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diff --git a/doc/administration/monitoring/prometheus/web_exporter.md b/doc/administration/monitoring/prometheus/web_exporter.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..4b449a1d74e --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/administration/monitoring/prometheus/web_exporter.md @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +--- +stage: Data Stores +group: Memory +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 +--- + +# Web exporter (dedicated metrics server) **(FREE SELF)** + +When [monitoring GitLab with Prometheus](index.md), GitLab runs various collectors that +sample the application for data related to usage, load and performance. GitLab can then make +this data available to a Prometheus scraper by running one or more Prometheus exporters. +A Prometheus exporter is an HTTP server that serializes metric data into a format the +Prometheus scraper understands. + +NOTE: +This page is about web application metrics. +To export background job metrics, learn how to [configure the Sidekiq metrics server](../../sidekiq.md#configure-the-sidekiq-metrics-server). + +We provide two mechanisms by which web application metrics can be exported: + +- Through the main Rails application. This means [Puma](../../operations/puma.md), the application server we use, + makes metric data available via its own `/-/metrics` endpoint. This is the default, + and is described in [GitLab Metrics](index.md#gitlab-metrics). We recommend this + default for small GitLab installations where the amount of metrics collected is small. +- Through a dedicated metrics server. Enabling this server will cause Puma to launch an + additional process whose sole responsibility is to serve metrics. This approach leads + to better fault isolation and performance for very large GitLab installations, but + comes with additional memory use. We recommend this approach for medium to large + GitLab installations that seek high performance and availability. + +Both the dedicated server and the Rails `/-/metrics` endpoint serve the same data, so +they are functionally equivalent and differ merely in their performance characteristics. + +To enable the dedicated server: + +1. [Enable Prometheus](index.md#configuring-prometheus). +1. Edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` to add (or find and uncomment) the following lines. Make sure + `puma['exporter_enabled']` is set to `true`: + + ```ruby + puma['exporter_enabled'] = true + puma['exporter_address'] = "127.0.0.1" + puma['exporter_port'] = 8083 + ``` + +1. When using the GitLab-bundled Prometheus, make sure that its `scrape_config` is pointing + to `localhost:8083/metrics`. Refer to the [Adding custom scrape configurations](index.md#adding-custom-scrape-configurations) page + for how to configure scraper targets. For external Prometheus setup, refer to + [Using an external Prometheus server](index.md#using-an-external-prometheus-server) instead. +1. Save the file and [reconfigure GitLab](../../restart_gitlab.md#omnibus-gitlab-reconfigure) + for the changes to take effect. + +Metrics can now be served and scraped from `localhost:8083/metrics`. |