HashiCorp Consul monitoring integration

The HashiCorp Consul on-host integration collects and sends inventory and metrics from your Consul environment to New Relic, where you can see the health of your Consul datacenter environment. We collect data on both the datacenter and agent/node levels.

Read on to install the integration, and to see what data we collect.

Compatibility and requirements

Our integration is compatible with HashiCorp Consul 1.0 or newer.

Before installing the integration, make sure that you meet the following requirements:

If Consul is not running on Kubernetes or Amazon ECS, you must install the infrastructure agent on a host running Consul. Otherwise:
- If running on Kubernetes, see these requirements.
- If running on ECS, see these requirements.
If using ACL, the credentials for the Consul integration must have the following policies: agent:read, node:read, and service:read.

Quick start

Instrument your Consul environment quickly and send your telemetry data with guided install. Our guided install creates a customized CLI command for your environment that downloads and installs the New Relic CLI and the infrastructure agent.

Ready to get started? Click one of these button to try it out.

Guided install

EU Guided install

Our guided install uses the infrastructure agent to set up the HashiCorp Consul integration. Not only that, it discovers other applications and log sources running in your environment and then recommends which ones you should instrument.

The guided install works with most setups. But if it doesn't suit your needs, you can find other methods below to get started monitoring your Consul environment.

Install and activate

To install the HashiCorp Consul integration, follow the instructions for your environment:

Follow the instructions for installing an integration, using the file name nri-consul.
Change directory to the integrations folder:
```
cd /etc/newrelic-infra/integrations.d
```

Copy the sample configuration file:

sudo cp consul-config.yml.sample consul-config.yml

Edit the consul-config.yml file as described in the configuration settings.
Restart the infrastructure agent.

Download the nri-consul .MSI installer image from:
http://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/windows/integrations/nri-consul/nri-consul-amd64.msi

To install from the Windows command prompt, run:

msiexec.exe /qn /i PATH\TO\nri-consul-amd64.msi

In the Integrations directory, C:\Program Files\New Relic\newrelic-infra\integrations.d\, create a copy of the sample configuration file by running:
```
cp consul-config.yml.sample consul-config.yml
```
Edit the consul-config.yml file as described in the configuration settings.
Restart the infrastructure agent.

Additional notes:

Advanced: Integrations are also available in tarball format to allow for install outside of a package manager.
On-host integrations do not automatically update. For best results, regularly update the integration package and the infrastructure agent.

Configuration

Configure the integration

There are several ways to configure the integration, depending on how it was installed:

If enabled via Kubernetes: see Monitor services running on Kubernetes.
If enabled via Amazon ECS: see Monitor services running on ECS.
If installed on-host: edit the config in the integration's YAML config file, consul-config.yml.

An integration's YAML-format configuration is where you can place required login credentials and configure how data is collected. Which options you change depend on your setup and preference.

The configuration file has common settings applicable to all integrations, such as interval, timeout, inventory_source. To read all about these common settings, refer to our Configuration Format document.

Important

If you are still using our legacy configuration/definition files, please refer to this document for help.

Specific settings related to Consul are defined using the env section of the configuration file. These settings control the connection to your Consul instance as well as other security settings and features. The list of valid settings is described in the next section of this document.

Consul Instance Settings

The Consul integration collects both metrics(M) and inventory(I) information. In the table, use the Applies To column for the settings available to each collection:

Setting	Description	Default	Applies to
HOSTNAME	Hostname or IP where Consul is running.	localhost	M/I
PORT	Port on which Consul is listening.	8500	M/I
TOKEN	ACL Token if token authentication is enabled.	N/A	M/I
ENABLE_SSL	Connect using SSL.	false	M/I
CA_BUNDLE_FILE	Alternative Certificate Authority bundle file.	N/A	M/I
CA_BUNDLE_DIR	Alternative Certificate Authority bundle directory.	N/A	M/I
TRUST_SERVER_CERTIFICATE	If set to true, server certificate is NOT verified for SSL.	false	M/I
FAN_OUT	If true will attempt to gather metrics from all other nodes in Consul cluster.	true	M
CHECK_LEADERSHIP	Check leadership on consul server. This should be disabled on consul in client mode.	true	M
TIMEOUT	Timeout for each of the consul client calls.	30s	M/I
METRICS	Set to `true` to enable metrics-only collection.	false
INVENTORY	Set to `true` to enable inventory-only collection.	false

The values for these settings can be defined in several ways:

Adding the value directly in the config file. This is the most common way.
Replacing the values from environment variables using the {{}} notation. This requires infrastructure agent v1.14.0+. Read more here or see the example below.
Using secrets management. Use this to protect sensitive information, such as passwords that would be exposed in plain text on the configuration file. For more information, see Secrets management.

Labels/Custom attributes

You can further decorate your metrics using labels. Labels allow you to add key/value pair attributes to your metrics, which you can then use to query, filter, or group your metrics on.
Our default sample config file includes examples of labels; however, as they are not mandatory, you can remove, modify, or add new ones of your choice.

labels:
   env: production
   role: load_balancer

Example configurations

This is the basic configuration used to collect metrics and inventory from your localhost:

integrations:
  - name: nri-consul
    env:
      HOSTNAME: localhost
      PORT: 8500
    interval: 15s
    labels:
      environment: production
    inventory_source: config/consul

This configuration collects metrics every 30 seconds and inventory every 60 seconds with timeout:

integrations:
  - name: nri-consul
    env:
      METRICS: true
      HOSTNAME: localhost
      PORT: 8500
      TIMEOUT: 10s
    interval: 15s
    labels:
      environment: production

  - name: nri-consul
    env:
      INVENTORY: true
      HOSTNAME: localhost
      PORT: 8500
      TIMEOUT: 10s
    interval: 60s
    labels:
      environment: production
    inventory_source: config/consul

In this configuration we are using the environment variable CONSUL_HOST to populate the HOSTNAME setting of the integration:

integrations:
  - name: nri-consul
    env:
      METRICS: "true"
      HOSTNAME: {{CONSUL_HOST}}
      PORT: 8500
    interval: 15s
    labels:
      env: production
      role: load_balancer

In this configuration we usee an ACL token to connect and we are not collecting metrics from other connected consul nodes (FAN_OUT: false):

integrations:
  - name: nri-consul
    env:
      METRICS: "true"
      HOSTNAME: localhost
      PORT: 8500
      TOKEN: my_token
      FAN_OUT: false
    interval: 15s
    labels:
      env: production
      role: load_balancer

In this configuration we are monitoring multiple Consul servers from the same integration. For the first instance (HOSTNAME: 1st_consul_host) we are collecting metrics and inventory while for the second instance (HOSTNAME: 2nd_consul_host) we will only collect metrics.

integrations:
  - name: nri-consul
    env:
      METRICS: "true"
      HOSTNAME: 1st_consul_host
      PORT: 8500
    interval: 15s
    labels:
      env: production
      role: load_balancer
  - name: nri-consul
    env:
      INVENTORY: "true"
      HOSTNAME: 1st_consul_host
      PORT: 8500
    interval: 60s
    labels:
      env: production
      role: load_balancer
    inventory_source: config/consul

  - name: nri-consul
    env:
      METRICS: "true"
      HOSTNAME: 2nd_consul_host
      PORT: 8500
    interval: 15s
    labels:
      env: production
      role: load_balancer

Find and use data

Data from this service is reported to an integration dashboard.

Metrics are attached to these event types:

ConsulDatacenterSample
ConsulAgentSample

You can query this data for troubleshooting purposes or to create custom charts and dashboards.

For more on how to find and use your data, see Understand integration data.

Metric data

The HashiCorp Consul integration collects the following metric data attributes.

Consul datacenter sample metrics

These attributes are attached to the ConsulDatacenterSample event type:

Metric	Description
`consul.catalog.nodes_critical`	The number of nodes with service status `critical` from those registered.
`consul.catalog.nodes_passing`	The number of nodes with service status `passing` from those registered.
`consul.catalog.nodes_up`	The number of nodes.
`consul.catalog.nodes_warning`	The number of nodes with service status `warning` from those registered.
`consul.catalog.total_nodes`	The number of nodes registered in the consul cluster.
`consul.memberlist.msg.suspect`	The number of times an agent suspects another as failed while probing during gossip protocol.
`consul.raft.apply`	The number of raft transactions occurring.
`consul.raft.commitTime.avg`	The average time it takes to commit a new entry to the raft log on the leader.
`consul.raft.commitTime.count`	The number of samples of `raft.commitTime`.
`consul.raft.commitTime.max`	The max time it takes to commit a new entry to the raft log on the leader.
`consul.raft.commitTime.median`	The median time it takes to commit a new entry to the raft log on the leader.
`consul.raft.leader.dispatchLog.avg`	The average time it takes for the leader to write log entries to disk.
`consul.raft.leader.dispatchLog.count`	The number of samples of `raft.leader.dispatchLog`.
`consul.raft.leader.dispatchLog.max`	The max time it takes for the leader to write log entries to disk.
`consul.raft.leader.dispatchLog.median`	The median time it takes for the leader to write log entries to disk.
`consul.raft.leader.lastContact.avg`	The average time elapsed since the leader was last able to check its lease with followers.
`consul.raft.leader.lastContact.count`	The number of samples of `raft.leader.lastContact`.
`consul.raft.leader.lastContact.max`	The max time elapsed since the leader was last able to check its lease with followers.
`consul.raft.leader.lastContact.median`	The median time elapsed since the leader was last able to check its lease with followers.
`consul.raft.state.candidate`	The number of initiated leader elections.
`consul.raft.state.leader`	The number of completed leader elections.
`consul.serf.member.flap`	The number of times an agent is marked dead and then quickly recovers.

Consul agent sample metrics

These attributes are attached to the ConsulAgentSample event type:

Metric	Description
`agent.aclCacheHit`	ACL cache hits.
`agent.aclCacheMiss`	ACL cache misses.
`agent.kvStores`	The number of samples of `kvs.apply`.
`agent.kvStoresAvgInMilliseconds`	The average time it takes to complete an update to the KV store.
`agent.kvStoresMaxInMilliseconds`	The max time it takes to complete an update to the KV store.
`agent.kvStoresMedianInMilliseconds`	The median time it takes to complete an update to the KV store.
`agent.peers`	The number of peers in the peer set.
`agent.staleQueries`	Served queries within the allowed stale threshold.
`agent.txnAvgInMilliseconds`	The average time it takes to apply a transaction operation.
`agent.txnMaxInMilliseconds`	The max time it takes to apply a transaction operation.
`agent.txnMedianInMilliseconds`	The median time it takes to apply a transaction operation.
`agent.txns`	The number of samples of `txn.apply`.
`client.rpcFailed`	Measure of failed RPC requests.
`client.rpcLoad`	Measure of how much an agent is loading Consul servers.
`client.rpcRateLimited`	Measure of RPC requests that get rate limited.
`net.agent.maxLatencyInMilliseconds`	Maximum latency from this node to all others.
`net.agent.medianLatencyInMilliseconds`	Median latency from this node to all others.
`net.agent.minLatencyInMilliseconds`	Minimum latency from this node to all others.
`net.agent.p25LatencyInMilliseconds`	P25 latency from this node to all others.
`net.agent.p75LatencyInMilliseconds`	P75 latency from this node to all others.
`net.agent.p90LatencyInMilliseconds`	P90 latency from this node to all others.
`net.agent.p95LatencyInMilliseconds`	P95 latency from this node to all others.
`net.agent.p99LatencyInMilliseconds`	P99 latency from this node to all others.
`runtime.allocations`	Cumulative count of heap objects allocated.
`runtime.allocationsInBytes`	The current bytes allocated by the Consul process.
`runtime.frees`	Cumulative count of heap objects freed.
`runtime.gcCycles`	The number of completed GC cycles.
`runtime.gcPauseInMilliseconds`	Cumulative nanoseconds in GC stop-the-world pauses since Consul started.
`runtime.goroutines`	The number of running go routines.
`runtime.heapObjects`	The number of objects allocated on the heap
`runtime.virtualAddressSpaceInBytes`	Total size of the virtual address space reserved by the go runtime.

Inventory data

The HashiCorp Consul integration captures the configuration parameters and current settings of the Consul Agent nodes. It collects the results of the /v1/agent/self REST API endpoint. It pulls the Config and DebugConfig sections from that response.

Tip

Note: Nested sections within Config and DebugConfig are not collected.

The data is available on the Inventory page, under the config/consul source. For more about inventory data, see Understand integration data.

Check the source code

This integration is open source software. That means you can browse its source code and send improvements, or create your own fork and build it.

HashiCorp Consul monitoring integration

Compatibility and requirements

Quick start

Install and activate

ECS

Kubernetes

Linux

Windows