115 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
115 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
---
|
||
stage: Monitor
|
||
group: Health
|
||
info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
# GitLab self monitoring project
|
||
|
||
> - [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/32351) in GitLab 12.7, behind a disabled feature flag (`self_monitoring_project`).
|
||
> - The feature flag was removed and the Self Monitoring Project was [made generally available](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/198511) in GitLab 12.8.
|
||
|
||
GitLab has been adding the ability for administrators to see insights into the
|
||
health of their GitLab instance. To surface this experience in a native way
|
||
(similar to how you would interact with an application deployed using GitLab),
|
||
a base project called "GitLab self monitoring" with
|
||
[internal visibility](../../../public_access/public_access.md#internal-projects)
|
||
is added under a group called "GitLab Instance Administrators"
|
||
specifically created for visualizing and configuring the monitoring of your
|
||
GitLab instance.
|
||
|
||
All administrators at the time of creation of the project and group are
|
||
added as maintainers of the group and project, and as an admin, you can
|
||
add new members to the group to give them maintainer access to the project.
|
||
|
||
This project is used to self monitor your GitLab instance. The metrics dashboard
|
||
of the project shows some basic resource usage charts, such as CPU and memory usage
|
||
of each server in [Omnibus GitLab](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/) installations.
|
||
|
||
You can also use the project to configure your own
|
||
[custom metrics](../../../operations/metrics/index.md#adding-custom-metrics) using
|
||
metrics exposed by the [GitLab exporter](../prometheus/gitlab_metrics.md#metrics-available).
|
||
|
||
## Creating the self monitoring project
|
||
|
||
1. Navigate to **Admin Area > Settings > Metrics and profiling**, and expand the **Self monitoring** section.
|
||
1. Toggle the **Create Project** button on.
|
||
1. Once your GitLab instance creates the project, GitLab displays a link to the project in the text above the **Create Project** toggle. You can also find it under **Projects > Your projects**.
|
||
|
||
## Deleting the self monitoring project
|
||
|
||
WARNING:
|
||
Deleting the self monitoring project removes any changes made to the project. If
|
||
you create the project again, it's created in its default state.
|
||
|
||
1. Navigate to **Admin Area > Settings > Metrics and profiling**, and expand the **Self monitoring** section.
|
||
1. Toggle the **Create Project** button off.
|
||
1. In the confirmation dialog that opens, click **Delete project**.
|
||
It can take a few seconds for it to be deleted.
|
||
1. After the project is deleted, GitLab displays a message confirming your action.
|
||
|
||
## Dashboards available in Omnibus GitLab
|
||
|
||
Omnibus GitLab provides a dashboard that displays CPU and memory usage
|
||
of each GitLab server. To select the servers to be displayed in the
|
||
panels, provide a regular expression in the **Instance label regex** field.
|
||
The dashboard uses metrics available in
|
||
[Omnibus GitLab](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/) installations.
|
||
|
||
![GitLab self monitoring overview dashboard](img/self_monitoring_overview_dashboard.png)
|
||
|
||
You can also
|
||
[create your own dashboards](../../../operations/metrics/dashboards/index.md).
|
||
|
||
## Connection to Prometheus
|
||
|
||
The project is automatically configured to connect to the
|
||
[internal Prometheus](../prometheus/index.md) instance if the Prometheus
|
||
instance is present (should be the case if GitLab was installed via Omnibus
|
||
and you haven't disabled it).
|
||
|
||
If that's not the case or if you have an external Prometheus instance or a customized setup,
|
||
you should
|
||
[configure it manually](../../../user/project/integrations/prometheus.md#manual-configuration-of-prometheus).
|
||
|
||
## Taking action on Prometheus alerts **(ULTIMATE)**
|
||
|
||
You can [add a webhook](../../../operations/metrics/alerts.md#external-prometheus-instances)
|
||
to the Prometheus configuration for GitLab to receive notifications of any
|
||
alerts.
|
||
|
||
Once the webhook is setup, you can
|
||
[take action on incoming alerts](../../../operations/metrics/alerts.md#trigger-actions-from-alerts).
|
||
|
||
## Adding custom metrics to the self monitoring project
|
||
|
||
You can add custom metrics in the self monitoring project by:
|
||
|
||
1. [Duplicating](../../../operations/metrics/dashboards/index.md#duplicate-a-gitlab-defined-dashboard) the overview dashboard.
|
||
1. [Editing](../../../operations/metrics/index.md) the newly created dashboard file and configuring it with [dashboard YAML properties](../../../operations/metrics/dashboards/yaml.md).
|
||
|
||
## Troubleshooting
|
||
|
||
### Getting error message in logs: `Could not create instance administrators group. Errors: ["You don’t have permission to create groups."]`
|
||
|
||
There is [a bug](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/208676) which causes
|
||
project creation to fail with the following error (which appears in the log file)
|
||
when the first admin user is an
|
||
[external user](../../../user/permissions.md#external-users):
|
||
|
||
```plaintext
|
||
Could not create instance administrators group. Errors: ["You don’t have permission to create groups."]
|
||
```
|
||
|
||
Run the following in a Rails console to check if the first admin user is an external user:
|
||
|
||
```ruby
|
||
User.admins.active.first.external?
|
||
```
|
||
|
||
If this returns true, the first admin user is an external user.
|
||
|
||
If you face this issue, you can temporarily
|
||
[make the admin user a non-external user](../../../user/permissions.md#external-users)
|
||
and then try to create the project.
|
||
Once the project is created, the admin user can be changed back to an external user.
|