from exporters in Troubleshooting ingestion-side problems.