Getting Started

This guide explains how to use PodMonitor and ServiceMonitor objects to monitor targets for a sample application.

The Prometheus resource declaratively describes the desired state of a Prometheus deployment, while ServiceMonitor and PodMonitor resources describe the targets to be monitored by Prometheus.

Pre-requisites #

Before you begin, ensure that you have:

• A Kubernetes cluster with admin permissions
• A running Prometheus Operator (refer to the Installation page)
• A running Prometheus instance (refer to the Platform Guide)

Deploying a sample application #

First, let’s deploy a simple example application with 3 replicas which listens and exposes metrics on port 8080.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: example-app
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: example-app
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: example-app
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: example-app
        image: quay.io/brancz/prometheus-example-app:v0.5.0
        ports:
        - name: web
          containerPort: 8080

Using ServiceMonitors #

To monitor the application using a ServiceMonitor, we will begin by exposing the application with a Service object that selects all the Pods with the label app set to example-app and specify the port where the metrics are exposed.

kind: Service
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: example-app
  labels:
    app: example-app
spec:
  selector:
    app: example-app
  ports:
  - name: web
    port: 8080

Finally, we create a ServiceMonitor object that selects all Service objects with the app: example-app label. The ServiceMonitor object also has a team label (in this case team: frontend) to identify which team is responsible for monitoring the application/service.

apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
  name: example-app
  labels:
    team: frontend
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: example-app
  endpoints:
  - port: web

Similarly, the Prometheus object defines which ServiceMonitors get selected with the spec.serviceMonitorSelector field.

apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: Prometheus
metadata:
  name: prometheus
spec:
  serviceAccountName: prometheus
  serviceMonitorSelector:
    matchLabels:
      team: frontend

Using PodMonitors #

While ServiceMonitor requires a Service object, PodMonitor can bypass the service and find targets based on Pod labels. The spec.selector field in the PodMonitor resource specifies which Pods Prometheus should scrape.

apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: PodMonitor
metadata:
  name: example-app
  labels:
    team: frontend
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: example-app
  podMetricsEndpoints:
  - port: web

Similarly, the Prometheus object defines which PodMonitors get selected with the spec.podMonitorSelector field.

apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: Prometheus
metadata:
  name: prometheus
spec:
  serviceAccountName: prometheus
  podMonitorSelector:
    matchLabels:
      team: frontend

What’s Next #