The Kubernetes plugin talks to the Kubelet API and gathers metrics about the running pods and containers for a single host. It is assumed that this plugin is running as part of a daemonset within a kubernetes installation. This means that telegraf is running on every node within the cluster. Therefore, you should configure this plugin to talk to its locally running kubelet.

Kubernetes is a fast moving project, with a new minor release every 3 months. As such, this plugin aims to maintain support only for versions that are supported by the major cloud providers, namely, 4 release over 2 years.

To find the ip address of the host you are running on you can issue a command like the following:

curl -s $API_URL/api/v1/namespaces/$POD_NAMESPACE/pods/$HOSTNAME \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  --insecure | jq -r '.status.hostIP'

This example uses the downward API to pass in the $POD_NAMESPACE and $HOSTNAME is the hostname of the pod which is set by the kubernetes API. See the Kubernetes docs for a full example of generating a bearer token to explore the Kubernetes API.

This plugin may produce a high number of series which, when not controlled for, will cause high load on your database. Use the following techniques to avoid cardinality issues:

• Use metric filtering options to exclude unneeded measurements and tags.
• Write to a database with an appropriate retention policy.
• Consider using the Time Series Index.
• Monitor your databases series cardinality.
• Consult the InfluxDB documentation for the most up-to-date techniques.

In addition to the plugin-specific configuration settings, plugins support additional global and plugin configuration settings. These settings are used to modify metrics, tags, and field or create aliases and configure ordering, etc. See the CONFIGURATION.md for more details.

# Read metrics from the kubernetes kubelet api
[[inputs.kubernetes]]
  ## URL for the kubelet, if empty read metrics from all nodes in the cluster
  url = "http://127.0.0.1:10255"

  ## Use bearer token for authorization. ('bearer_token' takes priority)
  ## If both of these are empty, we'll use the default serviceaccount:
  ## at: /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token
  ##
  ## To re-read the token at each interval, please use a file with the
  ## bearer_token option. If given a string, Telegraf will always use that
  ## token.
  # bearer_token = "/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token"
  ## OR
  # bearer_token_string = "abc_123"

  ## Kubernetes Node Metric Name
  ## The default Kubernetes node metric name (i.e. kubernetes_node) is the same
  ## for the kubernetes and kube_inventory plugins. To avoid conflicts, set this
  ## option to a different value.
  # node_metric_name = "kubernetes_node"

  ## Pod labels to be added as tags.  An empty array for both include and
  ## exclude will include all labels.
  # label_include = []
  # label_exclude = ["*"]

  ## Set response_timeout (default 5 seconds)
  # response_timeout = "5s"

  ## Optional TLS Config
  # tls_ca = /path/to/cafile
  # tls_cert = /path/to/certfile
  # tls_key = /path/to/keyfile
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

For recommendations on running Telegraf as a DaemonSet see Monitoring Kubernetes Architecture or view the Helm charts:

• Telegraf
• InfluxDB
• Chronograf
• Kapacitor

• kubernetes_node

  • tags:
    • node_name
  • fields:
    • cpu_usage_nanocores
    • cpu_usage_core_nanoseconds
    • memory_available_bytes
    • memory_usage_bytes
    • memory_working_set_bytes
    • memory_rss_bytes
    • memory_page_faults
    • memory_major_page_faults
    • network_rx_bytes
    • network_rx_errors
    • network_tx_bytes
    • network_tx_errors
    • fs_available_bytes
    • fs_capacity_bytes
    • fs_used_bytes
    • runtime_image_fs_available_bytes
    • runtime_image_fs_capacity_bytes
    • runtime_image_fs_used_bytes

• kubernetes_pod_container

  • tags:
    • container_name
    • namespace
    • node_name
    • pod_name
  • fields:
    • cpu_usage_nanocores
    • cpu_usage_core_nanoseconds
    • memory_usage_bytes
    • memory_working_set_bytes
    • memory_rss_bytes
    • memory_page_faults
    • memory_major_page_faults
    • rootfs_available_bytes
    • rootfs_capacity_bytes
    • rootfs_used_bytes
    • logsfs_available_bytes
    • logsfs_capacity_bytes
    • logsfs_used_bytes

• kubernetes_pod_volume

  • tags:
    • volume_name
    • namespace
    • node_name
    • pod_name
  • fields:
    • available_bytes
    • capacity_bytes
    • used_bytes

• kubernetes_pod_network

  • tags:
    • namespace
    • node_name
    • pod_name
  • fields:
    • rx_bytes
    • rx_errors
    • tx_bytes
    • tx_errors

kubernetes_node
kubernetes_pod_container,container_name=deis-controller,namespace=deis,node_name=ip-10-0-0-0.ec2.internal,pod_name=deis-controller-3058870187-xazsr cpu_usage_core_nanoseconds=2432835i,cpu_usage_nanocores=0i,logsfs_available_bytes=121128271872i,logsfs_capacity_bytes=153567944704i,logsfs_used_bytes=20787200i,memory_major_page_faults=0i,memory_page_faults=175i,memory_rss_bytes=0i,memory_usage_bytes=0i,memory_working_set_bytes=0i,rootfs_available_bytes=121128271872i,rootfs_capacity_bytes=153567944704i,rootfs_used_bytes=1110016i 1476477530000000000
kubernetes_pod_network,namespace=deis,node_name=ip-10-0-0-0.ec2.internal,pod_name=deis-controller-3058870187-xazsr rx_bytes=120671099i,rx_errors=0i,tx_bytes=102451983i,tx_errors=0i 1476477530000000000
kubernetes_pod_volume,volume_name=default-token-f7wts,namespace=default,node_name=ip-172-17-0-1.internal,pod_name=storage-7 available_bytes=8415240192i,capacity_bytes=8415252480i,used_bytes=12288i 1546910783000000000
kubernetes_system_container