How can users extract detailed alert data directly from Prometheus and Alert Manager APIs to overcome the limitations of the Alert Manager dashboard, specifically the unavailability of crucial alert fields like start and end times?
Issue Description:
Users may find it challenging to parse through the alerts and to determine their start and end times as those fields are not exposed in the Alert Manager Dashboard. This leads to difficulties in monitoring and managing the alerts effectively.
The following commands provide an approach to pull alerts directly from Prometheus and Alert Manager APIs via the command-line and filter them based on their severity (e.g., warning or critical):
#Pulling Alerts from Alert Manager API:
curl -s http://$(kubectl get svc -n cattle-monitoring-system rancher-monitoring-alertmanager -o jsonpath='{.spec.clusterIP}'):9093/api/v1/alerts | jq
#Filtering Alerts by warning or critical Severity from Alert Manager API:
curl -s http://$(kubectl get svc -n cattle-monitoring-system rancher-monitoring-alertmanager -o jsonpath='{.spec.clusterIP}'):9093/api/v1/alerts | jq '[.data[] | select(.labels.severity == "warning" or .labels.severity == "critical")]'
#Pulling Alerts from Prometheus API:
curl -s http://$(kubectl get svc -n cattle-monitoring-system rancher-monitoring-prometheus -o jsonpath='{.spec.clusterIP}'):9090/api/v1/alerts | jq
#Filtering Alerts by warning or critical Severity from Prometheus API:
curl -s http://$(kubectl get svc -n cattle-monitoring-system rancher-monitoring-prometheus -o jsonpath='{.spec.clusterIP}'):9090/api/v1/alerts | jq '[.data.alerts[] | select(.labels.severity == "warning" or .labels.severity == "critical")]'
Displayed below is a sample output illustrating the result of extracting alerts from the Prometheus API, specifically filtered to showcase those with an 'info' status.
Root Cause:
The necessity for manually pulling and filtering alerts from the APIs arises from the limitations in the Alert Manager dashboard, particularly the unavailability of crucial alert fields like start and end times. These commands allow users to overcome these limitations by obtaining detailed and filtered alert data directly from the APIs, ensuring enhanced visibility and management of alerts.
By utilizing the provided commands to pull data directly from the Prometheus and Alert Manager APIs, users can circumvent the limitations of the dashboard and gain access to detailed, formatted alert information, enabling more effective monitoring and alert management.
Resolution:
Execute the aforementioned commands in a terminal to pull and filter the list of alerts from the Prometheus and Alert Manager APIs, respectively.
The command uses curl to send a request to the Prometheus or Alert Manager API, depending on the service IP retrieved by the kubectl get svc command. The jq tool then processes the received JSON response for better readability.
- Open the terminal in the environment where kubectl is configured to communicate with your cluster
- Run the provided curl commands
- Analyze the output to review the alerts' details such as labels, annotations, start times, and end times.