Personally I use a short device name (without domain) and generally it's unique; I use that as the "instance" label, and it's what people expect to see in graphs and menus anyway, i.e. what they know the device as colloquially.
I also add a label for netbox model (device or vm). But to avoid issues with naming conflicts in the metrics themselves, I probably ought to get around to adding the device_id or vm_id as an additional label. You could raise a FR to netbox-plugin-prometheus-sd to include the description as a label. It would be a pretty simple change. On Friday 15 December 2023 at 01:08:42 UTC Elliott Balsley wrote: > Thanks Brian, this is helpful. > It seems like the "active" flag would be a nice way to take devices out of > monitoring for long-term outages. > > I'm curious what naming convention you use for devices in Netbox. Since > device names are required to be unique within a site, I'm thinking about > some short "computer-friendly" convention and then put a "human-readable" > functional name in the "description" field. This functional name will be > used to label Grafana panels, so it only needs to be unique within its > local context (room, rack, workflow, etc., depending on the situation). > Site-wide uniqueness would be excessively long and hard to read here. > > My problem is, the "description" field in Netbox is not exposed by the > Prometheus SD plugin. So I'm wondering how other people approach this? > > On Thu, Dec 14, 2023 at 1:02 AM 'Brian Candler' via Prometheus Users < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Right now I use Netbox to control monitoring with node_exporter and >> snmp_exporter. >> >> I have three custom fields on Device and VirtualMachine, all of which are >> optional: >> >> * "monitoring" is a selection field with values "node", "snmp" and "icmp" >> * "snmp_auth" is a selection field with the names of the configured auths >> * "snmp_module" is a multi-select field with the names of the snmp >> modules I use. (snmp_exporter now supports selection of multiple modules in >> a single scrape, but sadly combined with how netbox-plugin-prometheus-sd >> exposes lists, that makes the rewriting config messy) >> >> Prometheus configuration: >> >> - job_name: exporter >> scrape_interval: 1m >> metrics_path: /metrics >> static_configs: >> - targets: >> - localhost:9115 # blackbox_exporter >> - localhost:9116 # snmp_exporter >> >> - job_name: snmp >> scrape_interval: 15s >> http_sd_configs: >> # >> https://github.com/netbox-community/netbox/issues/11538#issuecomment-1635839720 >> - url: >> https://netbox.example.net/api/plugins/prometheus-sd/devices/?cf_monitoring=snmp&status=active >> refresh_interval: 10m >> authorization: >> type: Token >> credentials_file: /etc/prometheus/netbox.token >> - url: >> https://netbox.example.net/api/plugins/prometheus-sd/virtual-machines/?cf_monitoring=snmp&status=active >> refresh_interval: 10m >> authorization: >> type: Token >> credentials_file: /etc/prometheus/netbox.token >> metrics_path: /snmp >> relabel_configs: >> # Labels which control scraping >> - source_labels: [__address__] >> target_label: instance >> - source_labels: [__address__] >> target_label: __param_target >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_primary_ip] >> regex: '(.+)' >> target_label: __param_target >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_custom_field_snmp_module] >> target_label: __param_module >> # Ugh: multiselect is of form ['foo', 'bar'] and we need foo,bar. >> There is no gsub. >> - source_labels: [__param_module] >> regex: "\\['(.*)'\\]" >> target_label: __param_module >> - source_labels: [__param_module] >> regex: "(.*)', *'(.*)" >> replacement: "$1,$2" >> target_label: __param_module >> - source_labels: [__param_module] >> regex: "(.*)', *'(.*)" >> replacement: "$1,$2" >> target_label: __param_module >> - source_labels: [__param_module] >> regex: "(.*)', *'(.*)" >> replacement: "$1,$2" >> target_label: __param_module >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_custom_field_snmp_auth] >> target_label: __param_auth >> - target_label: __address__ >> replacement: 127.0.0.1:9116 # SNMP exporter >> # Optional extra metadata labels >> - source_labels: [__param_module] >> target_label: module >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_cluster_slug] >> target_label: cluster >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_device_type_slug] >> target_label: device_type >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_model] >> target_label: netbox_model >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_platform_slug] >> target_label: platform >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_role_slug] >> target_label: role >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_site_slug] >> target_label: site >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_tag_slugs] >> target_label: tags >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_tenant_slug] >> target_label: tenant >> >> - job_name: icmp >> scrape_interval: 1m >> http_sd_configs: >> - url: >> https://netbox.example.net/api/plugins/prometheus-sd/devices/?cf_monitoring=icmp&status=active >> refresh_interval: 10m >> authorization: >> type: Token >> credentials_file: /etc/prometheus/netbox.token >> - url: >> https://netbox.example.net/api/plugins/prometheus-sd/virtual-machines/?cf_monitoring=icmp&status=active >> refresh_interval: 10m >> authorization: >> type: Token >> credentials_file: /etc/prometheus/netbox.token >> metrics_path: /probe >> params: >> module: [icmp] >> relabel_configs: >> # Labels which control scraping >> - source_labels: [__address__] >> target_label: instance >> - source_labels: [__address__] >> target_label: __param_target >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_primary_ip] >> regex: '(.+)' >> target_label: __param_target >> - target_label: __address__ >> replacement: 127.0.0.1:9115 # Blackbox exporter >> # Optional extra metadata labels >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_cluster_slug] >> target_label: cluster >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_device_type_slug] >> target_label: device_type >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_model] >> target_label: netbox_model >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_platform_slug] >> target_label: platform >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_role_slug] >> target_label: role >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_site_slug] >> target_label: site >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_tag_slugs] >> target_label: tags >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_tenant_slug] >> target_label: tenant >> >> - job_name: node >> scrape_interval: 1m >> scrape_timeout: 50s >> http_sd_configs: >> - url: >> https://netbox.example.net/api/plugins/prometheus-sd/devices/?cf_monitoring=node&status=active >> refresh_interval: 10m >> authorization: >> type: Token >> credentials_file: /etc/prometheus/netbox.token >> - url: >> https://netbox.example.net/api/plugins/prometheus-sd/virtual-machines/?cf_monitoring=node&status=active >> refresh_interval: 10m >> authorization: >> type: Token >> credentials_file: /etc/prometheus/netbox.token >> metrics_path: /metrics >> relabel_configs: >> # Labels which control scraping >> - source_labels: [__address__] >> target_label: instance >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_primary_ip4] >> regex: '(.+)' >> target_label: __address__ >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_primary_ip6] >> regex: '(.+)' >> target_label: __address__ >> replacement: '[${1}]' >> - source_labels: [__address__] >> target_label: __address__ >> replacement: '${1}:9100' >> # Optional extra metadata labels >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_cluster_slug] >> target_label: cluster >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_device_type_slug] >> target_label: device_type >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_model] >> target_label: netbox_model >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_platform_slug] >> target_label: platform >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_role_slug] >> target_label: role >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_site_slug] >> target_label: site >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_tag_slugs] >> target_label: tags >> - source_labels: [__meta_netbox_tenant_slug] >> target_label: tenant >> >> # Monitoring of netbox itself >> - job_name: netbox >> scrape_interval: 2m >> scheme: https >> authorization: >> type: Token >> credentials_file: /etc/prometheus/netbox.token >> static_configs: >> - targets: ['netbox.example.net:443'] >> >> I added the "icmp" monitoring option only for completeness and haven't >> really tested it yet. >> >> I'm still on static files for other blackbox_exporter tests though. >> Although Netbox does have a "service" model, there are things I want to >> monitor which are not attached to devices or VMs. I'm currently thinking >> about using config contexts and/or attaching blackbox monitoring directly >> to an IP address object rather than a device or VM. Discussion: >> https://github.com/netbox-community/netbox/discussions/14261 >> >> (That shows a slightly older Prometheus config where I was using tags to >> enable the various monitoring types; a custom field is actually simpler) >> >> On Thursday 14 December 2023 at 00:27:08 UTC Elliott Balsley wrote: >> >>> I've just started looking at Netbox as a way to store "inventory" for >>> Prometheus using this plugin: >>> https://github.com/FlxPeters/netbox-plugin-prometheus-sd >>> >>> The documentation is a bit light and I'm wondering if anyone can share a >>> good example of how to use the multi-target exporter pattern. My initial >>> thought is to add custom fields in netbox like this: >>> *prom_job*: (multi-selection with choices like blackbox, snmp, json) >>> *prom_blackbox_module*: (selection with choices like ping, http, >>> tcp3389, etc.) >>> *prom_snmp_module*: (selection with choices for all my snmp modules) >>> *prom_snmp_auth*: (selection with choices like public_v2, public_v3, >>> etc. to be used by snmp). >>> >>> Then in Prometheus, I would have just one blackbox job which chooses the >>> right module based on that field, and its target URL includes a Netbox >>> filter for prom_job to only return targets which have that module selected. >>> >>> Similarly, I would have one snmp job, etc. Does this sound like the >>> best approach? >>> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the >> Google Groups "Prometheus Users" group. >> To unsubscribe from this topic, visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/topic/prometheus-users/q99ZvG_ke9w/unsubscribe >> . >> To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to >> [email protected]. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/prometheus-users/b95127d2-c1f2-47d1-b6d2-1f1b8e2bc949n%40googlegroups.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/prometheus-users/b95127d2-c1f2-47d1-b6d2-1f1b8e2bc949n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Prometheus Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/prometheus-users/b67722d2-486d-4193-9b5d-96b998b760b9n%40googlegroups.com.
