rackspace_monitoring-cookbook

The Rackspace Cloud-monitoring cookbook provides resource primitives (LWRPs) for use in recipes.
The goal is to offer resources to configure Rackspace Cloud-monitoring

In scope

This cookbook focuses on installing the Rackspace monitoring agent and creating check/alarms. Future plans include to support non-cloud servers.

Out of scope

This cookbook has not been designed to directly call Rackspace API. Instead it relies on the Rackspace monitoring agent.

Supported Platforms

• Centos 6.5
• Ubuntu 12.04
• Ubuntu 14.04

Windows is not supported yet.

Usage

Place a dependency on the rackspace_monitoring cookbook in your cookbook's metadata.rb

depends 'rackspace_monitoring'

Then, in a recipe:

rackspace_monitoring_service 'default' do
  cloud_credentials_username 'my_user'
  cloud_credentials_api_key 'uc60892165188d7i786p833917a3v7613'
  action [:create, :start]
end

rackspace_monitoring_check 'filesystem' do
  type 'agent.filesystem'
  target '/var'
  alarm true
  action :create
end

Resources

rackspace_monitoring_service

The rackspace_monitoring_service resources manages the basic plumbing needed to get a rackspace-monitoring agent instance running with minimal configuration.

The :create action handles package installation. The internal configuration file contains just enough to get the service up and running, then loads extra configuration from a rackspace-monitoring-agent.conf.d directory.

Parameters

• cloud_credentials_username - Your cloud username
• cloud_credentials_api_key - Your cloud api-key
• package_name - Rackspace monitoring agent package name (default to rackspace-monitoring-agent)
• package_action - Which action to run when :create default to install
• create_entity - Automatically create an Entity during :create to associate with Checks (default to false)

Actions

• :create - Configures everything but the underlying operating system service
• :delete - Removes everything
• :start - Starts the underlying operating system service
• :stop - Stops the underlying operating system service
• :restart - Restarts the underlying operating system service
• :reload - Reloads the underlying operating system service
• :disable/:enable Enables/Disables the underlying operating system service

rackspace_monitoring_check

The rackspace_monitoring_check resources creates the agent configuration for a defined type.

The :create action handles package installation. The internal configuration file contains just enough to get the service up and running, then loads extra configuration from a rackspace-monitoring-agent.conf.d directory.

Parameters

Common to all checks

• :label - optional - A friendly label for a check - Default : Check for :type
• :agent_filename - optional - File name used to create the agent configuration - Default : same as :type. If you use the same agent type more than once in a recipe then you should set :agent_filename, as otherwise your agents configuration will conflict as they will have the same filename.
• :alarm - optional - Enable or disable the alarm on a check - Default : false
• :alarm_criteria - optional - Criteria used to trigger alarms - Default : agent specific ./libaries/helpers.rb => parsed_alarm_criteria
• :period - optional - The period in seconds for a check. The value must be greater than the minimum period set on your account -Default : 90
• :timeout - optional - The timeout in seconds for a check. This has to be less than the period - Default : 30
• :critical - optional - Threshold for the default alarm criteria - Default : 95
• :warning - optional - Threshold for the default alarm criteria - Default : 90
• :notification_plan_id - optional - Notification plan for the alarms - Default : npTechnicalContactsEmail
• :variables - optional - Additional variables you want to use in the template.variable_name => 'value'. It will allow to add attributes to the agent configuration if you need more than the default ones. Here is an example for remote.http. If you want to create your own :template you can use all the :variables with @variable_name.

Used on some checks (filesystem/disk/network)

• :target - used for filesystem/disk/network only
  • disk : The disk to check (eg '/dev/xvda1') String/Array - Default : Create one file per /dev/(sd|vd|xvd|hd)
  • filesystem : The mount point to check (eg '/var' or 'C:') String/Array - Default : Create one file per filesystem
  • network : The network device to check (eg 'eth0') - Default : Fallback to the default interface
• :target_hostname - required for http only - Server to request for the HTTP check
• :send_warning - required for network only - Threshold for the default send alarm criteria - Default : 18350080
• :send_critical - required for network only - Threshold for the default send alarm criteria - Default : 24903680
• :recv_warning - required for network only - Threshold for the default receive alarm criteria - Default : 18350080
• :recv_critical - required for network only - Threshold for the default send alarm criteria - Default : 24903680

Plugins attributes

• :plugin_url - optional if :plugin_filename has been provided, ignored if :plugin_cookbook is provided - Url from where to download a plugin. i.e https://raw.githubusercontent.com/racker/rackspace-monitoring-agent-plugins-contrib/master/chef_node_checkin.py
• :plugin_args - optional - Arguments to pass to the plugin (Array)
• :plugin_filename - optional if :plugin_url has been provided, mandatory otherwise.
• :plugin_cookbook - optional - Cookbook to load a plugin template from. i.e wrapper or base site-cookbooks - Default : nil
• :plugin_timeout - optional - The timeout for the plugin execution in milliseconds - Default : 60000

Template config

• :cookbook - optional - Where to look for the agent yaml template - Default : 'rackspace_monitoring'
• :template - optional - Where to look for the agent yaml template - Default : ':type.conf.erb' or custom_check.conf.erb
• :type - required - Which kind of agent to configure. Supported agents :
  • agent.memory
  • agent.cpu
  • agent.load
  • agent.filesystem
  • agent.disk
  • agent.network
  • agent.plugin
  • remote.http
  • anything else will load custom_check.conf.erb and all the parameters and variables will be available in the template. Rackspace check types

Actions

• :create - Create an agent configuration
• :delete - Removes an agent configuration (will not remove the check)
• :disable/:enable Disable/enable the agent check.

Examples

CPU agent with alarm enabled

rackspace_monitoring_check 'Cpu check' do
  type 'agent.cpu'
  alarm true
  action :create
end

Create a new agent config from scratch

By example remote.ping which is not a supported type

rackspace_monitoring_check 'custom' do
  type 'remote.ping'
  cookbook 'rackspace_monitoring_check_test'
  template 'user_defined.conf.erb'
  alarm true
  variables 'count' => '10'
  action :create
end

Then you can have your own template :

type: remote.ping
label: Remote ping check on <%= @target_hostname %>
disabled: <%= @disabled %>
period: <%= @period %>
timeout: <%= @timeout %>
target_hostname: <%= @target_hostname %>
monitoring_zones_poll:
  - mzdfw
  - mzord
  - mziad
details:
  <% @variables.each do |param,value| %>
  <%= param -%>: <%= value %>
  <% end %>

Create a http agent but add some variables not exposed by the resource as parameters

hostname = 'dummyhost.com'
rackspace_monitoring_check 'http' do
  type 'remote.http'
  target_hostname hostname
  alarm true
  variables 'url' => "http://#{hostname}/healthcheck",
            'body' => 'Status OK'
  action :create
end

Create a plugin check chef_node_checkin(rackspace-monitoring-agent-plugins-contrib)

rackspace_monitoring_check 'agent.plugin' do
  type 'agent.plugin'
  plugin_url 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/racker/rackspace-monitoring-agent-plugins-contrib/master/chef_node_checkin.py'
  plugin_args '--debug'
  plugin_filename 'awesome_plugin.py'
  alarm true
  action :create
end

References

• Available check types
• Common checks attributes
• Cloud monitoring concepts

Contributing

1. Fork the repository on Github
2. Create a named feature branch (i.e. add-new-recipe)
3. Write your change
4. Write tests for your change (if applicable)
5. Run the tests, ensuring they all pass
6. Submit a Pull Request

License and Authors

Authors:: Julien Berard (julien.berard@rackspace.co.uk)