Alerting with vmalert and Managed VictoriaMetrics

This guide explains the different ways in which you can use vmalert in conjunction with Managed VictoriaMetrics

Preconditions#

vmalert is installed. You can obtain it by building it from source, downloading it from the GitHub releases page, or using the docker image for the container ecosystem (such as docker, k8s, etc.).
Alertmanager is installed.
You have a single or cluster deployment in Managed VictoriaMetrics.
If you are using helm, add the VictoriaMetrics helm chart repository to your helm repositories. This step is optional.
If you are using vmoperator, make sure that it and its CRDs are installed. This step is also optional.

Setup#

Alerting and recording rules file(s)#

You need to prepare file(s) with alerting or recording rules.

An example file with one alerting rule.

alerts.yml

groups:
  - name: common
    rules:
    - alert: instanceIsDown
      for: 1m
      expr: up == 0
      labels:
        severity: critical
      annotations:
        summary: "{{ $labels.job }} instance: {{$labels.instance }} is not up"
        description: "Job {{ $labels.job }}  instance: {{$labels.instance }} is not up for the last 1 minute"

Managed VictoriaMetrics access token and deployment endpoint#

To use vmalert with Managed VictoriaMetrics, you must create a read/write token, or use an existing one. The token must have write access to ingest recording rules, ALERTS and ALERTS_FOR_STATE metrics, and read access for rules evaluation.

For instructions on how to create tokens, please refer to this section of the documentation.

Single-Node#

Cluster#

vmalert configuration#

Single-Node#

Binary#

export TOKEN=81e8226e-****-****-****-************ 
export MANAGED_VM_URL=https://gw-c15-1c.cloud.victoriametrics.com
export ALERTMANAGER_URL=http://localhost:9093 
./vmalert -rule=alerts.yml -datasource.url=$MANAGED_VM_URL -datasource.bearerToken=$TOKEN -notifier.url=$ALERTMANAGER_URL -remoteWrite.url=$MANAGED_VM_URL -remoteWrite.bearerToken=$TOKEN -remoteRead.url=$MANAGED_VM_URL -remoteRead.bearerToken=$TOKEN

Docker#

export TOKEN=81e8226e-****-****-****-************ 
export MANAGED_VM_URL=https://gw-c15-1c.cloud.victoriametrics.com
export ALERTMANAGER_URL=http://alertmanager:9093 
docker run -it -p 8080:8080 -v $(pwd)/alerts.yml:/etc/alerts/alerts.yml victoriametrics/vmalert:v1.87.1 -datasource.url=$MANAGED_VM_URL -datasource.bearerToken=$TOKEN -remoteRead.url=$MANAGED_VM_URL -remoteRead.bearerToken=$TOKEN  -remoteWrite.url=$MANAGED_VM_URL -remoteWrite.bearerToken=$TOKEN  -notifier.url=$ALERTMANAGER_URL -rule="/etc/alerts/*.yml"

Helm Chart#

export TOKEN=81e8226e-****-****-****-************
export MANAGED_VM_URL=https://gw-c15-1c.cloud.victoriametrics.com
export ALERTMANAGER=http://alertmanager:9093
cat <<EOF | helm install vmalert vm/victoria-metrics-alert -f -
server:
 datasource:
   url: $MANAGED_VM_URL
   bearer:
     token: $TOKEN
 remote:
   write:
     url: $MANAGED_VM_URL
     bearer:
       token: $TOKEN
   read:
     url: $MANAGED_VM_URL
     bearer:
       token: $TOKEN
 notifier:
   alertmanager:
     url: $ALERTMANAGER
 config:
   alerts:
     groups:
       - name: common
         rules:
           - alert: instanceIsDown
             for: 1m
             expr: up == 0
             labels:
               severity: critical
             annotations:
               summary: "{{ $labels.job }} instance: {{$labels.instance }} is not up"
               description: "Job {{ $labels.job }}  instance: {{$labels.instance }} is not up for the last 1 minute"
EOF

VMalert CRD for vmoperator#

export TOKEN=81e8226e-****-****-****-************
export MANAGED_VM_URL=https://gw-c15-1c.cloud.victoriametrics.com
export ALERTMANAGER=http://alertmanager:9093
cat << EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAlert
metadata:
 name: vmalert-managed-vm
spec:
 replicaCount: 1
 datasource:
   url: $MANAGED_VM_URL
   bearerTokenSecret:
     name: managed-token
     key: token
 remoteWrite:
   url: $MANAGED_VM_URL
   bearerTokenSecret:
     name: managed-token
     key: token
 remoteRead:
   url: $MANAGED_VM_URL
   bearerTokenSecret:
     name: managed-token
     key: token
 notifier:
   url: $ALERTMANAGER
 ruleSelector:
   matchLabels:
     type: managed
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
 name: managed-token
stringData:
 token: $TOKEN
EOF

Testing#

You can ingest metric that will raise an alert

export TOKEN=81e8226e-****-****-****-*************
export MANAGED_VM_URL=https://gw-c15-1c.cloud.victoriametrics.com/
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -X POST "$MANAGED_VM_URLapi/v1/import/prometheus" -d 'up{job="vmalert-test", instance="localhost"} 0'