Monitoring Transeptor with InfluxDB and Grafana

Metrics give insight into the bundler node, allowing for performance tuning and debugging. The Transeptor bundler can be configured to store metrics using a push(InfluxDB) metrics system. Grafana visualizes all the metrics.

Prerequisites

To set up monitoring for Transeptor, you will need the following installed on your local machine:

1. Runnin Transeptor node see Get Started
2. InfluxDB(docker image) - influxdb:2.7.1

Setting up InfluxDB Docker

By default, InfluxDB is reachable at localhost:8086. We can use docker to run InfluxDB in a container.

1. Start up InfluxDB in a docker container.

docker run -d --name influxdb -p 8086:8086 influxdb:2.7.1 --reporting-disabled

Set up InfluxDB to store metrics

Once InfluxDB runs, we can create a database for our metrics by opening a shell in the InfluxDB container. By default, InfluxDB can be reached at http:localhost:8086. We will use the CLI to set up InfluxDB, an initial admin user, operator token, and bucket.

To use the influx command line interface, open a shell in the influxdb Docker container:

docker exec -it influxdb /bin/bash

The following example command configures InfluxDB in non-interactive mode with an initial admin user, operator token, and bucket. For local development, we use the default user credentials below:

• username 'admin'
• password 'adminpwd'
• token 'ADMIN_TOKEN'
• org 'transeptor-labs'
• bucket 'transeptor_metrics'

influx setup \
  --username 'admin' \
  --password 'adminpwd' \
  --token 'ADMIN_TOKEN' \
  --org 'transeptor-labs' \
  --bucket 'transeptor_metrics' \
  --force

Now that we are all set up with the initial admin user let's create a user for the Transeptor node. For local development, we use the default user credentials below:

• username 'transeptor'
• password 'mydevpwd'

influx user create -n transeptor -p mydevpwd

Verify created entries with:

influx user list

Get the bucket ID for the bucket we created earlier for transeptor_metrics:

influx bucket list

Use the bucket ID to create a read token for the bucket with:

influx auth create \
  --org transeptor-labs \
  --read-bucket <your_bucket_id> \
  --write-bucket <your_bucket_id> \
  --user transeptor   

Copy the token value and save it for later use. The token value is used to configure a data source in Grafana and is used in the .env file for the TRANSEPTOR_INFLUX_TOKEN value.

Leave InfluxDB shell.

exit

InfluxDB is now running and configured to store metrics for Transeptor.

Setting up Grafana Docker

By default, Grafana is reachable at http://localhost:3000. We can use docker to run Grafana in a container.

1. Create a new directory to store your metrics data.

mkdir $PWD/grafana-data

1. Use docker to run Grafana in a container.

docker run -d --name grafana -p 3000:3000 grafana/grafana-enterprise

Grafana can now be reached at http://localhost:3000

1. User your browser to navigate http://localhost:3000 to access a visualization dashboard.
2. On the sign in page, enter admin for username and password(username=admin password=admin).
3. Make sure to update the admin password when prompted.

Adding Data sources

To visualize metrics with InfluxDB and Prometheus, we will need to add a data source to Grafana. Follow these steps to add a data source to Grafana.

InfluxDB

Grafana supports two query languages for InfluxDB: InfluxQL and Flux. InfluxQL is the default query language for InfluxDB 1.x. Flux is the default query language for InfluxDB 2.0. We will add two data sources for InfluxDB, one for each query language.

InfluxQL

1. Navigate to http://localhost:3000 and click on Add your first data source
2. Select InfluxDB as the data source
3. Configure the data source with the following values:

• Name: InfluxDB-InfluxQL
• Query Language: InfluxQL
• URL: http://host.docker.internal:8086
• Auth: toggle on Basic Auth
• Basic Auth Details: add a username and password for InfluxDB admin user(username=admin password=adminpwd)
• Custom HTTP Headers: Header=Authorization Value=Token <ADMIN_TOKEN>
• InfluxDB Details: Database=transeptor_metrics, User=transeptor, Password=mydevpwd, HTTP Method=GET

4. Click Save & Test to save the data source and test the connection.

If the connection succeeds, you should see a green Data source is working message.

Flux

1. Navigate to http://localhost:3000 and click on Add your first data source
2. Select InfluxDB as the data source
3. Configure the data source with the following values:

• Name: InfluxDB-Flux
• Query Language: Flux
• URL: http://host.docker.internal:8086
• Auth: toggle on Basic Auth
• Basic Auth Details: add a username and password for InfluxDB transeptor user(username=transeptor password=mydevpwd)
• InfluxDB Details: Organization=transeptor-labs, Token=<YOUR_TOKEN_FOR_TRANSEPTOR_USER>, Default Bucket=transeptor_metrics

4. Click Save & Test to save the data source and test the connection.

If the connection succeeds, you should see a green Data source is working message.