Grafana Dependency Plugin

What is Grafana Dependency Plugin?

Grafana Service Dependency Plugin allows users to visualize how Pods send and receive traffic to and from other Pods and Services. To help visualize the flows, the plugin shows them 'inside' the Node they are a part of.

graph LR;
subgraph worker_node
worker_pod_1
worker_pod_2
end;

Loading

A line pointing from source to destination is also shown, with the amount of data transmitted in the selected time range labelling the line.

graph LR;
subgraph worker_node
worker_pod_1 -- 8.4 MB --> worker_pod_2
end;

Loading

Acknowledgements

The Service Dependency Graph Plugin is created using mermaid-js

Data Source

Supported Databases:

• ClickHouse

Queries Convention

Currently the Service Dependency Graph Plugin is created for restricted uses, only for visualizing transmitted data between Pods and Services. For correct loading of data for the Service Dependency Graph Plugin, the query is expected to return the following fields, in arbitrary order.

• field 1: sourcePodName value with name or an alias of sourcePodName
• field 2: sourceNodeName value with name or an alias of sourceNodeName
• field 3: destinationPodName value with name or an alias of destinationPodName
• field 4: destinationNodeName value with name or an alias of destinationNodeName
• field 5: destinationServicePortName value with name or an alias of destinationServicePortName
• field 6: octetDeltaCount value with name or an alias of octetDeltaCount

ClickHouse query example:

SELECT sourcePodName,
sourceNodeName,
destinationPodName,
destinationNodeName,
destinationServicePortName,
octetDeltaCount
FROM flows
WHERE destinationPodName != ''
AND sourcePodName != ''
AND octetDeltaCount != 0
AND $__timeFilter(flowEndSeconds)
ORDER BY flowEndSeconds DESC

Installation

1. Install the Panel

Installing on a local Grafana:

For local instances, plugins are installed and updated via a simple CLI command. Use the grafana-cli tool to install chord-panel-plugin from the commandline:

grafana-cli --pluginUrl https://downloads.antrea.io/artifacts/grafana-custom-plugins/theia-grafana-dependency-plugin-1.0.0.zip plugins install theia-grafana-dependency-plugin

The plugin will be installed into your grafana plugins directory; the default is /var/lib/grafana/plugins. More information on the cli tool.

Alternatively, you can manually download the .zip file and unpack it into your grafana plugins directory.

Download

Installing to a Grafana deployed on Kubernetes:

In Grafana deployment manifest, configure the environment variable GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS as below:

env:
- name: GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS
   value: "https://downloads.antrea.io/artifacts/grafana-custom-plugins/theia-grafana-dependency-plugin-1.0.0.zip;theia-grafana-dependency-plugin"

2. Add the Panel to a Dashboard

Installed panels are available immediately in the Dashboards section in your Grafana main menu, and can be added like any other core panel in Grafana. To see a list of installed panels, click the Plugins item in the main menu. Both core panels and installed panels will appear. For more information, visit the docs on Grafana plugin installation.

Customization

This plugin is built with @grafana/toolkit, which is a CLI that enables efficient development of Grafana plugins. To customize the plugin and do local testings:

1. Install dependencies

   cd grafana-dependency-plugin
   yarn install

2. Build plugin in development mode or run in watch mode

   yarn dev

   or

   yarn watch

3. Build plugin in production mode

   yarn build

Learn more

• Build a panel plugin tutorial
• Grafana documentation
• Grafana Tutorials - Grafana Tutorials are step-by-step guides that help you make the most of Grafana
• Grafana UI Library - UI components to help you build interfaces using Grafana Design System