VMAgent

VMAgent represents agent, which helps you collect metrics from various sources and stores them in VictoriaMetrics. The VMAgent CRD declaratively defines a desired VMAgent setup to run in a Kubernetes cluster.

It requires access to Kubernetes API and you can create RBAC for it first, it can be found at examples/vmagent_rbac.yaml Or you can use default rbac account, that will be created for VMAgent by operator automatically.

For each VMAgent resource Operator deploys a properly configured Deployment in the same namespace. The VMAgent Pods are configured to mount a Secret prefixed with <VMAgent-name> containing the configuration for VMAgent.

For each VMAgent resource, the Operator adds Service and VMServiceScrape in the same namespace prefixed with name <VMAgent-name>.

The CRD specifies which VMServiceScrape should be covered by the deployed VMAgent instances based on label selection. The Operator then generates a configuration based on the included VMServiceScrapes and updates the Secret which contains the configuration. It continuously does so for all changes that are made to the VMServiceScrapes or the VMAgent resource itself.

If no selection of VMServiceScrapes is provided - Operator leaves management of the Secret to the user, so user can set custom configuration while still benefiting from the Operator’s capabilities of managing VMAgent setups.

Specification#

You can see the full actual specification of the VMAgent resource in the API docs -> VMAgent.

If you can’t find necessary field in the specification of the custom resource, see Extra arguments section.

Also, you can check out the examples section.

Scraping#

VMAgent supports scraping targets with:

These objects tell VMAgent from which targets and how to collect metrics and generate part of VMAgent scrape configuration.

For filtering scrape objects VMAgent uses selectors. Selectors are defined with suffixes - NamespaceSelector and Selector for each type of scrape objects in spec of VMAgent:

serviceScrapeNamespaceSelector and serviceScrapeSelector for selecting VMServiceScrape objects,
podScrapeNamespaceSelector and podScrapeSelector for selecting VMPodScrape objects,
probeNamespaceSelector and probeSelector for selecting VMProbe objects,
staticScrapeNamespaceSelector and staticScrapeSelector for selecting VMStaticScrape objects,
nodeScrapeNamespaceSelector and nodeScrapeSelector for selecting VMNodeScrape objects.
scrapeConfigNamespaceSelector and scrapeConfigSelector for selecting VMScrapeConfig objects.

It allows configuring objects access control across namespaces and different environments. Specification of selectors you can see in this doc.

In addition to the above selectors, the filtering of objects in a cluster is affected by the field selectAllByDefault of VMAgent spec and environment variable WATCH_NAMESPACE for operator.

Following rules are applied:

If ...NamespaceSelector and ...Selector both undefined, then by default select nothing. With option set - spec.selectAllByDefault: true, select all objects of given type.
If ...NamespaceSelector defined, ...Selector undefined, then all objects are matching at namespaces for given ...NamespaceSelector.
If ...NamespaceSelector undefined, ...Selector defined, then all objects at VMAgent’s namespaces are matching for given ...Selector.
If ...NamespaceSelector and ...Selector both defined, then only objects at namespaces matched ...NamespaceSelector for given ...Selector are matching.

Here’s a more visual and more detailed view:

`...NamespaceSelector`	`...Selector`	`selectAllByDefault`	`WATCH_NAMESPACE`	Selected objects
undefined	undefined	false	undefined	nothing
undefined	undefined	true	undefined	all objects of given type (`...`) in the cluster
defined	undefined	any	undefined	all objects of given type (`...`) at namespaces for given `...NamespaceSelector`
undefined	defined	any	undefined	all objects of given type (`...`) only at `VMAgent`’s namespace are matching for given `Selector
defined	defined	any	undefined	all objects of given type (`...`) only at namespaces matched `...NamespaceSelector` for given `...Selector`
any	undefined	any	defined	all objects of given type (`...`) only at `VMAgent`’s namespace
any	defined	any	defined	all objects of given type (`...`) only at `VMAgent`’s namespace for given `...Selector`

More details about WATCH_NAMESPACE variable you can read in this doc.

Here are some examples of VMAgent configuration with selectors:

# select all scrape objects in the cluster
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-select-all
spec:
  # ...
  selectAllByDefault: true

---

# select all scrape objects in specific namespace (my-namespace)
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-select-ns
spec:
  # ...
  serviceScrapeNamespaceSelector: 
    matchLabels:
      kubernetes.io/metadata.name: my-namespace
  podScrapeNamespaceSelector:
    matchLabels:
      kubernetes.io/metadata.name: my-namespace
  nodeScrapeNamespaceSelector:
    matchLabels:
      kubernetes.io/metadata.name: my-namespace
  staticScrapeNamespaceSelector:
    matchLabels:
      kubernetes.io/metadata.name: my-namespace
  probeNamespaceSelector:
    matchLabels:
      kubernetes.io/metadata.name: my-namespace
  scrapeConfigNamespaceSelector:
    matchLabels:
      kubernetes.io/metadata.name: my-namespace

High availability#

Replication and deduplication#

To run VMAgent in a highly available manner at first you have to configure deduplication in Victoria Metrics according this doc for VMSingle or this doc for VMCluster.

You can do it with extraArgs on VMSingle:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMSingle
metadata:
  name: vmsingle-example
spec:
  # ...
  extraArgs:
    dedup.minScrapeInterval: 30s
  # ...

For VMCluster you can do it with vmstorage.extraArgs and vmselect.extraArgs:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMCluster
metadata:
  name: vmcluster-example
spec:
  # ...
  vmselect:
    extraArgs:
      dedup.minScrapeInterval: 30s
    # ...
  vmstorage:
    extraArgs:
      dedup.minScrapeInterval: 30s
    # ...

Deduplication is automatically enabled with replicationFactor > 1 on VMCLuster.

After enabling deduplication you can increase replicas for VMAgent.

For instance, let’s create VMAgent with 2 replicas:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-ha-example
spec:
  # ...
  selectAllByDefault: true
  vmAgentExternalLabelName: vmagent_ha
  remoteWrite:
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
  # Replication:
  scrapeInterval: 30s
  replicaCount: 2
  # ...

Now, even if something happens to one of the vmagent, you’ll still have the data.

StatefulMode#

VMAgent supports persistent buffering for sending data to remote storage. By default, operator set -remoteWrite.tmpDataPath for VMAgent to /tmp (that use k8s ephemeral storage) and VMAgent loses state of the PersistentQueue on pod restarts.

In StatefulMode VMAgent doesn’t lose state of the PersistentQueue (file-based buffer size for unsent data) on pod restarts. Operator creates StatefulSet and, with provided PersistentVolumeClaimTemplate at StatefulStorage configuration param, metrics queue is stored on disk.

Example of configuration for StatefulMode:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-ha-example
spec:
  # ...
  selectAllByDefault: true
  vmAgentExternalLabelName: vmagent_ha
  remoteWrite:
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
  # Replication:
  scrapeInterval: 30s
  replicaCount: 2
  # StatefulMode:
  statefulMode: true
  statefulStorage:
    volumeClaimTemplate:
      spec:
        resources:
            requests:
              storage: 20Gi
  # ...

Sharding#

Operator supports sharding with cluster mode of vmagent for scraping big number of targets.

Sharding for VMAgent distributes scraping between multiple deployments of VMAgent.

Example usage (it is a complete example of VMAgent with high availability features):

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-ha-example
spec:
  # ...
  selectAllByDefault: true
  vmAgentExternalLabelName: vmagent_ha
  remoteWrite:
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
  # Replication:
  scrapeInterval: 30s
  replicaCount: 2
  # StatefulMode:
  statefulMode: true
  statefulStorage:
    volumeClaimTemplate:
      spec:
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 20Gi
  # Sharding
  shardCount: 5
  affinity:
    podAntiAffinity:
      preferredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
        - podAffinityTerm:
            labelSelector:
              matchLabels:
                shard-num: '%SHARD_NUM%'
            topologyKey: kubernetes.io/hostname
  # ...

This configuration produces 5 deployments with 2 replicas at each. Each deployment has its own shard num and scrapes only 1/5 of all targets.

Also, you can use special placeholder %SHARD_NUM% in fields of VMAgent specification and operator will replace it with current shard num of vmagent when creating deployment or statefullset for vmagent.

In the example above, the %SHARD_NUM% placeholder is used in the podAntiAffinity section, which recommend to scheduler that pods with the same shard num (label shard-num in the pod template) are not deployed on the same node. You can use another topologyKey for availability zone or region instead of nodes.

Note that at the moment operator doesn’t use -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor parameter of VMAgent and creates replicaCount of replicas for each shard (which leads greater resource consumption). This will be fixed in the future, more details can be seen in this issue.

Also see this example.

Additional scrape configuration#

AdditionalScrapeConfigs is an additional way to add scrape targets in VMAgent CRD.

There are two options for adding targets into VMAgent:

inline configuration into CRD,
defining it as a Kubernetes Secret.

No validation happens during the creation of configuration. However, you must validate job specs, and it must follow job spec configuration. Please check scrape_configs documentation as references.

Inline Additional Scrape Configuration in VMAgent CRD#

You need to add scrape configuration directly to the vmagent spec.inlineScrapeConfig. It is raw text in YAML format. See example below

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-example
spec:
  # ...
  selectAllByDefault: true
  inlineScrapeConfig: |
    - job_name: "prometheus"
      static_configs:
      - targets: ["localhost:9090"]    
  remoteWrite:
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
  # ...

Note: Do not use passwords and tokens with inlineScrapeConfig use Secret instead.

Define Additional Scrape Configuration as a Kubernetes Secret#

You need to define Kubernetes Secret with a key.

The key is prometheus-additional.yaml in the example below:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: additional-scrape-configs
stringData:
  prometheus-additional.yaml: |
    - job_name: "prometheus"
      static_configs:
      - targets: ["localhost:9090"]

After that, you need to specify the secret’s name and key in VMAgent CRD in additionalScrapeConfigs section:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-example
spec:
  # ...
  selectAllByDefault: true
  additionalScrapeConfigs:
    name: additional-scrape-configs
    key: prometheus-additional.yaml
  remoteWrite:
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
  # ...

Note: You can specify only one Secret in the VMAgent CRD configuration so use it for all additional scrape configurations.

Relabeling#

VMAgent supports global relabeling for all metrics and per remoteWrite target relabel config.

Note in some cases, you don’t need relabeling, key=value label pairs can be added to the all scrapped metrics with spec.externalLabels for VMAgent:

# simple label add config
apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-example
spec:
  externalLabels:
    clusterid: some_cluster

VMAgent CR supports relabeling with custom configMap or inline defined at CRD.

Relabeling config in Configmap#

Quick tour how to create ConfigMap with relabeling configuration:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
 name: vmagent-relabel
data:
 global-relabel.yaml: |
   - target_label: bar
   - source_labels: [aa]
     separator: "foobar"
     regex: "foo.+bar"
     target_label: aaa
     replacement: "xxx"
   - action: keep
     source_labels: [aaa]
   - action: drop
     source_labels: [aaa]   
 target-1-relabel.yaml: |
   - action: keep_if_equal
     source_labels: [foo, bar]
   - action: drop_if_equal
     source_labels: [foo, bar]

Second, add relabelConfig to VMagent spec for global relabeling with name of Configmap - vmagent-relabel and key global-relabel.yaml.

For relabeling per remoteWrite target, add urlRelabelConfig name of Configmap - vmagent-relabel and key target-1-relabel.yaml to one of remoteWrite target for relabeling only for those target:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-example
spec:
  # ...
  selectAllByDefault: true
  relabelConfig:
   name: "vmagent-relabel"
   key: "global-relabel.yaml"
  remoteWrite:
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example-vmsingle-persisted.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example-vmsingle.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
      urlRelabelConfig:
        name: "vmagent-relabel"
        key: "target-1-relabel.yaml"

Inline relabeling config#

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-example
spec:
  # ...
  selectAllByDefault: true
  inlineRelabelConfig:
   - target_label: bar
   - source_labels: [aa]
     separator: "foobar"
     regex: "foo.+bar"
     target_label: aaa
     replacement: "xxx"
   - action: keep
     source_labels: [aaa]
   - action: drop
     source_labels: [aaa]
  remoteWrite:
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example-vmsingle-persisted.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example-vmsingle.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
      inlineUrlRelabelConfig:
       - action: keep_if_equal
         source_labels: [foo, bar]
       - action: drop_if_equal
         source_labels: [foo, bar]

Combined example#

It’s also possible to use both features in combination.

First will be added relabeling configs from inlineRelabelConfig, then relabelConfig from configmap.

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
 name: vmagent-relabel
data:
 global-relabel.yaml: |
   - target_label: bar
   - source_labels: [aa]
     separator: "foobar"
     regex: "foo.+bar"
     target_label: aaa
     replacement: "xxx"
   - action: keep
     source_labels: [aaa]
   - action: drop
     source_labels: [aaa]   
 target-1-relabel.yaml: |
   - action: keep_if_equal
     source_labels: [foo, bar]
   - action: drop_if_equal
     source_labels: [foo, bar]

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: example-vmagent
spec:
  # ...
  selectAllByDefault: true
  inlineRelabelConfig:
   - target_label: bar1
   - source_labels: [aa]
  relabelConfig:
   name: "vmagent-relabel"
   key: "global-relabel.yaml"
  remoteWrite:
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example-vmsingle-persisted.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example-vmsingle.default.svc:8429/api/v1/write"
      urlRelabelConfig:
        name: "vmagent-relabel"
        key: "target-1-relabel.yaml"
      inlineUrlRelabelConfig:
        - action: keep_if_equal
          source_labels: [foo1, bar2]

Resulted configmap, mounted to VMAgent pod:

apiVersion: v1
data:
  global_relabeling.yaml: |
    - target_label: bar1
    - source_labels:
      - aa
    - target_label: bar
    - source_labels: [aa]
      separator: "foobar"
      regex: "foo.+bar"
      target_label: aaa
      replacement: "xxx"
    - action: keep
      source_labels: [aaa]
    - action: drop
      source_labels: [aaa]    
  url_rebaling-1.yaml: |
    - source_labels:
      - foo1
      - bar2
      action: keep_if_equal
    - action: keep_if_equal
      source_labels: [foo, bar]
    - action: drop_if_equal
      source_labels: [foo, bar]    
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  finalizers:
  - apps.victoriametrics.com/finalizer
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/component: monitoring
    app.kubernetes.io/instance: example-vmagent
    app.kubernetes.io/name: vmagent
    managed-by: vm-operator
  name: relabelings-assets-vmagent-example-vmagent
  namespace: default
  ownerReferences:
  - apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
    blockOwnerDeletion: true
    controller: true
    kind: VMAgent
    name: example-vmagent
    uid: 7e9fb838-65da-4443-a43b-c00cd6c4db5b

Additional information#

VMAgent also has some extra options for relabeling actions, you can check it docs.

Version management#

To set VMAgent version add spec.image.tag name from releases

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: example-vmagent
spec:
  image:
    repository: victoriametrics/vmagent
    tag: v1.93.4
    pullPolicy: Always
  # ...

Also, you can specify imagePullSecrets if you are pulling images from private repo:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: example-vmagent
spec:
  image:
    repository: victoriametrics/vmagent
    tag: v1.93.4
    pullPolicy: Always
  imagePullSecrets:
    - name: my-repo-secret
# ...

Resource management#

You can specify resources for each VMAgent resource in the spec section of the VMAgent CRD.

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-resources-example
spec:
    # ...
    resources:
        requests:
          memory: "64Mi"
          cpu: "250m"
        limits:
          memory: "128Mi"
          cpu: "500m"
    # ...

If these parameters are not specified, then, by default all VMAgent pods have resource requests and limits from the default values of the following operator parameters:

VM_VMAGENTDEFAULT_RESOURCE_LIMIT_MEM - default memory limit for VMAgent pods,
VM_VMAGENTDEFAULT_RESOURCE_LIMIT_CPU - default memory limit for VMAgent pods,
VM_VMAGENTDEFAULT_RESOURCE_REQUEST_MEM - default memory limit for VMAgent pods,
VM_VMAGENTDEFAULT_RESOURCE_REQUEST_CPU - default memory limit for VMAgent pods.

These default parameters will be used if:

VM_VMAGENTDEFAULT_USEDEFAULTRESOURCES is set to true (default value),
VMAgent CR doesn’t have resources field in spec section.

Field resources in vmagent spec have higher priority than operator parameters.

If you set VM_VMAGENTDEFAULT_USEDEFAULTRESOURCES to false and don’t specify resources in VMAgent CRD, then VMAgent pods will be created without resource requests and limits.

Also, you can specify requests without limits - in this case default values for limits will not be used.

Enterprise features#

VMAgent supports feature Kafka integration from VictoriaMetrics Enterprise.

For using Enterprise version of vmagent you need to change version of vmagent to version with -enterprise suffix using Version management.

All the enterprise apps require -eula command-line flag to be passed to them. This flag acknowledges that your usage fits one of the cases listed on this page. So you can use extraArgs for passing this flag to VMAgent:

After that you can pass Kafka integration flags to VMAgent with extraArgs.

Reading metrics from Kafka#

Here are complete example for Reading metrics from Kafka:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-ent-example
spec:
  # enabling enterprise features
  image:
    # enterprise version of vmagent
    tag: v1.93.5-enterprise
  extraArgs:
    # should be true and means that you have the legal right to run a vmagent enterprise
    # that can either be a signed contract or an email with confirmation to run the service in a trial period
    # https://victoriametrics.com/legal/esa/
    eula: true
    
    # using enterprise features: reading metrics from kafka
    # more details about kafka integration you can read on https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#kafka-integration
    # more details about these and other flags you can read on https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#command-line-flags-for-kafka-consumer
    kafka.consumer.topic.brokers: localhost:9092
    kafka.consumer.topic.format: influx
    kafka.consumer.topic: metrics-by-telegraf
    kafka.consumer.topic.groupID: some-id
    
  # ...other fields...

Writing metrics to Kafka#

Here are complete example for Writing metrics to Kafka:

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-ent-example
spec:
  # enabling enterprise features
  image:
    # enterprise version of vmagent
    tag: v1.93.5-enterprise
  extraArgs:
    # should be true and means that you have the legal right to run a vmagent enterprise
    # that can either be a signed contract or an email with confirmation to run the service in a trial period
    # https://victoriametrics.com/legal/esa/
    eula: true
  
  # using enterprise features: writing metrics to Kafka
  # more details about kafka integration you can read on https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#kafka-integration
  remoteWrite:
    # sasl with username and password
    - url: kafka://broker-1:9092/?topic=prom-rw-1&security.protocol=SASL_SSL&sasl.mechanisms=PLAIN 
      # it requires to create kubernetes secret `kafka-basic-auth` with keys `username` and `password` in the same namespace
      basicAuth:
        username:
            name: kafka-basic-auth
            key: username
        password:
            name: kafka-basic-auth
            key: password
    # sasl with username and password from secret and tls
    - url: kafka://localhost:9092/?topic=prom-rw-2&security.protocol=SSL
      # it requires to create kubernetes secret `kafka-tls` with keys `ca.pem`, `cert.pem` and `key.pem` in the same namespace
      tlsConfig:
        ca:
          secret:
            name: kafka-tls
            key: ca.pem
        cert:
          secret:
            name: kafka-tls
            key: cert.pem
        keySecret:
          name: kafka-tls
          key: key.pem

  # ...other fields...

Examples#

apiVersion: operator.victoriametrics.com/v1beta1
kind: VMAgent
metadata:
  name: vmagent-example
spec:
  selectAllByDefault: true
  replicaCount: 1
  scrapeInterval: 30s
  scrapeTimeout: 10s
  vmAgentExternalLabelName: example
  externalLabels:
    cluster: my-cluster
  remoteWrite:
    - url: "http://vmsingle-example.default.svc:8428/api/v1/write"
  inlineRelabelConfig:
    - action: labeldrop
      regex: "temp.*"