Install Netdata on Kubernetes

This document details how to install Netdata on an existing Kubernetes (k8s) cluster, and connect it to Netdata Cloud. Read our Kubernetes visualizations documentation, to see what you will get.

The Netdata Helm chart installs one parent pod for storing metrics and managing alert notifications, plus an additional child pod for every node in the cluster, responsible for collecting metrics from the node, Kubernetes control planes, pods/containers, and supported application-specific metrics.

Prerequisites

To deploy Kubernetes monitoring with Netdata, you need:

• A working cluster running Kubernetes v1.9 or newer.
• The kubectl command line tool, within one minor version difference of your cluster, on an administrative system.
• The Helm package manager v3.0.0 or newer on the same administrative system.
• A Netdata Cloud account with a Space to connect the cluster to.

Deploy Netdata on your Kubernetes Cluster

First, you need to add the Netdata helm repository, and then install Netdata.
The installation process securely connects your Kubernetes cluster to stream metrics data to Netdata Cloud, enabling Kubernetes-specific visualizations like the health map and time-series composite charts.

New Installations

Install Netdata via the helm install command

Steps

1. Add the Netdata Helm chart repository by running:

   helm repo add netdata https://netdata.github.io/helmchart/

2. To install Netdata using the helm install command, run:

   helm install netdata netdata/netdata 

   Note

   If you plan to connect the node to Netdata Cloud, you can find the command with the right parameters by clicking the "Add Nodes" button in your Space's Nodes tab.

   For more installation options, please read our Netdata Helm chart for Kubernetes reference.

Expected Result

Run kubectl get services and kubectl get pods to confirm that your cluster now runs a netdata service, one parent pod, and multiple child pods.

Existing Installations

Connect an existing Netdata installation to Netdata Cloud

On an existing installation, in order to connect it to Netdata Cloud you will need to override the configuration values by running the helm upgrade command and provide a file with the values to override.

Steps

1. You can start with creating a file called override.yml

   touch override.yml

2. Paste the following into your override.yml file.

   parent:
     claiming:
       enabled: true
       token: YOUR_CLAIM_TOKEN
       rooms: YOUR_ROOM_ID_A,YOUR_ROOM_ID_B
   
   child:
     claiming:
       enabled: true
       token: YOUR_CLAIM_TOKEN
       rooms: YOUR_ROOM_ID_A,YOUR_ROOM_ID_B
     configs:
       netdata:
         data: |
           [db]
             db = ram
             retention = 3600
           [health]
             enabled = no

   Note

   Make sure to replace YOUR_CLAIM_TOKEN with the claim token of your space, and YOUR_ROOM_ID with the ID of the Room you are willing to connect to.

   These settings connect your parent/child nodes to Netdata Cloud and store more metrics in the nodes' time-series databases.

   Info

   These override settings, along with the Helm chart's defaults, will retain an hour's worth of metrics (retention = 3600, or 3600 seconds) on each child node. Based on your metrics retention needs, and the resources available on your cluster, you may want to increase the history setting.

3. To apply these new settings, run:

   helm upgrade -f override.yml netdata netdata/netdata

Expected Result

The cluster terminates the old pods and creates new ones with the proper persistence and connection configuration. You'll see your nodes, containers, and pods appear in Netdata Cloud in a few seconds.

If you don't need to configure your Netdata deployment, skip down to see how Kubernetes monitoring works in Netdata, in addition to more guides and resources.

Configure your Netdata monitoring deployment

Read up on the various configuration options in the Helm chart documentation if you need to tweak your Kubernetes monitoring.

Your first option is to create an override.yml file, if you haven't created one already upon deploying, then apply the new configuration to your cluster with helm upgrade.

helm upgrade -f override.yml netdata netdata/netdata

If you want to change only a single setting, use the --set argument with helm upgrade. For example, to change the size of the persistent metrics volume on the parent node:

helm upgrade --set parent.database.volumesize=4Gi netdata netdata/netdata

Configure service discovery

Netdata's service discovery, installed as part of the Helm chart installation, finds what services are running in a cluster's containers and automatically collects service-level metrics from them.

Service discovery supports popular applications and Prometheus endpoints.

If your cluster runs services on non-default ports or uses non-default names, you may need to configure service discovery to start collecting metrics from your services. You have to edit the default ConfigMap that is shipped with the Helmchart and deploy that to your cluster.

First, copy the default file to your administrative system.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/netdata/helmchart/master/charts/netdata/sdconfig/child.yml -o child.yml

Edit the new child.yml file according to your needs. See the Helm chart configuration and the file itself for details.

You can then run helm upgrade with the --set-file argument to use your configured child.yml file instead of the default, changing the path if you copied it elsewhere.

helm upgrade --set-file sd.child.configmap.from.value=./child.yml netdata netdata/netdata

Now that you pushed an edited ConfigMap to your cluster, service discovery should find and set up metrics collection from your non-default service.

Update/reinstall the Netdata Helm chart

If you update the Helm chart's configuration, run helm upgrade to redeploy your Netdata service, replacing netdata with the name of the release, if you changed it upon installation:

helm upgrade netdata netdata/netdata

To update Netdata's Helm chart to the latest version, run helm repo update, then deploy upgrade it`:

helm repo update
helm upgrade netdata netdata/netdata