Using Grafana to Display Sawtooth Metrics

This procedure describes how to display Sawtooth metrics with Grafana, using InfluxDB to store the metrics data.

Note

This procedure is for a Ubuntu environment. For a Sawtooth network in Docker containers, there are additional steps to change the configuration of the validator and REST API containers. This guide does not describe these steps.

Prerequisites

• Docker Engine must be installed

• One or more Sawtooth nodes must be configured and in a runnable state

• Download the hyperledger/sawtooth-core repository from GitHub with this command:

  $ git clone https://github.com/hyperledger/sawtooth-core.git
  

Set Up InfluxDB

InfluxDB is used to store Sawtooth metrics data.

1. Pull the InfluxDB Docker image from Docker Hub.

   $ docker pull influxdb
   

2. Create an InfluxDB data directory to provide persistent storage on the local file system.

   Note

   This step creates the directory /var/lib/influx-data. If this path is not appropriate for your host operating system, change the path here and in the next command.

   $ sudo mkdir /var/lib/influx-data
   

3. Start an InfluxDB Docker container. This command exposes port 8086 to the network and uses the persistent storage created in the previous step. It also configures the database name (metrics) and creates two users for InfluxDB, admin and lrdata.

   In the following command, replace {admin-pw} and {lrdata-pw} with unique passwords for the admin and lrdata users. Remember to properly escape any special characters in these passwords, such as ,@!$.

   $ docker run -d -p 8086:8086 -v /var/lib/influx-data:/var/lib/influxdb \
    -e INFLUXDB_DB=metrics -e INFLUXDB_HTTP_AUTH_ENABLED=true \
    -e INFLUXDB_ADMIN_USER=admin -e INFLUXDB_ADMIN_PASSWORD='{admin-pw}' \
    -e INFLUXDB_USER=lrdata -e INFLUXDB_USER_PASSWORD='{lrdata-pw}' \
    --name sawtooth-stats-influxdb influxdb
   

Install and Configure Grafana

1. Build the Grafana Docker image from the Dockerfile that is included in the sawtooth-core repository.

   $ cd sawtooth-core/docker
   $ docker build . -f grafana/sawtooth-stats-grafana \
    -t sawtooth-stats-grafana
   

2. Run the Grafana container.

   $ docker run -d -p 3000:3000 --name sawtooth-stats-grafana \
    sawtooth-stats-grafana
   

3. Open the Grafana web page at http://{host}:3000.

   In this URL, replace {host} with the IP or Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the system running the Grafana Docker container.

4. On the Grafana web page, log in as user admin with the password admin.

5. Change the admin password. First, click on the Grafana spiral icon at the top left of the web page and go to “Admin / Profile”. Next, click on “Change Password”.

6. Configure Grafana to use InfluxDB as a data source.

   1. Click on the Grafana spiral icon at the top left of the web page and go to “Data Sources”.
   2. Click on “Metrics”.
   3. Change the URL to the host server (IP or FQDN) running the InfluxDB Docker container.
   4. Under “InfluxDB Details”, set INFLUXDB_USER to lrdata. For INFLUXDB_USER_PASSWORD, enter the lrdata password that was defined when you set up InfluxDB.
   5. Click “Save & Test”.

7. (Sawtooth 1.0.* releases only) Import the Grafana 1.0 dashboard.

   Note

   Skip this step for Sawtooth release 1.1 and later, which can use the dashboard that is included in the Grafana Docker container from git master.

   1. Use one of these methods to get the 1.0 dashboard:
      • Find the dashboard in the 1-0 branch at sawtooth-core/docker/grafana/dashboards/sawtooth_performance.json
      • Download the dashboard from GitHub at this location: hyperledger/sawtooth-core/1-0/docker/grafana/dashboards/sawtooth_performance.json
   2. Click on the Grafana spiral logo and mouse over “Dashboards”, then click “Import”.
   3. Click “Upload .json file”.
   4. Navigate to the location of sawtooth_performance.json.
   5. Select “metrics” in the drop-down menu and click “Import”.

Configure the Sawtooth Validator for Grafana

The sawtooth-validator process reports metrics for the Sawtooth validator. Use the validator configuration file, /etc/sawtooth/validator.toml, to specify the validator settings for Grafana.

1. If the validator configuration file doesn’t exist yet, copy the template from /etc/sawtooth/validator.toml.example to /etc/sawtooth/validator.toml. For more information, see Validator Configuration File.

   Note

   The default config directory is /etc/sawtooth/. For information on finding the config directory in a non-default location, see Path Configuration File.

2. Edit /etc/sawtooth/validator.toml. Change the following settings to the values that you defined when you set up InfluxDB:

   • opentsdb_url: Enter the IP or FQDN:port to the InfluxDB instance
   • opentsdb_db: Enter metrics (the value of INFLUXDB_DB)
   • opentsdb_username: Enter lrdata (the INFLUXDB_USER)
   • opentsdb_password: Enter the password for INFLUXDB_USER_PASSWORD

   # The host and port for Open TSDB database used for metrics
   opentsdb_url = "http://{host}:3000"
   
   # The name of the database used for storing metrics
   opentsdb_db = "metrics"
   
   opentsdb_username  = "lrdata"
   
   opentsdb_password  = "{lrdata-pw}"
   

   Note

   For opentsdb_url, be sure to replace the existing host name with the IP or FQDN of the system running the InfluxDB Docker container.

3. Restart the validator for these changes to take effect.

   • If the validator was started as a systemd service:

     $ sudo systemctl restart sawtooth-validator
     

   • To restart sawtooth-validator on the command line, see the appropriate procedure in the Application Developer’s Guide: either Using Ubuntu for Your Development Environment or Ubuntu: Add a Node to the Single-Node Environment.

Configure the Sawtooth REST API for Grafana

The sawtooth-rest-api process reports metrics for the Sawtooth REST API. Use the REST API configuration file, /etc/sawtooth/rest_api.toml, to specify the REST API settings for Grafana.

1. If the REST API configuration file doesn’t exist yet, copy the template from /etc/sawtooth/rest_api.toml.example to /etc/sawtooth/rest_api.toml. For more information, see REST API Configuration File.

   Note

   The default config directory is /etc/sawtooth/. For information on finding the config directory in a non-default location, see Path Configuration File.

2. Modify opentsdb_url, opentsdb_db, opentsdb_username, and opentsdb_password to match the values used for the validator.

   opentsdb_url = "http://{host}:3000"
   
   # The name of the database used for storing metrics
   opentsdb_db = "metrics"
   
   opentsdb_username = "lrdata"
   opentsdb_password  = "{lrdata-pw}"
   

3. Restart the REST API (sawtooth-rest-api) for these changes to take effect.

   • If the REST API was started as a systemd service:

     $ sudo systemctl restart sawtooth-rest-api
     

   • To restart sawtooth-rest-api on the command line, see the appropriate procedure in the Application Developer’s Guide: either Using Ubuntu for Your Development Environment or Ubuntu: Add a Node to the Single-Node Environment. Ubuntu: Add a Node to the Single-Node Environment.

Configure Telegraf

Telegraf runs on the Sawtooth nodes to send operating system and hardware metrics to InfluxDB.

1. Install Telegraf from the InfluxData repository.

   $ curl -sL https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key |  sudo apt-key add -
   $ sudo apt-add-repository "deb https://repos.influxdata.com/ubuntu xenial stable"
   $ sudo apt-get update
   $ sudo apt-get install telegraf
   

2. Edit /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf to configure Telegraf.

   $ sudo vi /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf
   

3. Under [[outputs.influxdb]], change the following settings to match the values that you defined when you set up InfluxDB.

   urls = ["http://{host}:8086"]
   database = "metrics"
   username = "lrdata"
   password = "{lrdata-pw}"
   

   Note

   Be sure to replace {host} with the IP or FQDN of the system running the InfluxDB Docker container.

4. Restart the Telegraf service.

   $ sudo systemctl restart telegraf