Operator serves to make running VictoriaMetrics applications on top of Kubernetes as easy as possible while preserving Kubernetes-native configuration options.
You can change [operator-settings](/vars.MD), or use your custom namespace see [kustomize-example](https://github.com/YuriKravetc/yurikravetc.github.io/tree/main/Operator/kustomize-example).
There is no need in an additional configuration for ARM. Operator and VictoriaMetrics have full support for it.
## Create related resources
The VictoriaMetrics Operator introduces additional resources in Kubernetes to declare the desired state of a Victoria Metrics applications and Alertmanager cluster as well as the Prometheus resources configuration. The resources it introduces are:
[VMSingle](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/) represents database for storing metrics, for all possible config options check api [doc](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/operator/api.html#vmsingle):
Configuration can be extended with extraFlags and extraEnv, check flag documentation at [doc](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/blob/master/docs/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.md)
for instance:
```yaml
cat <<EOF|kubectlapply-f-
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMSingle
metadata:
name: example-vmsingle-persisted
spec:
retentionPeriod: "1"
extraArgs:
dedup.minScrapeInterval: 60s
EOF
```
Flag can be replaced with envVar, it's useful for retrieving value from secret:
```yaml
cat <<EOF|kubectlapply-f-
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMSingle
metadata:
name: example-vmsingle-persisted
spec:
retentionPeriod: "1"
extraEnvs:
- name: DEDUP_MINSCRAPEINTERVAL
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
name: vm-secret
key: dedup
EOF
```
## VMCluster
[VMCluster](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/tree/cluster) represent a high-available and fault-tolerant version of VictoriaMetrics database.
For minimal version without persistent create simple custom resource definition:
```yaml
cat <<EOF|kubectlapply-f-
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMCluster
metadata:
name: example-vmcluster
spec:
# Add fields here
retentionPeriod: "1"
vmstorage:
replicaCount: 2
vmselect:
replicaCount: 2
vminsert:
replicaCount: 2
EOF
```
For persistent it recommends adding persistent storage to `vmstorage` and `vmselect`:
```yaml
cat <<EOF|kubectlapply-f-
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMCluster
metadata:
name: example-vmcluster-persistent
spec:
# Add fields here
retentionPeriod: "4"
replicationFactor: 2
vmstorage:
replicaCount: 2
storageDataPath: "/vm-data"
storage:
volumeClaimTemplate:
spec:
storageClassName: standard
resources:
requests:
storage: 10Gi
resources:
limits:
cpu: "0.5"
memory: 500Mi
vmselect:
replicaCount: 2
cacheMountPath: "/select-cache"
storage:
volumeClaimTemplate:
spec:
resources:
requests:
storage: 2Gi
resources:
limits:
cpu: "0.3"
memory: "300Mi"
vminsert:
replicaCount: 2
EOF
```
You may also create cluster version with external vmstorage
```yaml
cat <<EOF|kubectlapply-f-
---
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMCluster
metadata:
name: example-vmcluster
spec:
# Add fields here
retentionPeriod: "1"
vmselect:
replicaCount: 2
extraArgs:
storageNode: "node-1:8401,node-2:8401"
vminsert:
replicaCount: 2
extraArgs:
storageNode: "node-1:8401,node-2:8401"
EOF
```
## VMAgent
[VMAgent](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/tree/master/app/vmagent) - is a tiny but brave agent, which helps you collect metrics from various sources and stores them in [VictoriaMetrics](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics).
It requires access to Kubernetes API and you can create RBAC for it first, it can be found at `release/examples/VMAgent_rbac.yaml`
Or you can use default rbac account, that will be created for `VMAgent` by operator automatically.
For connecting `VMAgent` to cluster, you have to specify url for it, check url building [doc](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/blob/cluster/README.md#url-format)
[VMAlert](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/tree/master/app/vmalert) - executes a list of given [alerting](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/alerting_rules/) or [recording](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/recording_rules/) rules against configured address. It
has few required config options - `datasource` and `notifier` are required, for other config parameters check [doc](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/operator/api.html#vmalert).
2020-08-02T18:18:17.226Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmagent/remotewrite/remotewrite.go:98 Successfully reloaded relabel configs
2020-08-02T18:18:17.229Z info VictoriaMetrics/lib/promscrape/scraper.go:137 found changes in "/etc/vmagent/config_out/vmagent.env.yaml"; applying these changes
2020-08-02T18:18:17.289Z info VictoriaMetrics/lib/promscrape/scraper.go:303 kubernetes_sd_configs: added targets: 2, removed targets: 0; total targets: 2
```
By default, operator creates `VMServiceScrape` for its components, so we have 2 targets - `VMAgent` and `VMSingle`.
Let's add monitoring to our application:
First we add the `Service` for application:
```yaml
cat <<EOF|kubectlapply-f-
kind: Service
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
name: example-app
labels:
app: example-app
spec:
selector:
app: example-app
ports:
- name: web
port: 8080
EOF
```
`VMServiceScrape` has a label selector to select `Services` and their underlying Endpoint objects.
`Service` object for the example application selects the Pods by the `app` label having the `example-app` value.
`Service` object also specifies the port on which the metrics exposed.
The final part, add `VMServiceScrape`:
```yaml
cat <<EOF|kubectlapply-f-
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMServiceScrape
metadata:
name: example-app
labels:
team: frontend
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
app: example-app
endpoints:
- port: web
EOF
```
The `VMServiceScrape` has no labels, but it will be selected by `VMAgent`, because we are launched `VMAgent` with empty selector.
Let's check `VMAgent` logs (you have to wait some time for config sync, usually its around 1 min):
2020-08-03T08:24:13.312Z info VictoriaMetrics/lib/promscrape/scraper.go:106 SIGHUP received; reloading Prometheus configs from "/etc/vmagent/config_out/vmagent.env.yaml"
2020-08-03T08:24:13.312Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmagent/remotewrite/remotewrite.go:98 Successfully reloaded relabel configs
2020-08-03T08:24:13.315Z info VictoriaMetrics/lib/promscrape/scraper.go:137 found changes in "/etc/vmagent/config_out/vmagent.env.yaml"; applying these changes
2020-08-03T08:24:13.418Z info VictoriaMetrics/lib/promscrape/scraper.go:303 kubernetes_sd_configs: added targets: 3, removed targets: 0; total targets: 5
```
3 new targets added by a config reload.
## VMPodScrape
It generates config part of `VMAgent` with kubernetes_sd role `pod`, that would match all `pods` having specific labels and ports.
It has various options for scraping configuration of target (with basic auth,tls access, by specific port name etc).
Add `VMAgent` and Example app from step above and continue this step.
2020-08-03T08:51:13.582Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmagent/remotewrite/remotewrite.go:98 Successfully reloaded relabel configs
2020-08-03T08:51:13.585Z info VictoriaMetrics/lib/promscrape/scraper.go:137 found changes in "/etc/vmagent/config_out/vmagent.env.yaml"; applying these changes
2020-08-03T08:51:13.652Z info VictoriaMetrics/lib/promscrape/scraper.go:303 kubernetes_sd_configs: added targets: 2, removed targets: 0; total targets: 7
```
2 new target was added.
## VMRule
It generates `VMAlert` config with ruleset defined at `VMRule` spec.
Lets create `VMAlert` with selector for `VMRule` with label project=devops.
2020-08-03T08:52:21.990Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/manager.go:83 reading rules configuration file from "/etc/vmalert/config/vm-example-vmalert-rulefiles-0/*.yaml"
2020-08-03T08:52:21.992Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/group.go:153 group "vmAlertGroup" started with interval 30s
2020-08-03T08:52:21.992Z info VictoriaMetrics/lib/httpserver/httpserver.go:76 starting http server at http://:8080/
2020-08-03T08:52:21.993Z info VictoriaMetrics/lib/httpserver/httpserver.go:77 pprof handlers are exposed at http://:8080/debug/pprof/
```
`VMAlert` shipped with default rule `vmAlertGroup`
Let's add simple rule for `VMAlert` itself, `delta(vmalert_config_last_reload_errors_total[5m]) > 1`
2020-08-03T09:07:49.772Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/web.go:45 api config reload was called, sending sighup
2020-08-03T09:07:49.772Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/main.go:115 SIGHUP received. Going to reload rules ["/etc/vmalert/config/vm-example-vmalert-rulefiles-0/*.yaml"] ...
2020-08-03T09:07:49.772Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/manager.go:83 reading rules configuration file from "/etc/vmalert/config/vm-example-vmalert-rulefiles-0/*.yaml"
2020-08-03T09:07:49.773Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/group.go:169 group "vmAlertGroup": received stop signal
2020-08-03T09:07:49.773Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/main.go:124 Rules reloaded successfully from ["/etc/vmalert/config/vm-example-vmalert-rulefiles-0/*.yaml"]
2020-08-03T09:07:49.773Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/group.go:153 group "vmalert" started with interval 30s
2020-08-03T09:11:40.672Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/main.go:115 SIGHUP received. Going to reload rules ["/etc/vmalert/config/vm-example-vmalert-rulefiles-0/*.yaml"] ...
2020-08-03T09:11:40.672Z info VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/manager.go:83 reading rules configuration file from "/etc/vmalert/config/vm-example-vmalert-rulefiles-0/*.yaml"
2020-08-03T09:11:40.673Z error VictoriaMetrics/app/vmalert/main.go:119 error while reloading rules: cannot parse configuration file: invalid group "incorrect rule" in file "/etc/vmalert/config/vm-example-vmalert-rulefiles-0/default-example-vmrule-incorrect-rule.yaml": invalid rule "incorrect rule"."vmalert bad config": invalid expression: unparsed data left: "expression"
There are two authentication mechanisms: `bearerToken` and `basicAuth` with `username` and `password`. Only one of them can be used with `VMUser` at one time.
If you need to provide access with different mechanisms for single endpoint, create multiple `VMUsers`.
If `username` is empty, metadata.name from `VMUser` used as `username`.
If `password` is empty, operator generates random password for `VMUser`. This password added to the `Secret` for this `VMUser` at `data.password` field.
Operator creates `Secret` for every `VMUser` with name - `vmuser-{VMUser.metadata.name}`. It places `username` + `password` or `bearerToken` into `data` section.
`TargetRefs` is required field for `VMUser`, it allows to configure routing with:
-`static` ref:
```yaml
- static:
url: http://vmalertmanager.service.svc:9093
```
-`crd` ref, allows to target CRD kind of operator, this `CRDObject` must exist.
Otherwise, VictoriaMetrics Operator would try to discover prometheus-operator API and convert it.
Conversion of api objects can be controlled by annotations, added to `VMObject`s, there are following annotations:
-`operator.victoriametrics.com/merge-meta-strategy` - it controls syncing of metadata labels and annotations between
`VMObject`s and `Prometheus` api objects during updates to `Prometheus` objects. By default, it has `prefer-prometheus`.
And annotations and labels will be used from `Prometheus` objects, manually set values will be dropped.
You can set it to `prefer-victoriametrics`. In this case all labels and annotations applied to `Prometheus` object
will be ignored and `VMObject` will use own values.
Two additional strategies annotations -`merge-victoriametrics-priority` and `merge-prometheus-priority` merges labelSets into one combined labelSet, with priority.
`VMAgent` has four selectors specification for filtering `VMServiceScrape`, `VMProbe`, `VMNodeScrape` and `VMPodScrape` objects.
`VMAlert` has selectors for `VMRule`.
`VMAuth` has selectors for `VMUsers`.
`VMAlertmanager` has selectors for `VMAlertmanagerConfig`.
Selectors are defined with suffixes - `NamespaceSelector` and `Selector`. It allows configuring objects access control across namespaces and different environments.
Following rules are applied:
-`NamespaceSelector` and `Selector` - undefined, by default select nothing. With option set - `spec.selectAllByDefault: true`, select all objects of given type.
-`NamespaceSelector` defined, `Selector` undefined. All objects are matching at namespaces for given `NamespaceSelector`.
-`NamespaceSelector` undefined, `Selector` defined. All objects at `VMAgent`'s namespaces are matching for given `Selector`.
-`NamespaceSelector` defined, `Selector` defined. Only objects at namespaces matched `NamespaceSelector` for given `Selector` are matching.
### Object selector Examples
This configuration will match only namespace with the label - name=default and all `VMServiceScrape` objects at this namespace will be