{"id":5137,"date":"2020-06-28T18:07:44","date_gmt":"2020-06-28T17:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.fabianpiau.com\/?p=5137"},"modified":"2020-10-17T18:08:01","modified_gmt":"2020-10-17T17:08:01","slug":"flagger-monitor-your-canary-deployments-with-grafana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fabianpiau.com\/en\/2020\/06\/28\/flagger-monitor-your-canary-deployments-with-grafana\/","title":{"rendered":"Flagger – Monitor your Canary deployments with Grafana"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/span>Version fran\u00e7aise disponible<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Update<\/strong>
\nOctober, 17th, 2020 : <\/strong> Use newer versions (Helm 3, Kube 18, Istio 1.7, Flagger 1.2).\n<\/div>\n

\"Flagger<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the third article in our series dedicated to Flagger<\/a>. In a nutshell, Flagger is a progressive delivery tool that automates the release process for applications running on Kubernetes. It reduces the risk of introducing a new software version in production by gradually shifting traffic to the new version while measuring metrics and running conformance tests.<\/p>\n

Make sure you have a local Kubernetes cluster running with the service mesh Istio. If you don’t, read the first article: Flagger \u2013 Get Started with Istio and Kubernetes<\/a>. You also need to be familiar with Flagger and MHS, you will find all details in the second article: Flagger – Canary deployments on Kubernetes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this third guide, we will focus on the installation of Grafana for Flagger and how you can monitor your Canary deployments without having to use Kubernetes (i.e. Kube dashboard or kubectl<\/code> command line tool).<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong>
\nThis is a hands-on guide and can be followed step by step on MacOS. It will require some adjustments if you are using a Windows or Linux PC. It is important to note that this article will not go into details and only grasp the concepts & technologies so if you are not familiar with Docker, Kubernetes, Helm or Istio, I strongly advise you to check some documentation yourself before continuing reading.\n<\/div>\n


<\/p>\n

Installing Grafana<\/h4>\n

Flagger provides a Grafana dashboard out of the box to monitor all the canary deployments inside your cluster.<\/p>\n

Let’s install Grafana in the namespace istio-system<\/code> with a single command:<\/p>\n\n

<\/span> helm<\/span> upgrade -i flagger-grafana flagger\/grafana \\
--namespace=istio-system \\
--set url=http:\/\/prometheus:9090 \\
--set user=admin \\
--set password=changeme
<\/div>\n\n

\nReference: Flagger monitoring<\/a>
\nFlagger depends on Istio telemetry and Prometheus (I’ve assumed Istio is installed in the istio-system<\/code> namespace).\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After a few seconds, you should get a message confirming that Grafana for Flagger has been installed. From the Kubernetes dashboard, verify that the Flagger Grafana pod is running in istio-system<\/code>.<\/p>\n

\"Grafana<\/a>

Grafana for Flagger is deployed in your cluster<\/p><\/div>\n

To expose Grafana, run:<\/p>\n\n

<\/span> kubectl<\/span> -n istio-system port-forward svc\/flagger-grafana 3000:80
<\/div>\n\n

So you can access it with your browser at http:\/\/localhost:3000\/d\/flagger-istio\/istio-canary<\/a>. Use the login and password you specified before (admin<\/code> \/ changeme<\/code>).<\/p>\n

\nNote that as we use Istio, we use the Istio Canary dashboard. Flagger is compatible with other service meshes and there are other dashboards available.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/p>\n

Running the canary deployments<\/h4>\n

If you have followed the previous article, make sure you select application<\/code> for the Namespace and associate mhs-primary<\/code> to Primary and mhs<\/code> to Canary.<\/p>\n

Then try again the different experiments we did in the previous article<\/a> and monitor the Grafana dashboard at the same time, especially:<\/p>\n