Introduction to dynamic pollster subsystem

The dynamic pollster feature allows system administrators to create/update REST API pollsters on the fly (without changing code). The system reads YAML configures that are found in pollsters_definitions_dirs parameter, which has the default at /etc/ceilometer/pollsters.d. Operators can use a single file per dynamic pollster or multiple dynamic pollsters per file.

Current limitations of the dynamic pollster system

Currently, the following types of APIs are not supported by the dynamic pollster system:

  • Tenant APIs: Tenant APIs are the ones that need to be polled in a tenant fashion. This feature is “a nice” to have, but is currently not implemented.

The dynamic pollsters system configuration (for OpenStack APIs)

Each YAML file in the dynamic pollster feature can use the following attributes to define a dynamic pollster:

Warning

Caution: Ceilometer does not accept complex value data structure for value and metadata configurations. Therefore, if you are extracting a complex data structure (Object, list, map, or others), you can take advantage of the Operations on extracted attributes feature to transform the object into a simple value (string or number)

  • name: mandatory field. It specifies the name/key of the dynamic pollster. For instance, a pollster for magnum can use the name dynamic.magnum.cluster;

  • sample_type: mandatory field; it defines the sample type. It must be one of the values: gauge, delta, cumulative;

  • unit: mandatory field; defines the unit of the metric that is being collected. For magnum, for instance, one can use cluster as the unit or some other meaningful String value;

  • value_attribute: mandatory attribute; defines the attribute in the response from the URL of the component being polled. We also accept nested values dictionaries. To use a nested value one can simply use attribute1.attribute2.<asMuchAsNeeded>.lastattribute. It is also possible to reference the sample itself using "." (dot); the self reference of the sample is interesting in cases when the attribute might not exist. Therefore, together with the operations options, one can first check if it exist before retrieving it (example: ". | value['some_field'] if 'some_field' in value else ''"). In our magnum example, we can use status as the value attribute;

  • endpoint_type: mandatory field; defines the endpoint type that is used to discover the base URL of the component to be monitored; for magnum, one can use container-infra. Other values are accepted such as volume for cinder endpoints, object-store for swift, and so on;

  • url_path: mandatory attribute. It defines the path of the request that we execute on the endpoint to gather data. For example, to gather data from magnum, one can use v1/clusters/detail;

  • metadata_fields: optional field. It is a list of all fields that the response of the request executed with url_path that we want to retrieve. To use a nested value one can simply use attribute1.attribute2.<asMuchAsNeeded>.lastattribute. As an example, for magnum, one can use the following values:

metadata_fields:
  - "labels"
  - "updated_at"
  - "keypair"
  - "master_flavor_id"
  - "api_address"
  - "master_addresses"
  - "node_count"
  - "docker_volume_size"
  - "master_count"
  - "node_addresses"
  - "status_reason"
  - "coe_version"
  - "cluster_template_id"
  - "name"
  - "stack_id"
  - "created_at"
  - "discovery_url"
  - "container_version"
  • skip_sample_values: optional field. It defines the values that might come in the value_attribute that we want to ignore. For magnun, one could for instance, ignore some of the status it has for clusters. Therefore, data is not gathered for clusters in the defined status.

skip_sample_values:
  - "CREATE_FAILED"
  - "DELETE_FAILED"
  • value_mapping: optional attribute. It defines a mapping for the values that the dynamic pollster is handling. This is the actual value that is sent to Gnocchi or other backends. If there is no mapping specified, we will use the raw value that is obtained with the use of value_attribute. An example for magnum, one can use:

value_mapping:
  CREATE_IN_PROGRESS: "0"
  CREATE_FAILED: "1"
  CREATE_COMPLETE: "2"
  UPDATE_IN_PROGRESS: "3"
  UPDATE_FAILED: "4"
  UPDATE_COMPLETE: "5"
  DELETE_IN_PROGRESS: "6"
  DELETE_FAILED: "7"
  DELETE_COMPLETE: "8"
  RESUME_COMPLETE: "9"
  RESUME_FAILED: "10"
  RESTORE_COMPLETE: "11"
  ROLLBACK_IN_PROGRESS: "12"
  ROLLBACK_FAILED: "13"
  ROLLBACK_COMPLETE: "14"
  SNAPSHOT_COMPLETE: "15"
  CHECK_COMPLETE: "16"
  ADOPT_COMPLETE: "17"
  • default_value: optional parameter. The default value for the value mapping in case the variable value receives data that is not mapped to something in the value_mapping configuration. This attribute is only used when value_mapping is defined. Moreover, it has a default of -1.

  • metadata_mapping: optional parameter. The map used to create new metadata fields. The key is a metadata name that exists in the response of the request we make, and the value of this map is the new desired metadata field that will be created with the content of the metadata that we are mapping. The metadata_mapping can be created as follows:

metadata_mapping:
  name: "display_name"
  some_attribute: "new_attribute_name"
  • preserve_mapped_metadata: optional parameter. It indicates if we preserve the old metadata name when it gets mapped to a new one. The default value is True.

  • response_entries_key: optional parameter. This value is used to define the “key” of the response that will be used to look-up the entries used in the dynamic pollster processing. If no response_entries_key is informed by the operator, we will use the first we find. Moreover, if the response contains a list, instead of an object where one of its attributes is a list of entries, we use the list directly. Therefore, this option will be ignored when the API is returning the list/array of entries to be processed directly. We also accept nested values dictionaries. To use a nested value one can simply use attribute1.attribute2.<asMuchAsNeeded>.lastattribute

  • user_id_attribute: optional parameter. The default value is user_id. The name of the attribute in the entries that are processed from response_entries_key elements that will be mapped to user_id attribute that is sent to Gnocchi.

  • project_id_attribute: optional parameter. The default value is project_id. The name of the attribute in the entries that are processed from response_entries_key elements that will be mapped to project_id attribute that is sent to Gnocchi.

  • resource_id_attribute: optional parameter. The default value is id. The name of the attribute in the entries that are processed from response_entries_key elements that will be mapped to id attribute that is sent to Gnocchi.

  • headers: optional parameter. It is a map (similar to the metadata_mapping) of key and value that can be used to customize the header of the request that is executed against the URL. This configuration works for both OpenStack and non-OpenStack dynamic pollster configuration.

headers:
  "x-openstack-nova-api-version": "2.46"
  • timeout: optional parameter. Defines the request timeout for the requests executed by the dynamic pollsters to gather data. The default timeout value is 30 seconds. If it is set to None, this means that the request never times out on the client side. Therefore, one might have problems if the server never closes the connection. The pollsters are executed serially, one after the other. Therefore, if the request hangs, all pollsters (including the non-dynamic ones) will stop executing.

  • namespaces: optional parameter. Defines the namespaces (running ceilometer instances) where the pollster will be instantiated. This parameter accepts a single string value or a list of strings. The default value is central.

The complete YAML configuration to gather data from Magnum (that has been used as an example) is the following:

---

- name: "dynamic.magnum.cluster"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "cluster"
  value_attribute: "status"
  endpoint_type: "container-infra"
  url_path: "v1/clusters/detail"
  metadata_fields:
    - "labels"
    - "updated_at"
    - "keypair"
    - "master_flavor_id"
    - "api_address"
    - "master_addresses"
    - "node_count"
    - "docker_volume_size"
    - "master_count"
    - "node_addresses"
    - "status_reason"
    - "coe_version"
    - "cluster_template_id"
    - "name"
    - "stack_id"
    - "created_at"
    - "discovery_url"
    - "container_version"
  value_mapping:
    CREATE_IN_PROGRESS: "0"
    CREATE_FAILED: "1"
    CREATE_COMPLETE: "2"
    UPDATE_IN_PROGRESS: "3"
    UPDATE_FAILED: "4"
    UPDATE_COMPLETE: "5"
    DELETE_IN_PROGRESS: "6"
    DELETE_FAILED: "7"
    DELETE_COMPLETE: "8"
    RESUME_COMPLETE: "9"
    RESUME_FAILED: "10"
    RESTORE_COMPLETE: "11"
    ROLLBACK_IN_PROGRESS: "12"
    ROLLBACK_FAILED: "13"
    ROLLBACK_COMPLETE: "14"
    SNAPSHOT_COMPLETE: "15"
    CHECK_COMPLETE: "16"
    ADOPT_COMPLETE: "17"

We can also replicate and enhance some hardcoded pollsters. For instance, the pollster to gather VPN connections. Currently, it is always persisting 1 for all of the VPN connections it finds. However, the VPN connection can have multiple statuses, and we should normally only bill for active resources, and not resources on ERROR states. An example to gather VPN connections data is the following (this is just an example, and one can adapt and configure as he/she desires):

---

- name: "dynamic.network.services.vpn.connection"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "ipsec_site_connection"
  value_attribute: "status"
  endpoint_type: "network"
  url_path: "v2.0/vpn/ipsec-site-connections"
  metadata_fields:
      - "name"
      - "vpnservice_id"
      - "description"
      - "status"
      - "peer_address"
  value_mapping:
      ACTIVE: "1"
  metadata_mapping:
      name: "display_name"
  default_value: 0
  • response_handlers: optional parameter. Defines the response handlers used to handle the response. For now, the supported values are:

    json: This handler will interpret the response as a JSON and will convert it to a dictionary which can be manipulated using the operations options when mapping the attributes:

    ---
    
    - name: "dynamic.json.response"
      sample_type: "gauge"
      [...]
      response_handlers:
         - json
    

    Response to handle:

    {
       "test": {
         "list": [1, 2, 3]
       }
    }
    

    Response handled:

    {
       'test': {
         'list': [1, 2, 3]
       }
    }
    

    xml: This handler will interpret the response as an XML and will convert it to a dictionary which can be manipulated using the operations options when mapping the attributes:

    ---
    
    - name: "dynamic.json.response"
      sample_type: "gauge"
      [...]
      response_handlers:
         - xml
    

    Response to handle:

    <test>
      <list>1</list>
      <list>2</list>
      <list>3</list>
    </test>
    

    Response handled:

    {
       'test': {
         'list': [1, 2, 3]
       }
    }
    

    text: This handler will interpret the response as a PlainText and will convert it to a dictionary which can be manipulated using the operations options when mapping the attributes:

    ---
    
    - name: "dynamic.json.response"
      sample_type: "gauge"
      [...]
      response_handlers:
         - text
    

    Response to handle:

    Plain text response
    

    Response handled:

    {
       'out': "Plain text response"
    }
    

    They can be used together or individually. If not defined, the default value will be json. If you set 2 or more response handlers, the first configured handler will be used to try to handle the response, if it is not possible, a DEBUG log message will be displayed, then the next will be used and so on. If no configured handler was able to handle the response, an empty dict will be returned and a WARNING log will be displayed to warn operators that the response was not able to be handled by any configured handler.

The dynamic pollsters system configuration (for non-OpenStack APIs)

The dynamic pollster system can also be used for non-OpenStack APIs. to configure non-OpenStack APIs, one can use all but one attribute of the Dynamic pollster system. The attribute that is not supported is the endpoint_type. The dynamic pollster system for non-OpenStack APIs is activated automatically when one uses the configurations module.

The extra parameters (in addition to the original ones) that are available when using the Non-OpenStack dynamic pollster sub-subsystem are the following:

  • module: required parameter. It is the python module name that Ceilometer has to load to use the authentication object when executing requests against the API. For instance, if one wants to create a pollster to gather data from RadosGW, he/she can use the awsauth python module.

  • authentication_object: mandatory parameter. The name of the class that we can find in the module that Ceilometer will use as the authentication object in the request. For instance, when using the awsauth python module to gather data from RadosGW, one can use the authentication object as S3Auth.

  • authentication_parameters: optional parameter. It is a comma separated value that will be used to instantiate the authentication_object. For instance, if we gather data from RadosGW, and we use the S3Auth class, the authentication_parameters can be configured as <rados_gw_access_key>, rados_gw_secret_key, rados_gw_host_name.

  • barbican_secret_id: optional parameter. The Barbican secret ID, from which, Ceilometer can retrieve the comma separated values of the authentication_parameters.

As follows we present an example on how to convert the hard-coded pollster for radosgw.api.request metric to the dynamic pollster model:

---

- name: "dynamic.radosgw.api.request"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "request"
  value_attribute: "total.ops"
  url_path: "http://rgw.service.stage.i.ewcs.ch/admin/usage"
  module: "awsauth"
  authentication_object: "S3Auth"
  authentication_parameters: "<access_key>,<secret_key>,<rados_gateway_server>"
  user_id_attribute: "user"
  project_id_attribute: "user"
  resource_id_attribute: "user"
  response_entries_key: "summary"

We can take that example a bit further, and instead of gathering the total .ops variable, which counts for all the requests (even the unsuccessful ones), we can use the successful_ops.

---

- name: "dynamic.radosgw.api.request.successful_ops"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "request"
  value_attribute: "total.successful_ops"
  url_path: "http://rgw.service.stage.i.ewcs.ch/admin/usage"
  module: "awsauth"
  authentication_object: "S3Auth"
  authentication_parameters: "<access_key>, <secret_key>,<rados_gateway_server>"
  user_id_attribute: "user"
  project_id_attribute: "user"
  resource_id_attribute: "user"
  response_entries_key: "summary"

The dynamic pollsters system configuration (for local host commands)

The dynamic pollster system can also be used for local host commands, these commands must be installed in the system that is running the Ceilometer compute agent. To configure local hosts commands, one can use all but two attributes of the Dynamic pollster system. The attributes that are not supported are the endpoint_type and url_path. The dynamic pollster system for local host commands is activated automatically when one uses the configuration host_command.

The extra parameter (in addition to the original ones) that is available when using the local host commands dynamic pollster sub-subsystem is the following:

  • host_command: required parameter. It is the host command that will be executed in the same host the Ceilometer dynamic pollster agent is running. The output of the command will be processed by the pollster and stored in the configured backend.

As follows we present an example on how to use the local host command:

---

- name: "dynamic.host.command"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "request"
  value_attribute: "value"
  response_entries_key: "test"
  host_command: "echo '<test><user_id>id1_u</user_id><project_id>id1_p</project_id><id>id1</id><meta>meta-data-to-store</meta><value>1</value></test>'"
  metadata_fields:
      - "meta"
  response_handlers:
      - xml

To execute multi page host commands, the next_sample_url_attribute must generate the next sample command, like the following example:

---

- name: "dynamic.s3.objects.size"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "request"
  value_attribute: "Size"
  project_id_attribute: "Owner.ID"
  user_id_attribute: "Owner.ID"
  resource_id_attribute: "Key"
  response_entries_key: "Contents"
  host_command: "aws s3api list-objects"
  next_sample_url_attribute: NextToken | 'aws s3api list-objects --starting-token "' + value + '"'

Operations on extracted attributes

The dynamic pollster system can execute Python operations to transform the attributes that are extracted from the JSON response that the system handles.

One example of use case is the RadosGW that uses <project_id$project_id> as the username (which is normally mapped to the Gnocchi resource_id). With this feature (operations on extracted attributes), one can create configurations in the dynamic pollster to clean/normalize that variable. It is as simple as defining resource_id_attribute: “user | value.split(‘$’)[0].strip()”

The operations are separated by | symbol. The first element of the expression is the key to be retrieved from the JSON object. The other elements are operations that can be applied to the value variable. The value variable is the variable we use to hold the data being extracted. The previous example can be rewritten as: resource_id_attribute: “user | value.split (‘$’) | value[0] | value.strip()”

As follows we present a complete configuration for a RadosGW dynamic pollster that is removing the $ symbol, and getting the first part of the String.

---

- name: "dynamic.radosgw.api.request.successful_ops"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "request"
  value_attribute: "total.successful_ops"
  url_path: "http://rgw.service.stage.i.ewcs.ch/admin/usage"
  module: "awsauth"
  authentication_object: "S3Auth"
  authentication_parameters: "<access_key>,<secret_key>,<rados_gateway_server>"
  user_id_attribute: "user | value.split ('$') | value[0]"
  project_id_attribute: "user | value.split ('$') | value[0]"
  resource_id_attribute: "user | value.split ('$') | value[0]"
  response_entries_key: "summary"

The Dynamic pollster configuration options that support this feature are the following:

  • value_attribute

  • response_entries_key

  • user_id_attribute

  • project_id_attribute

  • resource_id_attribute

Multi metric dynamic pollsters (handling attribute values with list of objects)

The initial idea for this feature comes from the categories fields that we can find in the summary object of the RadosGW API. Each user has a categories attribute in the response; in the categories list, we can find the object that presents in a granular fashion the consumption of different RadosGW API operations such as GET, PUT, POST, and may others.

As follows we present an example of such a JSON response.

{
    "entries": [
        {
            "buckets": [
                {
                    "bucket": "",
                    "categories": [
                        {
                            "bytes_received": 0,
                            "bytes_sent": 40,
                            "category": "list_buckets",
                            "ops": 2,
                            "successful_ops": 2
                        }
                    ],
                    "epoch": 1572969600,
                    "owner": "user",
                    "time": "2019-11-21 00:00:00.000000Z"
                },
                {
                    "bucket": "-",
                    "categories": [
                        {
                            "bytes_received": 0,
                            "bytes_sent": 0,
                            "category": "get_obj",
                            "ops": 1,
                            "successful_ops": 0
                        }
                    ],
                    "epoch": 1572969600,
                    "owner": "someOtherUser",
                    "time": "2019-11-21 00:00:00.000000Z"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
    "summary": [
        {
            "categories": [
                {
                    "bytes_received": 0,
                    "bytes_sent": 0,
                    "category": "create_bucket",
                    "ops": 2,
                    "successful_ops": 2
                },
                {
                    "bytes_received": 0,
                    "bytes_sent": 2120428,
                    "category": "get_obj",
                    "ops": 46,
                    "successful_ops": 46
                },
                {
                    "bytes_received": 0,
                    "bytes_sent": 21484,
                    "category": "list_bucket",
                    "ops": 8,
                    "successful_ops": 8
                },
                {
                    "bytes_received": 6889056,
                    "bytes_sent": 0,
                    "category": "put_obj",
                    "ops": 46,
                    "successful_ops": 46
                }
            ],
            "total": {
                "bytes_received": 6889056,
                "bytes_sent": 2141912,
                "ops": 102,
                "successful_ops": 102
            },
            "user": "user"
        },
        {
            "categories": [
                {
                    "bytes_received": 0,
                    "bytes_sent": 0,
                    "category": "create_bucket",
                    "ops": 1,
                    "successful_ops": 1
                },
                {
                    "bytes_received": 0,
                    "bytes_sent": 0,
                    "category": "delete_obj",
                    "ops": 23,
                    "successful_ops": 23
                },
                {
                    "bytes_received": 0,
                    "bytes_sent": 5371,
                    "category": "list_bucket",
                    "ops": 2,
                    "successful_ops": 2
                },
                {
                    "bytes_received": 3444350,
                    "bytes_sent": 0,
                    "category": "put_obj",
                    "ops": 23,
                    "successful_ops": 23
                }
            ],
            "total": {
                "bytes_received": 3444350,
                "bytes_sent": 5371,
                "ops": 49,
                "successful_ops": 49
            },
            "user": "someOtherUser"
        }
    ]
}

In that context, and having in mind that we have APIs with similar data structures, we developed an extension for the dynamic pollster that enables multi-metric processing for a single pollster. It works as follows.

The pollster name will contain a placeholder for the variable that identifies the “submetric”. E.g. dynamic.radosgw.api.request.{category}. The placeholder {category} indicates the object’s attribute that is in the list of objects that we use to load the sub metric name. Then, we must use a special notation in the value_attribute configuration to indicate that we are dealing with a list of objects. This is achieved via [] (brackets); for instance, in the dynamic.radosgw.api.request.{category}, we can use [categories].ops as the value_attribute. This indicates that the value we retrieve is a list of objects, and when the dynamic pollster processes it, we want it (the pollster) to load the ops value for the sub metrics being generated.

Examples on how to create multi-metric pollster to handle data from RadosGW API are presented as follows:

---

- name: "dynamic.radosgw.api.request.{category}"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "request"
  value_attribute: "[categories].ops"
  url_path: "http://rgw.service.stage.i.ewcs.ch/admin/usage"
  module: "awsauth"
  authentication_object: "S3Auth"
  authentication_parameters:  "<access_key>, <secret_key>,<rados_gateway_server>"
  user_id_attribute: "user | value.split('$')[0]"
  project_id_attribute: "user | value.split('$') | value[0]"
  resource_id_attribute: "user  | value.split('$') | value[0]"
  response_entries_key: "summary"

- name: "dynamic.radosgw.api.request.successful_ops.{category}"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "request"
  value_attribute: "[categories].successful_ops"
  url_path: "http://rgw.service.stage.i.ewcs.ch/admin/usage"
  module: "awsauth"
  authentication_object: "S3Auth"
  authentication_parameters:  "<access_key>, <secret_key>,<rados_gateway_server>"
  user_id_attribute: "user | value.split('$')[0]"
  project_id_attribute: "user | value.split('$') | value[0]"
  resource_id_attribute: "user  | value.split('$') | value[0]"
  response_entries_key: "summary"

- name: "dynamic.radosgw.api.bytes_sent.{category}"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "request"
  value_attribute: "[categories].bytes_sent"
  url_path: "http://rgw.service.stage.i.ewcs.ch/admin/usage"
  module: "awsauth"
  authentication_object: "S3Auth"
  authentication_parameters:  "<access_key>, <secret_key>,<rados_gateway_server>"
  user_id_attribute: "user | value.split('$')[0]"
  project_id_attribute: "user | value.split('$') | value[0]"
  resource_id_attribute: "user  | value.split('$') | value[0]"
  response_entries_key: "summary"

- name: "dynamic.radosgw.api.bytes_received.{category}"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "request"
  value_attribute: "[categories].bytes_received"
  url_path: "http://rgw.service.stage.i.ewcs.ch/admin/usage"
  module: "awsauth"
  authentication_object: "S3Auth"
  authentication_parameters:  "<access_key>, <secret_key>,<rados_gateway_server>"
  user_id_attribute: "user | value.split('$')[0]"
  project_id_attribute: "user | value.split('$') | value[0]"
  resource_id_attribute: "user  | value.split('$') | value[0]"
  response_entries_key: "summary"

Handling linked API responses

If the consumed API returns a linked response which contains a link to the next response set (page), the Dynamic pollsters can be configured to follow these links and join all linked responses into a single one.

To enable this behavior the operator will need to configure the parameter next_sample_url_attribute that must contain a mapper to the response attribute that contains the link to the next response page. This parameter also supports operations like the others *_attribute dynamic pollster’s parameters.

Examples on how to create a pollster to handle linked API responses are presented as follows:

  • Example of a simple linked response:

    • API response:

    {
      "server_link": "http://test.com/v1/test-volumes/marker=c3",
      "servers": [
        {
          "volume": [
            {
              "name": "a",
              "tmp": "ra"
            }
          ],
          "id": 1,
          "name": "a1"
        },
        {
          "volume": [
            {
              "name": "b",
              "tmp": "rb"
            }
          ],
          "id": 2,
          "name": "b2"
        },
        {
          "volume": [
            {
              "name": "c",
              "tmp": "rc"
            }
          ],
          "id": 3,
          "name": "c3"
        }
      ]
    }
    
    • Pollster configuration:

    ---
    
    - name: "dynamic.linked.response"
      sample_type: "gauge"
      unit: "request"
      value_attribute: "[volume].tmp"
      url_path: "v1/test-volumes"
      response_entries_key: "servers"
      next_sample_url_attribute: "server_link"
    
  • Example of a complex linked response:

    • API response:

    {
      "server_link": [
        {
          "href": "http://test.com/v1/test-volumes/marker=c3",
          "rel": "next"
        },
        {
          "href": "http://test.com/v1/test-volumes/marker=b1",
          "rel": "prev"
        }
      ],
      "servers": [
        {
          "volume": [
            {
              "name": "a",
              "tmp": "ra"
            }
          ],
          "id": 1,
          "name": "a1"
        },
        {
          "volume": [
            {
              "name": "b",
              "tmp": "rb"
            }
          ],
          "id": 2,
          "name": "b2"
        },
        {
          "volume": [
            {
              "name": "c",
              "tmp": "rc"
            }
          ],
          "id": 3,
          "name": "c3"
        }
      ]
    }
    
    • Pollster configuration:

    ---
    
    - name: "dynamic.linked.response"
      sample_type: "gauge"
      unit: "request"
      value_attribute: "[volume].tmp"
      url_path: "v1/test-volumes"
      response_entries_key: "servers"
      next_sample_url_attribute: "server_link | filter(lambda v: v.get('rel') == 'next', value) | list(value) | value[0] | value.get('href')"
    

OpenStack Dynamic pollsters metadata enrichment with other OpenStack API’s data

Sometimes we want/need to add/gather extra metadata for the samples being handled by Ceilometer Dynamic pollsters, such as the project name, domain id, domain name, and other metadata that are not always accessible via the OpenStack component where the sample is gathered.

For instance, when gathering the status of virtual machines (VMs) from Nova, we only have the tenant_id, which must be used as the project_id. However, for billing and later invoicing one might need/want the project name, domain id, and other metadata that are available in Keystone (and maybe some others that are scattered over other components). To achieve that, one can use the OpenStack metadata enrichment option. As follows we present an example that shows a dynamic pollster configuration to gather virtual machine (VM) status, and to enrich the data pushed to the storage backend (e.g. Gnocchi) with project name, domain ID, and domain name.

---

- name: "dynamic_pollster.instance.status"
  next_sample_url_attribute: "server_links | filter(lambda v: v.get('rel') == 'next', value) | list(value) | value[0] | value.get('href') | value.replace('http:', 'https:')"
  sample_type: "gauge"
  unit: "server"
  value_attribute: "status"
  endpoint_type: "compute"
  url_path: "/v2.1/servers/detail?all_tenants=true"
  headers:
    "Openstack-API-Version": "compute 2.65"
  project_id_attribute: "tenant_id"
  metadata_fields:
    - "status"
    - "name"
    - "flavor.vcpus"
    - "flavor.ram"
    - "flavor.disk"
    - "flavor.ephemeral"
    - "flavor.swap"
    - "flavor.original_name"
    - "image | value or { 'id': '' } | value['id']"
    - "OS-EXT-AZ:availability_zone"
    - "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host"
    - "user_id"
    - "tags | ','.join(value)"
    - "locked"
  value_mapping:
    ACTIVE: "1"
  default_value: 0
  metadata_mapping:
    "OS-EXT-AZ:availability_zone": "dynamic_availability_zone"
    "OS-EXT-SRV-ATTR:host": "dynamic_host"
    "flavor.original_name": "dynamic_flavor_name"
    "flavor.vcpus": "dynamic_flavor_vcpus"
    "flavor.ram": "dynamic_flavor_ram"
    "flavor.disk": "dynamic_flavor_disk"
    "flavor.ephemeral": "dynamic_flavor_ephemeral"
    "flavor.swap": "dynamic_flavor_swap"
    "image | value or { 'id': '' } | value['id']": "dynamic_image_ref"
    "name": "dynamic_display_name"
    "locked": "dynamic_locked"
    "tags | ','.join(value)": "dynamic_tags"
  extra_metadata_fields_cache_seconds: 3600
  extra_metadata_fields_skip:
    - value: '1'
      metadata:
        dynamic_flavor_vcpus: 4
    - value: '1'
      metadata:
        dynamic_flavor_vcpus: 2
  extra_metadata_fields:
    - name: "project_name"
      endpoint_type: "identity"
      url_path: "'/v3/projects/' + str(sample['project_id'])"
      headers:
        "Openstack-API-Version": "identity latest"
      value: "name"
      extra_metadata_fields_cache_seconds: 1800 # overriding the default cache policy
      metadata_fields:
          - id
    - name: "domain_id"
      endpoint_type: "identity"
      url_path: "'/v3/projects/' + str(sample['project_id'])"
      headers:
        "Openstack-API-Version": "identity latest"
      value: "domain_id"
      metadata_fields:
          - id
    - name: "domain_name"
      endpoint_type: "identity"
      url_path: "'/v3/domains/' + str(extra_metadata_captured['domain_id'])"
      headers:
        "Openstack-API-Version": "identity latest"
      value: "name"
      metadata_fields:
          - id
    - name: "operating-system"
      host_command: "'get-vm --vm-name ' + str(extra_metadata_by_name['project_name']['metadata']['id'])"
      value: "os"

The above example can be used to gather and persist in the backend the status of VMs. It will persist 1 in the backend as a measure for every collecting period if the VM’s status is ACTIVE, and 0 otherwise. This is quite useful to create hashmap rating rules for running VMs in CloudKitty. Then, to enrich the resource in the storage backend, we are adding extra metadata that are collected in Keystone and in the local host via the extra_metadata_fields options. If you have multiples extra_metadata_fields defining the same metadata_field, the last not None metadata value will be used.

To operate values in the extra_metadata_fields, you can access 3 local variables:

  • sample: it is a dictionary which holds the current data of the root sample. The root sample is the final sample that will be persisted in the configured storage backend.

  • extra_metadata_captured: it is a dictionary which holds the current data of all extra_metadata_fields processed before this one. If you have multiples extra_metadata_fields defining the same metadata_field, the last not None metadata value will be used.

  • extra_metadata_by_name: it is a dictionary which holds the data of all extra_metadata_fields processed before this one. No data is overwritten in this variable. To access an specific extra_metadata_field using this variable, you can do extra_metadata_by_name[‘<extra_metadata_field_name>’][‘value’] to get its value, or extra_metadata_by_name[‘<extra_metadata_field_name>’][‘metadata’][‘<metadata>’] to get its metadata.

The metadata enrichment feature has the following options:

  • extra_metadata_fields_cache_seconds: optional parameter. Defines the extra metadata request’s response cache. Some requests, such as the ones executed against Keystone to retrieve extra metadata are rather static. Therefore, one does not need to constantly re-execute the request. That is the reason why we cache the response of such requests. By default the cache time to live (TTL) for responses is 3600 seconds. However, this value can be increased of decreased.

  • extra_metadata_fields: optional parameter. This option is a list of objects or a single one, where each one of its elements is an dynamic pollster configuration set. Each one of the extra metadata definition can have the same options defined in the dynamic pollsters, including the extra_metadata_fields option, so this option is a multi-level option. When defined, the result of the collected data will be merged in the final sample resource metadata. If some of the required dynamic pollster configuration is not set in the extra_metadata_fields, will be used the parent pollster configuration, except the name.

  • extra_metadata_fields_skip: optional parameter. This option is a list of objects or a single one, where each one of its elements is a set of key/value pairs. When defined, if any set of key/value pairs is a subset of the collected sample, then the extra_metadata_fields gathering of this sample will be skipped.