[ganeti-local] / doc / design-monitoring-agent.rst

=======================
Ganeti monitoring agent
=======================

.. contents:: :depth: 4

This is a design document detailing the implementation of a Ganeti
monitoring agent report system, that can be queried by a monitoring
system to calculate health information for a Ganeti cluster.

Current state and shortcomings
==============================

There is currently no monitoring support in Ganeti. While we don't want
to build something like Nagios or Pacemaker as part of Ganeti, it would
be useful if such tools could easily extract information from a Ganeti
machine in order to take actions (example actions include logging an
outage for future reporting or alerting a person or system about it).

Proposed changes
================

Each Ganeti node should export a status page that can be queried by a
monitoring system. Such status page will be exported on a network port
and will be encoded in JSON (simple text) over HTTP.

The choice of JSON is obvious as we already depend on it in Ganeti and
thus we don't need to add extra libraries to use it, as opposed to what
would happen for XML or some other markup format.

Location of agent report
------------------------

The report will be available from all nodes, and be concerned for all
node-local resources. This allows more real-time information to be
available, at the cost of querying all nodes.

Information reported
--------------------

The monitoring agent system will report on the following basic information:

- Instance status
- Instance disk status
- Status of storage for instances
- Ganeti daemons status, CPU usage, memory footprint
- Hypervisor resources report (memory, CPU, network interfaces)
- Node OS resources report (memory, CPU, network interfaces)
- Information from a plugin system

Format of the report
--------------------

The report of the will be in JSON format, and it will present an array
of report objects.
Each report object will be produced by a specific data collector.
Each report object includes some mandatory fields, to be provided by all
the data collectors:

``name``
  The name of the data collector that produced this part of the report.
  It is supposed to be unique inside a report.

``version``
  The version of the data collector that produces this part of the
  report. Built-in data collectors (as opposed to those implemented as
  plugins) should have "B" as the version number.

``format_version``
  The format of what is represented in the "data" field for each data
  collector might change over time. Every time this happens, the
  format_version should be changed, so that who reads the report knows
  what format to expect, and how to correctly interpret it.

``timestamp``
  The time when the reported data were gathered. It has to be expressed
  in nanoseconds since the unix epoch (0:00:00 January 01, 1970). If not
  enough precision is available (or needed) it can be padded with
  zeroes. If a report object needs multiple timestamps, it can add more
  and/or override this one inside its own "data" section.

``category``
  A collector can belong to a given category of collectors (e.g.: storage
  collectors, daemon collector). This means that it will have to provide a
  minumum set of prescribed fields, as documented for each category.
  This field will contain the name of the category the collector belongs to,
  if any, or just the ``null`` value.

``kind``
  Two kinds of collectors are possible:
  `Performance reporting collectors`_ and `Status reporting collectors`_.
  The respective paragraphs will describe them and the value of this field.

``data``
  This field contains all the data generated by the specific data collector,
  in its own independently defined format. The monitoring agent could check
  this syntactically (according to the JSON specifications) but not
  semantically.

Here follows a minimal example of a report::

  [
  {
      "name" : "TheCollectorIdentifier",
      "version" : "1.2",
      "format_version" : 1,
      "timestamp" : 1351607182000000000,
      "category" : null,
      "kind" : 0,
      "data" : { "plugin_specific_data" : "go_here" }
  },
  {
      "name" : "AnotherDataCollector",
      "version" : "B",
      "format_version" : 7,
      "timestamp" : 1351609526123854000,
      "category" : "storage",
      "kind" : 1,
      "data" : { "status" : { "code" : 1,
                              "message" : "Error on disk 2"
                            },
                 "plugin_specific" : "data",
                 "some_late_data" : { "timestamp" : 1351609526123942720,
                                      ...
                                    }
               }
  }
  ]

Performance reporting collectors
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

These collectors only provide data about some component of the system, without
giving any interpretation over their meaning.

The value of the ``kind`` field of the report will be ``0``.

Status reporting collectors
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

These collectors will provide information about the status of some
component of ganeti, or managed by ganeti.

The value of their ``kind`` field will be ``1``.

The rationale behind this kind of collectors is that there are some situations
where exporting data about the underlying subsystems would expose potential
issues. But if Ganeti itself is able (and going) to fix the problem, conflicts
might arise between Ganeti and something/somebody else trying to fix the same
problem.
Also, some external monitoring systems might not be aware of the internals of a
particular subsystem (e.g.: DRBD) and might only exploit the high level
response of its data collector, alerting an administrator if anything is wrong.
Still, completely hiding the underlying data is not a good idea, as they might
still be of use in some cases. So status reporting plugins will provide two
output modes: one just exporting a high level information about the status,
and one also exporting all the data they gathered.
The default output mode will be the status-only one. Through a command line
parameter (for stand-alone data collectors) or through the HTTP request to the
monitoring agent
(when collectors are executed as part of it) the verbose output mode providing
all the data can be selected.

When exporting just the status each status reporting collector will provide,
in its ``data`` section, at least the following field:

``status``
  summarizes the status of the component being monitored and consists of two
  subfields:

  ``code``
    It assumes a numeric value, encoded in such a way to allow using a bitset
    to easily distinguish which states are currently present in the whole cluster.
    If the bitwise OR of all the ``status`` fields is 0, the cluster is
    completely healty.
    The status codes are as follows:

    ``0``
      The collector can determine that everything is working as
      intended.

    ``1``
      Something is temporarily wrong but it is being automatically fixed by
      Ganeti.
      There is no need of external intervention.

    ``2``
      The collector has failed to understand whether the status is good or
      bad. Further analysis is required. Interpret this status as a
      potentially dangerous situation.

    ``4``
      The collector can determine that something is wrong and Ganeti has no
      way to fix it autonomously. External intervention is required.

  ``message``
    A message to better explain the reason of the status.
    The exact format of the message string is data collector dependent.

    The field is mandatory, but the content can be an empty string if the
    ``code`` is ``0`` (working as intended) or ``1`` (being fixed
    automatically).

    If the status code is ``2``, the message should specify what has gone
    wrong.
    If the status code is ``4``, the message shoud explain why it was not
    possible to determine a proper status.

The ``data`` section will also contain all the fields describing the gathered
data, according to a collector-specific format.

Instance status
+++++++++++++++

At the moment each node knows which instances are running on it, which
instances it is primary for, but not the cause why an instance might not
be running. On the other hand we don't want to distribute full instance
"admin" status information to all nodes, because of the performance
impact this would have.

As such we propose that:

- Any operation that can affect instance status will have an optional
  "reason" attached to it (at opcode level). This can be used for
  example to distinguish an admin request, from a scheduled maintenance
  or an automated tool's work. If this reason is not passed, Ganeti will
  just use the information it has about the source of the request.
  This reason information will be structured according to the
  :doc:`Ganeti reason trail <design-reason-trail>` design document.
- RPCs that affect the instance status will be changed so that the
  "reason" and the version of the config object they ran on is passed to
  them. They will then export the new expected instance status, together
  with the associated reason and object version to the status report
  system, which then will export those themselves.

Monitoring and auditing systems can then use the reason to understand
the cause of an instance status, and they can use the timestamp to
understand the freshness of their data even in the absence of an atomic
cross-node reporting: for example if they see an instance "up" on a node
after seeing it running on a previous one, they can compare these values
to understand which data is freshest, and repoll the "older" node. Of
course if they keep seeing this status this represents an error (either
an instance continuously "flapping" between nodes, or an instance is
constantly up on more than one), which should be reported and acted
upon.

The instance status will be on each node, for the instances it is
primary for, and its ``data`` section of the report will contain a list
of instances, named ``instances``, with at least the following fields for
each instance:

``name``
  The name of the instance.

``uuid``
  The UUID of the instance (stable on name change).

``admin_state``
  The status of the instance (up/down/offline) as requested by the admin.

``actual_state``
  The actual status of the instance. It can be ``up``, ``down``, or
  ``hung`` if the instance is up but it appears to be completely stuck.

``uptime``
  The uptime of the instance (if it is up, "null" otherwise).

``mtime``
  The timestamp of the last known change to the instance state.

``state_reason``
  The last known reason for state change of the instance, described according
  to the JSON representation of a reason trail, as detailed in the :doc:`reason
  trail design document <design-reason-trail>`.

``status``
  It represents the status of the instance, and its format is the same as that
  of the ``status`` field of `Status reporting collectors`_.

Each hypervisor should provide its own instance status data collector, possibly
with the addition of more, specific, fields.
The ``category`` field of all of them will be ``instance``.
The ``kind`` field will be ``1``.

Note that as soon as a node knows it's not the primary anymore for an
instance it will stop reporting status for it: this means the instance
will either disappear, if it has been deleted, or appear on another
node, if it's been moved.

The ``code`` of the ``status`` field of the report of the Instance status data
collector will be:

``0``
  if ``status`` is ``0`` for all the instances it is reporting about.

``1``
  otherwise.

Storage collectors
++++++++++++++++++

The storage collectors will be a series of data collectors
that will gather data about storage for the current node. The collection
will be performed at different granularity and abstraction levels, from
the physical disks, to partitions, logical volumes and to the specific
storage types used by Ganeti itself (drbd, rbd, plain, file).

The ``name`` of each of these collector will reflect what storage type each of
them refers to.

The ``category`` field of these collector will be ``storage``.

The ``kind`` field will depend on the specific collector.

Each ``storage`` collector's ``data`` section will provide collector-specific
fields.

In case of error, the ``message`` subfield of the ``status`` field of the
report of the instance status collector will disclose the nature of the error
as a type specific information. Examples of these are "backend pv unavailable"
for lvm storage, "unreachable" for network based storage or "filesystem error"
for filesystem based implementations.

Diskstats collector
*******************

This storage data collector will gather information about the status of the
disks installed in the system, as listed in the /proc/diskstats file. This means
that not only physical hard drives, but also ramdisks and loopback devices will
be listed.

Its ``kind`` in the report will be ``0`` (`Performance reporting collectors`_).

Its ``category`` field in the report will contain the value ``storage``.

When executed in verbose mode, the ``data`` section of the report of this
collector will be a list of items, each representing one disk, each providing
the following fields:

``major``
  The major number of the device.

``minor``
  The minor number of the device.

``name``
  The name of the device.

``readsNum``
  This is the total number of reads completed successfully.

``mergedReads``
  Reads which are adjacent to each other may be merged for efficiency. Thus
  two 4K reads may become one 8K read before it is ultimately handed to the
  disk, and so it will be counted (and queued) as only one I/O. This field
  specifies how often this was done.

``secRead``
  This is the total number of sectors read successfully.

``timeRead``
  This is the total number of milliseconds spent by all reads.

``writes``
  This is the total number of writes completed successfully.

``mergedWrites``
  Writes which are adjacent to each other may be merged for efficiency. Thus
  two 4K writes may become one 8K read before it is ultimately handed to the
  disk, and so it will be counted (and queued) as only one I/O. This field
  specifies how often this was done.

``secWritten``
  This is the total number of sectors written successfully.

``timeWrite``
  This is the total number of milliseconds spent by all writes

``ios``
  The number of I/Os currently in progress.
  The only field that should go to zero, it is incremented as requests are
  given to appropriate struct request_queue and decremented as they finish.

``timeIO``
  The number of milliseconds spent doing I/Os. This field increases so long
  as field ``IOs`` is nonzero.

``wIOmillis``
  The weighted number of milliseconds spent doing I/Os.
  This field is incremented at each I/O start, I/O completion, I/O merge,
  or read of these stats by the number of I/Os in progress (field ``IOs``)
  times the number of milliseconds spent doing I/O since the last update of
  this field. This can provide an easy measure of both I/O completion time
  and the backlog that may be accumulating.

DRBD status
***********

This data collector will run only on nodes where DRBD is actually
present and it will gather information about DRBD devices.

Its ``kind`` in the report will be ``1`` (`Status reporting collectors`_).

Its ``category`` field in the report will contain the value ``storage``.

When executed in verbose mode, the ``data`` section of the report of this
collector will provide the following fields:

``versionInfo``
  Information about the DRBD version number, given by a combination of
  any (but at least one) of the following fields:

  ``version``
    The DRBD driver version.

  ``api``
    The API version number.

  ``proto``
    The protocol version.

  ``srcversion``
    The version of the source files.

  ``gitHash``
    Git hash of the source files.

  ``buildBy``
    Who built the binary, and, optionally, when.

``device``
  A list of structures, each describing a DRBD device (a minor) and containing
  the following fields:

  ``minor``
    The device minor number.

  ``connectionState``
    The state of the connection. If it is "Unconfigured", all the following
    fields are not present.

  ``localRole``
    The role of the local resource.

  ``remoteRole``
    The role of the remote resource.

  ``localState``
    The status of the local disk.

  ``remoteState``
    The status of the remote disk.

  ``replicationProtocol``
    The replication protocol being used.

  ``ioFlags``
    The input/output flags.

  ``perfIndicators``
    The performance indicators. This field will contain the following
    sub-fields:

    ``networkSend``
      KiB of data sent on the network.

    ``networkReceive``
      KiB of data received from the network.

    ``diskWrite``
      KiB of data written on local disk.

    ``diskRead``
      KiB of date read from the local disk.

    ``activityLog``
      Number of updates of the activity log.

    ``bitMap``
      Number of updates to the bitmap area of the metadata.

    ``localCount``
      Number of open requests to the local I/O subsystem.

    ``pending``
      Number of requests sent to the partner but not yet answered.

    ``unacknowledged``
      Number of requests received by the partner but still to be answered.

    ``applicationPending``
      Num of block input/output requests forwarded to DRBD but that have not yet
      been answered.

    ``epochs``
      (Optional) Number of epoch objects. Not provided by all DRBD versions.

    ``writeOrder``
      (Optional) Currently used write ordering method. Not provided by all DRBD
      versions.

    ``outOfSync``
      (Optional) KiB of storage currently out of sync. Not provided by all DRBD
      versions.

  ``syncStatus``
    (Optional) The status of the synchronization of the disk. This is present
    only if the disk is being synchronized, and includes the following fields:

    ``percentage``
      The percentage of synchronized data.

    ``progress``
      How far the synchronization is. Written as "x/y", where x and y are
      integer numbers expressed in the measurement unit stated in
      ``progressUnit``

    ``progressUnit``
      The measurement unit for the progress indicator.

    ``timeToFinish``
      The expected time before finishing the synchronization.

    ``speed``
      The speed of the synchronization.

    ``want``
      The desiderd speed of the synchronization.

    ``speedUnit``
      The measurement unit of the ``speed`` and ``want`` values. Expressed
      as "size/time".

  ``instance``
    The name of the Ganeti instance this disk is associated to.


Ganeti daemons status
+++++++++++++++++++++

Ganeti will report what information it has about its own daemons.
This should allow identifying possible problems with the Ganeti system itself:
for example memory leaks, crashes and high resource utilization should be
evident by analyzing this information.

The ``kind`` field will be ``1`` (`Status reporting collectors`_).

Each daemon will have its own data collector, and each of them will have
a ``category`` field valued ``daemon``.

When executed in verbose mode, their data section will include at least:

``memory``
  The amount of used memory.

``size_unit``
  The measurement unit used for the memory.

``uptime``
  The uptime of the daemon.

``CPU usage``
  How much cpu the daemon is using (percentage).

Any other daemon-specific information can be included as well in the ``data``
section.

Hypervisor resources report
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Each hypervisor has a view of system resources that sometimes is
different than the one the OS sees (for example in Xen the Node OS,
running as Dom0, has access to only part of those resources). In this
section we'll report all information we can in a "non hypervisor
specific" way. Each hypervisor can then add extra specific information
that is not generic enough be abstracted.

The ``kind`` field will be ``0`` (`Performance reporting collectors`_).

Each of the hypervisor data collectory will be of ``category``: ``hypervisor``.

Node OS resources report
++++++++++++++++++++++++

Since Ganeti assumes it's running on Linux, it's useful to export some
basic information as seen by the host system.

The ``category`` field of the report will be ``null``.

The ``kind`` field will be ``0`` (`Performance reporting collectors`_).

The ``data`` section will include:

``cpu_number``
  The number of available cpus.

``cpus``
  A list with one element per cpu, showing its average load.

``memory``
  The current view of memory (free, used, cached, etc.)

``filesystem``
  A list with one element per filesystem, showing a summary of the
  total/available space.

``NICs``
  A list with one element per network interface, showing the amount of
  sent/received data, error rate, IP address of the interface, etc.

``versions``
  A map using the name of a component Ganeti interacts (Linux, drbd,
  hypervisor, etc) as the key and its version number as the value.

Note that we won't go into any hardware specific details (e.g. querying a
node RAID is outside the scope of this, and can be implemented as a
plugin) but we can easily just report the information above, since it's
standard enough across all systems.

Format of the query
-------------------

.. include:: monitoring-query-format.rst

Instance disk status propagation
--------------------------------

As for the instance status Ganeti has now only partial information about
its instance disks: in particular each node is unaware of the disk to
instance mapping, that exists only on the master.

For this design doc we plan to fix this by changing all RPCs that create
a backend storage or that put an already existing one in use and passing
the relevant instance to the node. The node can then export these to the
status reporting tool.

While we haven't implemented these RPC changes yet, we'll use Confd to
fetch this information in the data collectors.

Plugin system
-------------

The monitoring system will be equipped with a plugin system that can
export specific local information through it.

The plugin system is expected to be used by local installations to
export any installation specific information that they want to be
monitored, about either hardware or software on their systems.

The plugin system will be in the form of either scripts or binaries whose output
will be inserted in the report.

Eventually support for other kinds of plugins might be added as well, such as
plain text files which will be inserted into the report, or local unix or
network sockets from which the information has to be read.  This should allow
most flexibility for implementing an efficient system, while being able to keep
it as simple as possible.

Data collectors
---------------

In order to ease testing as well as to make it simple to reuse this
subsystem it will be possible to run just the "data collectors" on each
node without passing through the agent daemon.

If a data collector is run independently, it should print on stdout its
report, according to the format corresponding to a single data collector
report object, as described in the previous paragraphs.

Mode of operation
-----------------

In order to be able to report information fast the monitoring agent
daemon will keep an in-memory or on-disk cache of the status, which will
be returned when queries are made. The status system will then
periodically check resources to make sure the status is up to date.

Different parts of the report will be queried at different speeds. These
will depend on:
- how often they vary (or we expect them to vary)
- how fast they are to query
- how important their freshness is

Of course the last parameter is installation specific, and while we'll
try to have defaults, it will be configurable. The first two instead we
can use adaptively to query a certain resource faster or slower
depending on those two parameters.

When run as stand-alone binaries, the data collector will not using any
caching system, and just fetch and return the data immediately.

Implementation place
--------------------

The status daemon will be implemented as a standalone Haskell daemon. In
the future it should be easy to merge multiple daemons into one with
multiple entry points, should we find out it saves resources and doesn't
impact functionality.

The libekg library should be looked at for easily providing metrics in
json format.

Implementation order
--------------------

We will implement the agent system in this order:

- initial example data collectors (eg. for drbd and instance status).
- initial daemon for exporting data, integrating the existing collectors
- plugin system
- RPC updates for instance status reasons and disk to instance mapping
- cache layer for the daemon
- more data collectors


Future work
===========

As a future step it can be useful to "centralize" all this reporting
data on a single place. This for example can be just the master node, or
all the master candidates. We will evaluate doing this after the first
node-local version has been developed and tested.

Another possible change is replacing the "read-only" RPCs with queries
to the agent system, thus having only one way of collecting information
from the nodes from a monitoring system and for Ganeti itself.

One extra feature we may need is a way to query for only sub-parts of
the report (eg. instances status only). This can be done by passing
arguments to the HTTP GET, which will be defined when we get to this
funtionality.

Finally the :doc:`autorepair system design <design-autorepair>`. system
(see its design) can be expanded to use the monitoring agent system as a
source of information to decide which repairs it can perform.

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