--- title: "Configure remote_write with a Prometheus ConfigMap | Grafana Cloud documentation" description: "How to configure remote_write with Prometheus ConfigMap to scrape and send metrics to Grafana Cloud" --- # Configure remote\_write with a Prometheus ConfigMap If you have [Prometheus](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus) installed and running in your cluster, and you configured using a Kubernetes [ConfigMap](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/configmap/), you can send scraped samples to Grafana Cloud using Prometheus’s [`remote_write` feature](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#remote_write). ## Before you begin Before you begin, you must have the following items: - A Kubernetes `>=1.16.0` cluster. - A Grafana Cloud Standard account. To create an account, refer to [Get started](/docs/grafana-cloud/get-started/). - A Grafana Cloud access policy token with the `metrics:write` scope. To create a Grafana Cloud access policy, refer to [Create a Grafana Cloud Access Policy](/docs/grafana-cloud/security-and-account-management/authentication-and-permissions/access-policies/create-access-policies/). - The `kubectl` command-line tool installed on your local machine and configured to connect to your cluster. To install, refer to [install `kubectl`](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/install-kubectl/). - The Prometheus monitoring system installed and running in your cluster as a Deployment, configured using a ConfigMap To install Prometheus Operator in your cluster, refer to [Install Prometheus Operator with Grafana Cloud for Kubernetes](/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-infrastructure/kubernetes-monitoring/configuration/config-other-methods/prometheus/remote-write-operator/). Prometheus Operator abstracts away much of Prometheus’s configuration and management overhead. ## Modify Prometheus ConfigMap 1. To locate your Grafana Cloud Metrics username and password, navigate to your stack in the Cloud Portal and click **Details** next to the Prometheus panel. Your password corresponds to a Cloud Access Policy token that you can generate by clicking on **Generate now** in this same panel. To create a Cloud Access Policy, refer to [Create a Grafana Cloud Access Policy](/docs/grafana-cloud/account-management/authentication-and-permissions/access-policies/authorize-services/). 2. Note your username and password. 3. To inject your username and password into your Prometheus configuration file, modify the Kubernetes ConfigMap resource which contains Prometheus’s configuration. Unfortunately Prometheus does not support pulling environment variables from the execution environment. Therefore, you cannot readily use a Kubernetes Secret object in this case. Using Secrets or `envsubst` goes beyond the scope of this content. 4. Locate the ConfigMap manifest and open it in an editor. It will look similar to the following example. This ConfigMap is installed in the `monitoring` Namespace, where the Prometheus Deployment should also be running. ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```none apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: prometheus namespace: monitoring data: prometheus.yml: |- global: scrape_interval: 5s evaluation_interval: 5s rule_files: - /etc/prometheus/prometheus.rules alerting: alertmanagers: - scheme: http static_configs: - targets: - "alertmanager.monitoring.svc:9093" . . . ``` 5. Modify this ConfigMap by adding the following `remote_write` configuration block: ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```none apiVersion: v1 kind: ConfigMap metadata: name: prometheus_v2 namespace: monitoring data: prometheus.yml: |- global: scrape_interval: 5s evaluation_interval: 5s . . . remote_write: - url: basic_auth: username: password: ``` To find the `/api/prom/push` URL, username, and password for your metrics endpoint, click **Details** in the Prometheus card of the [Cloud Portal](/docs/grafana-cloud/account-management/cloud-portal/). This block creates a default `remote_write` configuration that sends samples to the Cloud Metrics Prometheus endpoint. It also sets the authorization header on `remote_write` requests with your Grafana Cloud credentials. To tune the default `remote_write` parameters, refer to [Remote Write Tuning](https://prometheus.io/docs/practices/remote_write/). Make sure you give the ConfigMap a new versioned name as well. To do so, append a suffix like `_v2`. 6. Save and close the file. ## Update the running Prometheus Deployment 1. To make your configuration changes in the cluster, update the Prometheus Deployment with the newly versioned ConfigMap. > Note > > You can make configuration changes in Kubernetes clusters in many different ways. These steps focus on configuring `remote_write`, and are not meant to cover blue-green or production Prometheus rollout scenarios. In the previous step, you assigned the ConfigMap a new name. When you update the ConfigMap reference in the Deployment, Kubernetes redeploys any Pods using the old ConfigMap. 2. Open the Prometheus Deployment in an editor. It will look similar to the following example. This file may vary depending on how you configured and deployed Prometheus. The above manifest defines a 2-Pod Prometheus Deployment that references a ConfigMap called `prometheus`. The `prometheus.yml` key containing Prometheus’s configuration is mounted to `/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml`. ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```none apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: prometheus-deployment labels: app: prometheus spec: replicas: 2 selector: . . . template: metadata: labels: app: prometheus . . . spec: containers: - name: prometheus image: prometheus ports: - containerPort: 9090 volumeMounts: - name: config-volume mountPath: /etc/prometheus/ volumes: - name: config-volume configMap: name: prometheus ``` 3. To update this Deployment, change the ConfigMap: ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```none . . . volumes: - name: config-volume configMap: name: prometheus_v2 ``` You update the `configMap`’s `name` field from `prometheus` to `prometheus_v2` to reference the new ConfigMap defined earlier. 4. When you’re done, save and close the file. 5. Roll out the changes using `kubectl apply -f`: ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```none kubectl apply -f .yaml ``` ## Check your work To verify that your running Prometheus instance is remote\_writing correctly: 1. Get the Prometheus server’s service name: ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```none kubectl get svc ``` 2. Use `port-forward` to forward a local port to the Prometheus service: ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```none kubectl --namespace monitoring port-forward svc/ 9090:80 ``` Replace `monitoring` with the appropriate namespace, and `` with the name of the Prometheus service. 3. Navigate to `http://localhost:9090` in your browser, and then **Status** and **Configuration**. 4. Verify that the `remote_write` block you appended above has propagated to your running Prometheus instance configuration. 5. Log in to your Grafana instance to begin querying your cluster data. 6. Navigate to [Kubernetes Monitoring](/docs/grafana-cloud/monitor-infrastructure/kubernetes-monitoring/navigate-k8s-monitoring/#navigate-to-kubernetes-monitoring), and click **Configuration** on the main menu. 7. Click the **Metrics status** tab to view the data status. Your data begins populating in the view as the system components begin scraping and sending data to Grafana Cloud. [**Metrics status** tab with status indicators for one Cluster](/media/docs/grafana-cloud/k8s/metrics-status-9-18.png)