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Using Prometheus with Kubernetes

This lab guides the student through basic Prometheus Queries (PromQL) and demonstrates how the Kubernetes architecture may be interrogated. The lab also introduces a simple means of stressing a cluster and demonstrates how those techniques affect the metrics being stored in the time series database.

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Path Info

Level
Clock icon Beginner
Duration
Clock icon 1h 0m
Last updated
Clock icon Sep 02, 2025

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Table of Contents

  1. Challenge

    Check that your lab environment is ready.

    Log in to the master node:

    ssh cloud_user@[Public IP here]

    List the home directory contents:

    ls -l

    Verify that stress-test.yaml is present.

  2. Challenge

    Access Prometheus from your browser.

    Access Prometheus from your browser:

    http://[Master Node public ip address]:9090

    You may also access the sAdvisor dashboard at the following address:

    http://[Worker Node Public IP Address]:8080

  3. Challenge

    Use the provided PromQL queries to interrogate your cluster.

    The following are the suggested PromQL queries you may perform.

    To measure CPU utilization:

    node_cpu_seconds_total

    irate(node_cpu_seconds_total{job="node"}[5m])

    avg(irate(node_cpu_seconds_total{job="node"}[5m])) by (instance)

    avg(irate(node_cpu_seconds_total{job="node",mode="idle"}[5m])) by (instance) * 100

    100 - avg(irate(node_cpu_seconds_total{job="node",mode="idle"}[5m])) by (instance) * 100

    To measure memory, use:

    (node_memory_MemTotal_bytes - (node_memory_MemFree_bytes + node_memory_Cached_bytes + node_memory_Buffers_bytes)) / node_memory_MemTotal_bytes * 100

  4. Challenge

    Deploy the stress test and vary its replicas to examine changes.

    In the terminal emulator session that is established to the Master Node:

    Deploy the Stress-Test Deployment:

    kubectl create -f stress-test.yaml

    Interrogate the number of replicas deployed:

    kubectl get deployments

    Interrogate the pods running:

    kubectl get pods

  5. Challenge

    Refresh your Prometheus graphs and scale the deployment up and down to vary metrics.

    Use refresh on your browser to see the time series metrics change over time.

    Use the following command to increase and decrease the number of replicas running in the stress-test deployment.

    kubectl scale deployment.v1.apps/stress-test --replicas=[from 1 to 50 here]
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Follow along with the author’s guided walkthrough and build something new in your provided environment!

Did you know?

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