CockroachDB integration

Monitor infrastructure

Grafana integrations

Integrations reference

CockroachDB

Grafana Cloud

CockroachDB integration for Grafana Cloud

CockroachDB is a cloud-native SQL database for building global, scalable cloud services that survive disasters.

This integration includes 8 useful alerts and 4 pre-built dashboards to help monitor and visualize CockroachDB metrics.

Before you begin

CockroachDB exposes a Prometheus metrics endpoint that is enabled by default.

Install CockroachDB integration for Grafana Cloud

In your Grafana Cloud stack, click Connections in the left-hand menu.
Find CockroachDB and click its tile to open the integration.
Review the prerequisites in the Configuration Details tab and set up Grafana Alloy to send CockroachDB metrics to your Grafana Cloud instance.
Click Install to add this integration’s pre-built dashboards and alerts to your Grafana Cloud instance, and you can start monitoring your CockroachDB setup.

Configuration snippets for Grafana Alloy

Simple mode

These snippets are configured to scrape a single CockroachDB instance running locally with default ports.

First, manually copy and append the following snippets into your alloy configuration file.

Metrics snippets

alloy
discovery.relabel "metrics_integrations_integrations_cockroachdb" {
	targets = [{
		__address__ = "localhost:8080",
		cluster     = "cloud",
	}]

	rule {
		target_label = "instance"
		replacement  = constants.hostname
	}
}

prometheus.scrape "metrics_integrations_integrations_cockroachdb" {
	targets      = discovery.relabel.metrics_integrations_integrations_cockroachdb.output
	forward_to   = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
	job_name     = "integrations/cockroachdb"
	metrics_path = "/_status/vars"
}

Advanced mode

The following snippets provide examples to guide you through the configuration process.

To instruct Grafana Alloy to scrape your CockroachDB instances, manually copy and append the snippets to your alloy configuration file, then follow subsequent instructions.

Advanced metrics snippets

alloy
discovery.relabel "metrics_integrations_integrations_cockroachdb" {
	targets = [{
		__address__ = "localhost:8080",
		cluster     = "cloud",
	}]

	rule {
		target_label = "instance"
		replacement  = constants.hostname
	}
}

prometheus.scrape "metrics_integrations_integrations_cockroachdb" {
	targets      = discovery.relabel.metrics_integrations_integrations_cockroachdb.output
	forward_to   = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
	job_name     = "integrations/cockroachdb"
	metrics_path = "/_status/vars"
}

To monitor your CockroachDB instance, you must use a discovery.relabel component to discover your CockroachDB Prometheus endpoint and apply appropriate labels, followed by a prometheus.scrape component to scrape it.

Configure the following properties within each discovery.relabel component:

__address__: The address to your CockroachDB Prometheus metrics endpoint.
instance label: constants.hostname sets the instance label to your Grafana Alloy server hostname. If that is not suitable, change it to a value uniquely identifies this CockroachDB instance.
cluster: If you are running on k8s, set this to your k8s cluster name

If you have multiple CockroachDB servers to scrape, configure one discovery.relabel for each and scrape them by including each under targets within the prometheus.scrape component.

Kubernetes instructions

Before you begin with Kubernetes

Please note: These instructions assume the use of the Kubernetes Monitoring Helm chart

CockroachDB exposes a Prometheus metrics endpoint that is enabled by default.

Configuration snippets for Kubernetes Helm chart

The following snippets provide examples to guide you through the configuration process.

To scrape your CockroachDB instances, manually modify your Kubernetes Monitoring Helm chart with these configuration snippets.

Replace any values between the angle brackets <> in the provided snippets with your desired configuration values.

Metrics snippets

alloy
alloy-metrics:
    extraConfig: |-
        discovery.kubernetes "cockroachdb" {
            role = "service"
            selectors {
                role  = "service"
                label = "<service label>=<service label value>"
            }
        }

        prometheus.scrape "cockroachdb" {
            targets    = discovery.kubernetes.cockroachdb.output
            job_name   = "integrations/cockroachdb"
            forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.grafana_cloud_metrics.receiver]
        }

Grafana Agent static configuration (deprecated)

The following section shows configuration for running Grafana Agent in static mode which is deprecated. You should use Grafana Alloy for all new deployments.

Before you begin with Grafana Agent static

CockroachDB exposes a Prometheus metrics endpoint that is enabled by default.

Install CockroachDB integration

In your Grafana Cloud stack, click Connections in the left-hand menu.
Find CockroachDB and click its tile to open the integration.
Review the prerequisites in the Configuration Details tab and set up Grafana Agent to send CockroachDB metrics to your Grafana Cloud instance.
Click Install to add this integration’s pre-built dashboards and alerts to your Grafana Cloud instance, and you can start monitoring your CockroachDB setup.

Post-install configuration for the CockroachDB integration

Instruct Grafana Agent to scrape your CockroachDB nodes.

CockroachDB exposes a /_status/vars endpoint. To scrape it, add the provided snippet to your agent configuration file.

A cluster label must be added to each scrape, as shown in the code snippet. This is used as a filter in the dashboards, so you can monitor your nodes by cluster. Make sure to give it a value according to your environment.

Make sure to change targets in the snippet according to your environment.

Configuration snippets for Grafana Agent

Below metrics.configs.scrape_configs, insert the following lines and change the URLs according to your environment:

yaml
    - job_name: integrations/cockroachdb
      metrics_path: /_status/vars
      relabel_configs:
      - replacement: '<your-instance-name>'
        target_label: instance
      static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:8080']
        labels:
          cluster: cloud

Full example configuration for Grafana Agent

Refer to the following Grafana Agent configuration for a complete example that contains all the snippets used for the CockroachDB integration. This example also includes metrics that are sent to monitor your Grafana Agent instance.

yaml
integrations:
  prometheus_remote_write:
  - basic_auth:
      password: <your_prom_pass>
      username: <your_prom_user>
    url: <your_prom_url>
  agent:
    enabled: true
    relabel_configs:
    - action: replace
      source_labels:
      - agent_hostname
      target_label: instance
    - action: replace
      target_label: job
      replacement: "integrations/agent-check"
    metric_relabel_configs:
    - action: keep
      regex: (prometheus_target_sync_length_seconds_sum|prometheus_target_scrapes_.*|prometheus_target_interval.*|prometheus_sd_discovered_targets|agent_build.*|agent_wal_samples_appended_total|process_start_time_seconds)
      source_labels:
      - __name__
  # Add here any snippet that belongs to the `integrations` section.
  # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
logs:
  configs:
  - clients:
    - basic_auth:
        password: <your_loki_pass>
        username: <your_loki_user>
      url: <your_loki_url>
    name: integrations
    positions:
      filename: /tmp/positions.yaml
    scrape_configs:
      # Add here any snippet that belongs to the `logs.configs.scrape_configs` section.
      # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
metrics:
  configs:
  - name: integrations
    remote_write:
    - basic_auth:
        password: <your_prom_pass>
        username: <your_prom_user>
      url: <your_prom_url>
    scrape_configs:
      # Add here any snippet that belongs to the `metrics.configs.scrape_configs` section.
      # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
    - job_name: integrations/cockroachdb
      metrics_path: /_status/vars
      relabel_configs:
      - replacement: '<your-instance-name>'
        target_label: instance
      static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:8080']
        labels:
          cluster: cloud
  global:
    scrape_interval: 60s
  wal_directory: /tmp/grafana-agent-wal

Dashboards

The CockroachDB integration installs the following dashboards in your Grafana Cloud instance to help monitor your system.

Cockroach Replicas
Cockroach Runtime
Cockroach SQL
Cockroach Storage

CockroachDB Replicas - 1

CockroachDB Runtime - 1

CockroachDB Storage - 1

Alerts

The CockroachDB integration includes the following useful alerts:

Alert	Description
CockroachInstanceFlapping	Warning: CockroachDB instances have restarted in the last 10 minutes.
CockroachLivenessMismatch	Warning: CockroachDB has liveness mismatches.
CockroachVersionMismatch	Warning: CockroachDB cluster is running different versions.
CockroachStoreDiskLow	Critical: CockroachDB is at low disk capacity.
CockroachClusterDiskLow	Critical: CockroachDB cluster is at critically low disk capacity.
CockroachUnavailableRanges	Critical: CockroachDB has unavailable ranges.
CockroachNoLeaseRanges	Warning: CockroachDB has ranges without leases.
CockroachHighOpenFDCount	Warning: CockroachDB has too many open file descriptors.

Metrics

The most important metrics provided by the CockroachDB integration, which are used on the pre-built dashboards and Prometheus alerts, are as follows:

:cockroachdb_capacity_available:ratio
build_timestamp
capacity
capacity_available
capacity_reserved
clock_offset_meannanos
cluster:cockroachdb_capacity_available:ratio
cockroachdb_build_timestamp
cockroachdb_capacity
cockroachdb_capacity_available
cockroachdb_liveness_livenodes
cockroachdb_ranges_unavailable
cockroachdb_replicas_leaders_not_leaseholders
cockroachdb_sys_fd_open
cockroachdb_sys_fd_softlimit
cockroachdb_sys_uptime
keybytes
livebytes
liveness_livenodes
raft_process_commandcommit_latency_bucket
raft_process_logcommit_latency_bucket
raft_rocksdb_block_cache_hits
raft_rocksdb_block_cache_misses
raft_rocksdb_num_sstables
raft_rocksdb_read_amplification
raftlog_behind
raftlog_selfbehind
raftlog_truncated
range_adds
range_removes
range_snapshots_generated
range_snapshots_normal_applied
range_snapshots_preemptive_applied
range_splits
ranges
ranges_unavailable
ranges_underreplicated
rebalancing_writespersecond
replicas
replicas_leaders
replicas_leaders_not_leaseholders
replicas_leaseholders
replicas_quiescent
replicas_reserved
rocksdb_block_cache_hits
rocksdb_block_cache_misses
rocksdb_num_sstables
rocksdb_read_amplification
round_trip_latency_bucket
sql_bytesin
sql_bytesout
sql_conns
sql_ddl_count
sql_delete_count
sql_exec_latency_bucket
sql_insert_count
sql_select_count
sql_txn_abort_count
sql_txn_begin_count
sql_txn_commit_count
sql_txn_rollback_count
sql_update_count
sys_cgo_allocbytes
sys_cgo_totalbytes
sys_cgocalls
sys_cpu_sys_ns
sys_cpu_user_ns
sys_fd_open
sys_fd_softlimit
sys_gc_count
sys_gc_pause_ns
sys_go_allocbytes
sys_go_totalbytes
sys_goroutines
sys_rss
sys_uptime
sysbytes
up
valbytes

Changelog

# 1.0.0 - January 2024

* Updated dashboards to use new React based panels
* Fixed queries for histogram metrics to address panels showing "no data"

# 0.0.6 - September 2023

* New Filter Metrics option for configuring the Grafana Agent, which saves on metrics cost by dropping any metric not used by this integration. Beware that anything custom built using metrics that are not on the snippet will stop working.
* New hostname relabel option, which applies the instance name you write on the text box to the Grafana Agent configuration snippets, making it easier and less error prone to configure this mandatory label.

# 0.0.5 - May 2023

* Add summary and description to alerts to give better visibility of alerts at a glance

# 0.0.4 - February 2023

* Added Grafana Agent Operator configuration snippet to support CockroachDB in a kubernetes cluster.

# 0.0.3 - June 2022

* Add cluster label to agent config
* Rename `node` to `instance` to be consistent with other dashboards, and the prometheus scraping convention
* Add job matcher to all queries on all dashboards, with corresponding dashboard template variable

# 0.0.2 - October 2021

* Update all rate queries to use `$__rate_interval`, so they respect the default resolution

# 0.0.1 - December 2020

* Initial release

Cost

By connecting your CockroachDB instance to Grafana Cloud, you might incur charges. To view information on the number of active series that your Grafana Cloud account uses for metrics included in each Cloud tier, see Active series and dpm usage and Cloud tier pricing.