Install the Kubernetes integration for Windows

To run our Kubernetes installation for Windows, follow the steps below to:

• Check the compatibility and requirements.
• Update the manifest file.
• Learn about the limitations of the integration.

Compatibility and requirements

Before you install New Relic's Kubernetes integration, review the compatibility and requirements.

To check your Windows version:

1. Open a command window.

2. Run the following command:

   bash

   Copy

   $
   Reg Query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" /v
   $
   ReleaseIdcmd.exe

Example: Get Kubernetes for Windows from a BusyBox container.

$
kubectl exec -it busybox1-766bb4d6cc-rmsnj -- Reg Query
$
  "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" /v ReleaseId

You should see something like:

$
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
$
    ReleaseId   REG_SZ  1809

A useful mapping between Release IDs and OS versions can be found here.

Install

You can install the Kubernetes integration for Windows using Helm. See an example on how to install the integration in a cluster with nodes having different build versions of Windows (1809 and 2004):

1. Add the New Relic Helm charts repo:

$
helm repo add newrelic https://helm-charts.newrelic.com

2. Create a namespace for newrelic:

$
kubectl create namespace newrelic

3. Install kube-state-metrics.

$
helm repo add ksm https://kubernetes.github.io/kube-state-metrics
$
helm install ksm ksm/kube-state-metrics --version 2.13.2

4. Create a values.yml file with the follow data to be used by Helm:

global:
  licenseKey: _YOUR_NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY_
  cluster: _K8S_CLUSTER_NAME_

enableLinux: true  # Set to true if your cluster also has linux nodes
enableWindows: true
windowsOsList:
  - version: 2019  # Human-readable version identifier
    imageTag: 2-windows-1809-alpha  # Tag to be used for nodes running the windows version above
    buildNumber: 10.0.17763  # Build number for your nodes running the version above. Used as a selector.
  - version: 20h2
    imageTag: 2-windows-20H2-alpha
    buildNumber: 10.0.19042
  - version: 2022
    imageTag: 2-windows-ltsc2022-alpha
    buildNumber: 10.0.20348

5. Install the integration with:

$
helm upgrade --install newrelic newrelic/newrelic-infrastructure \
>
--namespace newrelic --create-namespace \
>
--version 3.2.11 \
>
-f values-newrelic.yaml

6. Check that pods are being deployed and reach a stable state:

$
kubectl -n newrelic get pods -w

The Helm chart will create one DeamonSet per each version of Windows that is in the list and use NodeSelector to deploy the corresponding Pod per Node.

Limitations

The following limitations apply to the Kubernetes integration for Windows:

• The Windows agent only sends the Kubernetes samples (K8sNodeSample, K8sPodSample, etc.)
  • SystemSample, StorageSample, NetworkSample, and ProcessSample are not generated.
• Some Kubernetes metrics are missing because the Windows kubelet doesn’t have them:
  • Node:
    • fsInodes: not sent
    • fsInodesFree: not sent
    • fsInodesUsed: not sent
    • memoryMajorPageFaultsPerSecond: always returns zero as a value
    • memoryPageFaults: always returns zero as a value
    • memoryRssBytes: always returns zero as a value
    • runtimeInodes: not sent
    • runtimeInodesFree: not sent
    • runtimeInodesUsed: not sent
  • Pod:
    • net.errorsPerSecond: not sent
    • net.rxBytesPerSecond: not sent
    • net.txBytesPerSecond: not sent
  • Container:
    • containerID: not sent
    • containerImageID: not sent
    • memoryUsedBytes: in the UI, this is displayed in the pod card that appears when you click on a pod, and will show no data. We will soon fix this by updating our charts to use memoryWorkingSetBytes instead.
  • Volume:
    • fsUsedBytes: zero, so fsUsedPercent is zero

Known issues with the Windows Kubelet

There are a couple of issues with the Windows version of Kubelet that can prevent the integration from fetching data:

• Issue 90554: This issue makes the Kubelet return 500 errors when the integration makes a request to the /stats/summary endpoint. It will be included in the Kubernetes 1.19 release and has been backported to the releases 1.16.11, 1.17.7, and 1.18.4. There is no solution on the integration side for this problem, we advise you to update to one of the patch versions as soon as possible. You can see if you're being affected by this problem by enabling verbose logs and looking for messages of the type:

error querying Kubelet. Get "https://<KUBELET_IP>/stats/summary": error calling kubelet endpoint. Got status code: 500

• Issue 87730: This issue makes the Kubelet metrics very slow when running minimal load. It makes the integration fail with a timeout error. A patch for this issue has been added for Kubernetes 1.18 and backported to 1.15.12, 1.16.9, and 1.17.5. We advise you to update to one of the patch versions as soon as possible. To mitigate this issue you can increase the integration timeout with the TIMEOUT config option. You can see if you're being affected by this problem by enabling verbose logs and looking for messages of the type:

error querying Kubelet. Get "https://<KUBELET_IP>/stats/summary": context deadline exceeded (Client.Timeout exceeded while awaiting headers)