Grafana Pixie Plugin

This tutorial will demonstrate how to use the Pixie datasource plugin to visualize data from Pixie in Grafana.

• A Kubernetes cluster with Pixie installed. If you do not have a cluster, you can create a minikube cluster and install Pixie using our install guides.

• A Grafana server with the Pixie datasource plugin installed. For installation directions, see the instructions on GitHub.

Before you can create a dashboard, you will need to add Pixie as a datasource:

1. With Grafana open, select the cog icon from the left-side menu to show the configuration options.

2. Click on Data sources. The data sources page opens showing a list of previously configured data sources for the Grafana instance.

3. Click Add data source to see a list of all supported data sources.

4. Search for "Pixie Grafana Datasource Plugin" and press the Select button. The datasource configuration page will open.

5. The Pixie Plugin requires a Pixie API key and cluster ID to execute queries. To create an API Key, follow the directions here. To find your cluster's ID, follow the directions here.

6. Select the Save & Test button.

First, let's create a dashboard:

1. Click the + icon on the left side menu and select Create Dashboard.

Next, let's add a panel:

2. In the New Dashboard view, click Add an empty panel.

3. In the Edit Panel view, go to the Query tab.

4. Configure the query by selecting -- Pixie Grafana Datasource Plugin -- from the data source selector.

5. Click the Save icon in the top right corner of your screen to save the dashboard.

1. Copy & paste the following query into the Query Editor.

# Import Pixie's module for querying data.
import px
# Load data from Pixie's `http_events` table into a Dataframe.
df = px.DataFrame(table='http_events', start_time=__time_from)
# Bin the 'time_' column using the interval provided by Grafana.
df.timestamp = px.bin(df.time_, __interval)
# Group data by unique 'timestamp' and count the total number of
# requests per unique timestamp.
per_ns_df = df.groupby(['timestamp']).agg(
        throughput_total=('latency', px.count)
    )
# Calculate throughput by dividing # of requests by the time interval.
per_ns_df.request_throughput = per_ns_df.throughput_total / __interval
# Rename 'timestamp' column to 'time_'. The Grafana plugin expects a 'time_'
# column to display data in a Graph or Time series.
per_ns_df.time_ = per_ns_df.timestamp
per_ns_df.request_throughput = per_ns_df.request_throughput * 1e9
# Output select columns of the DataFrame.
px.display(per_ns_df['time_', 'request_throughput'])

This plugin uses the Pixie Language (PxL) to query telemetry data collected by the Pixie platform.

The above PxL query outputs a table of timeseries data showing overall HTTP request throughput. Request throughput is calculated by counting the number HTTP requests that Pixie automatically traces in your cluster.

This query uses the __time_from and __interval macros to add dashboard context to the query. See the full list of macros supported by this plugin.

2. On the Panel tab, under the Visualization drop-down menu, select Time series.

3. Add units to the graph: on the Field tab, under the Standard options drop-down menu, under the Unit menu, select requests/sec.

You should see data plotted over time, but the exact numbers will vary depending on the traffic in your cluster.

4. Select Apply to save the panel.

If you don't see any data in your graph, try:

• Changing the current time range to the "Last 5 minutes".

• Switching to the Table visualization to make sure that the query is returning some sort of data in table form.

• Making sure that your cluster has HTTP traffic that Pixie can automatically trace. Instructions for installing a demo application with HTTP traffic can be found here. If you're using your own application, double check that Pixie supports the protocols for the traffic in your cluster.

1. Create a new panel following the directions in the previous section.

2. Copy & paste this query into the Query Editor.

# Import Pixie's module for querying data.
import px
# Load data from Pixie's `http_events` table into a Dataframe.
df = px.DataFrame(table='http_events', start_time=__time_from)
# Add K8s metadata context.
df.service = df.ctx['service']
df.namespace = df.ctx['namespace']
# Bin the 'time_' column using the interval provided by Grafana.
df.timestamp = px.bin(df.time_, __interval)
# Group data by unique pairings of 'timestamp' and 'service'
# and count the total number of requests per unique pairing.
per_ns_df = df.groupby(['timestamp', 'service']).agg(
        throughput_total=('latency', px.count)
    )
# Calculate throughput by dividing # of requests by the time interval.
per_ns_df.request_throughput = per_ns_df.throughput_total / __interval
per_ns_df.request_throughput = per_ns_df.request_throughput * 1e9
# Rename 'timestamp' column to 'time_'. The Grafana plugin expects a 'time_'
# column to display data in a Graph or Time series.
per_ns_df.time_ = per_ns_df.timestamp
# Output select columns of the DataFrame.
px.display(per_ns_df['time_', 'service', 'request_throughput'])

This PxL query outputs a table of timeseries data for HTTP request throughput per service

3. On the Panel tab, under the Visualization drop-down menu, select Time series.

4. Add units to the graph on the Field tab, under the Standard options drop-down menu, under the Unit menu, select requests/sec.

You should see data plotted over time, but the exact numbers will vary depending on the traffic in your cluster.

5. Select Apply to save the panel.

The following PxL query outputs a table of HTTP error count per service.

1. Create a new panel following the directions in the previous section.

2. Copy & paste this query into the Query Editor.

import px
# Import HTTP events table.
df = px.DataFrame(table='http_events', start_time='-5m')
# Add columns for service, namespace info.
df.namespace = df.ctx['namespace']
df.service = df.ctx['service']
# Filter out requests that don't have a service defined.
df = df[df.service != '']
# Filter out requests from the Pixie (pl) namespace.
df = df[df.namespace != 'pl']
# Add column for HTTP response status errors.
df.error = df.resp_status >= 400
# Group HTTP events by service, counting errors and total HTTP events.
df = df.groupby(['service']).agg(
    error_count=('error', px.sum),
    total_requests=('resp_status', px.count)
)
# Output the DataFrame.
px.display(df)

3. On the Panel tab, under the Visualization drop-down menu, select Bar chart.

4. Flip the bar chart orientation to horizontal to more easily read the service names. On the Field tab, under the Display drop-down menu, select Orientation > Horizontal.

You should see data plotted over time, but the exact numbers will vary depending on the traffic in your cluster.

5. Select Apply to save the panel.

• Check out the Pixie Grafana datasource plugin reference docs.
• Inspect the source code, report issues, and contribute fixes in the GitHub repo.
• Ask questions in the #grafana-plugin channel on Pixie's Community Slack.

Slack Alerts using the Pixie APICollecting Custom Data