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3701a827cf
1. Added a further explanation of the for clause. 2. Added further clarification of non identifying labels.
105 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
105 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Alerting rules
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sort_rank: 3
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---
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# Alerting rules
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Alerting rules allow you to define alert conditions based on Prometheus
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expression language expressions and to send notifications about firing alerts
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to an external service. Whenever the alert expression results in one or more
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vector elements at a given point in time, the alert counts as active for these
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elements' label sets.
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### Defining alerting rules
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Alerting rules are configured in Prometheus in the same way as [recording
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rules](recording_rules.md).
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An example rules file with an alert would be:
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```yaml
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groups:
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- name: example
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rules:
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- alert: HighErrorRate
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expr: job:request_latency_seconds:mean5m{job="myjob"} > 0.5
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for: 10m
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labels:
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severity: page
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annotations:
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summary: High request latency
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```
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The optional `for` clause causes Prometheus to wait for a certain duration
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between first encountering a new expression output vector element and counting an alert as firing for this element. In this case, Prometheus will check that the alert continues to be active during each evaluation for 10 minutes before firing the alert. Elements that are active, but not firing yet, are in the pending state.
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The `labels` clause allows specifying a set of additional labels to be attached
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to the alert. Any existing conflicting labels will be overwritten. The label
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values can be templated.
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The `annotations` clause specifies a set of informational labels that can be used to store longer additional information such as alert descriptions or runbook links. The annotation values can be templated.
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#### Templating
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Label and annotation values can be templated using [console templates](https://prometheus.io/docs/visualization/consoles).
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The `$labels` variable holds the label key/value pairs of an alert instance
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and `$value` holds the evaluated value of an alert instance.
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# To insert a firing element's label values:
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{{ $labels.<labelname> }}
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# To insert the numeric expression value of the firing element:
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{{ $value }}
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Examples:
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```yaml
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groups:
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- name: example
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rules:
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# Alert for any instance that is unreachable for >5 minutes.
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- alert: InstanceDown
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expr: up == 0
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for: 5m
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labels:
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severity: page
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annotations:
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summary: "Instance {{ $labels.instance }} down"
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description: "{{ $labels.instance }} of job {{ $labels.job }} has been down for more than 5 minutes."
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# Alert for any instance that has a median request latency >1s.
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- alert: APIHighRequestLatency
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expr: api_http_request_latencies_second{quantile="0.5"} > 1
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for: 10m
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annotations:
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summary: "High request latency on {{ $labels.instance }}"
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description: "{{ $labels.instance }} has a median request latency above 1s (current value: {{ $value }}s)"
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```
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### Inspecting alerts during runtime
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To manually inspect which alerts are active (pending or firing), navigate to
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the "Alerts" tab of your Prometheus instance. This will show you the exact
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label sets for which each defined alert is currently active.
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For pending and firing alerts, Prometheus also stores synthetic time series of
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the form `ALERTS{alertname="<alert name>", alertstate="pending|firing", <additional alert labels>}`.
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The sample value is set to `1` as long as the alert is in the indicated active
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(pending or firing) state, and a single `0` value gets written out when an alert
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transitions from active to inactive state. Once inactive, the time series does
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not get further updates.
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### Sending alert notifications
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Prometheus's alerting rules are good at figuring what is broken *right now*, but
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they are not a fully-fledged notification solution. Another layer is needed to
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add summarization, notification rate limiting, silencing and alert dependencies
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on top of the simple alert definitions. In Prometheus's ecosystem, the
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[Alertmanager](https://prometheus.io/docs/alerting/alertmanager/) takes on this
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role. Thus, Prometheus may be configured to periodically send information about
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alert states to an Alertmanager instance, which then takes care of dispatching
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the right notifications.
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Prometheus can be [configured](configuration.md) to automatically discovered available
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Alertmanager instances through its service discovery integrations.
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