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Chapter 21. Using the Skupper console

You can use the Skupper console to monitor and troubleshoot your application network. The console provides a visual overview of the sites, links, services, and communication metrics.

Prerequisites

  • Access to an Kubernetes cluster with Network Observer installed.
  • A site is created in a namespace

Procedure

  1. Change context to the site namespace.

  2. If you are using the OpenShift console:

    1. Navigate to Operators Installed Operators.
    2. Choose Red Hat Service Interconnect Network Observer Operator from the list of available Operators, and then click Create Instance.

  3. If you are not using the OpenShift console:

    1. Create a file named network-observer.yaml with the following CR: 

      apiVersion: observability.skupper.io/v2alpha1
kind: NetworkObserver
metadata:
  name: networkobserver-sample
  namespace: west
spec: {}

      Change the namespace value to match the site namespace.

  4. Apply the CR YAML: 

    $ kubectl apply -f network-observer.yaml

  5. Determine the console URL: 

    kubectl get --namespace west -o jsonpath="{.spec.host}" route networkobserver-sample-network-observer
  6. Navigate to the console.

21.1. Configuring the Network observer
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Currently the primary purpose of the Network Observer is to provide a console for monitoring your application network. This section describes advanced configuration.

  1. Change context to a site namespace.

  2. Apply a CR to create the Network Observer instance

    The following CR shows the supported parameters that you can use to configure the Network observer instance: 

    apiVersion: observability.skupper.io/v2alpha1
kind: NetworkObserver
metadata:
  name: networkobserver-sample
  namespace: west
spec:
  # Resource requests and limits
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: "250m"
      memory: "4Gi"
    limits:
      cpu: "1"
      memory: "8Gi"

  # Authentication strategies
  auth:
    # strategy is one of none, basic, or openshift
    strategy: "openshift"
    openshift:
      # createCookieSecret -
      # for the openshift oauth2 proxy.
      createCookieSecret: true
      # cookieSecretName name of the session cookie secret.
      cookieSecretName: ""
      # Service account for openshift auth
      serviceAccount:
        create: true
        nameOverride: ""

    See the table below for explanation of the parameters.

  3. Verify the configuration, enter: 

    oc describe networkobserver networkobserver-sample -n west

    Note that the parameters listed in output, not related to the CR above, are not configurable.

Parameters reference

The following table describes the configuration parameters:

Expand
ParameterTypeDescription / Implications

resources.requests.cpu

String

The minimum CPU guaranteed to the Network observer. Increase this if the console feels sluggish under high network load.

resources.requests.memory

String

The initial memory allocation. 4Gi is the recommended minimum for medium-sized networks.

resources.limits.cpu

String

The maximum CPU the Network observer can consume.

resources.limits.memory

String

The upper bound of memory.

If memory usage exceeds this limit, the pod is terminated due to insufficient memory.

auth.strategy

String

Defines how users log in. Options: none (no auth), basic (username/password), or openshift (default OAuth2 proxy).

auth.openshift.createCookieSecret

Boolean

When true (default), the operator automatically generates a secret for the OAuth2 session cookie. Set to false if providing a manual secret.

auth.openshift.serviceAccount.create

Boolean

When true (default), the operator automatically creates a ServiceAccount with the necessary permissions for OpenShift authentication.

Troubleshooting

If you are concerned about Network Observer resources, consider using standard techniques to monitor those resources. The following example demonstrates how to configure a Prometheus alert that triggers when memory usage exceeds 90% of the defined limit. 

apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: PrometheusRule
metadata:
  name: network-observer-memory-alert
  namespace: west
spec:
  groups:
  - name: network-observer.rules
    rules:
    - alert: NetworkObserverHighMemory
      expr: |
        (container_memory_working_set_bytes{namespace="west", container="network-observer"}
        /
        kube_pod_container_resource_limits{namespace="west", container="network-observer", resource="memory"}) > 0.9
      for: 5m
      labels:
        severity: warning
      annotations:
        summary: "Network Observer pod in namespace {{ $labels.namespace }} is using > 90% of its memory limit."
        description: "Pod {{ $labels.pod }} is currently using {{ $value | humanizePercentage }} of its memory limit."
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