apimon

APImon is a simple tool to monitor HTTP endpoints and send metrics to a robust monitoring platform (such as TICK, Prometheus, ELK, etc.).

Installation

Run the following command:

$ go get -v github.com/ncarlier/apimon

Or download the binary regarding your architecture:

$ sudo curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ncarlier/apimon/master/install.sh | bash

Or use Docker:

$ docker run -d --name=apimon \
  -v ${PWD}/apimon.yml:/etc/apimon.yml \
  ncarlier/apimon apimon -c /etc/apimon.yml

Here a Docker Compose example.

Configuration

The configuration is a YAML file structured like this:

output:              # Output configuration
  traget: stdout     # Output target (default: stdout)
  format: influxdb   # Output format (default: influxdb)
proxy: ${HTTP_PROXY} # Global HTTP proxy to use (default: none)
user_agent: "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:10.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0" # UserAgent used (default: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; APImon/1.0; +https://github.com/ncarlier/apimon))
healthcheck:         # Global healthcheck configuration
  interval: 5s       # Check interval (default: 30s)
  timeout: 2s        # Request timeout (default: 5s)
  rules:             # List of rules (default: "code = 200")
    - name: code
      spec: 200-299
monitors_files: # List of external monitors configuration (default: none)
  - "monitor_*.yml" # File to load (support wildcard)
monitors: # List of monitors configuration
  - alias: nunux-keeper-api # The name used within the produced metrics (default: the URL)
    disable: false # Disable the monitor (default: false)
    url: https://api.nunux.org/keeper/ # The URL to monitor
    method: GET # HTTP method used (default: GET)
    headers: # HTTP headers to add to the request (default: none)
      - "X-API-Key: xxx-xxx-xxx"
    body: > # HTTP request body
      { "foo": "bar" }
    proxy: http://proxy-internet.localnet:3128 # Specific HTTP proxy to use. Replaces the global configuration (default: none)
    tls:
      unsafe: true # Don't verifies the server's certificate chain and host name (default: false)
      client_cert_file: ./cert.pem # PEM encoded client certificate file (default: none)
      client_key_file: ./key.pem   # PEM encoded client key file (default: none
      ca_cert_file: ./key.pem      # PEM encoded CA's certificate file (default: none)
    healthcheck: # Monitor specific configuration. Replaces the global configuration.
      timeout: 100ms
      rules:
        - name: code
          spec: 200
  - url: https://reader.nunux.org

Note: As the proxy example shows, you can use environment variables in your configuration file.

Output configuration

This configuration section allows you to set the targeted output (i. e. your monitoring platform).

• stdout: Prints metrics to the STDOUT.
• file://test.log: Writes metrics to a log file.
• http://...:
  • Post metrics to an HTTP endpoint such as InfluxDb, Elasticsearch, etc. (Push Mode)
  • OR serve metrics on this HTTP endpoint if prometheus format is used (Pull mode)

Note: When you are using stdout you should use the logging output flag (-o) in order to not mix metrics and logs outputs.

You can also choose the output format:

• influxdb: InfluxDb line protocol (when using a collector compatible with InfluxDB)
• json: JSON format (when using Elasticsearch like solution)
• prometheus: when using Prometheus as collector

Note: When using prometheus format the output configuration must be a local HTTP endpoint. This endpoint will be mounted by APImon and you will be able to configure Prometheus to scrap this target.

Healthcheck configuration

You can configure the health check in a global way (for all monitors) by placing this section at the root level of the configuration file. If you configure the health check of a specific monitor, the configuration applies upon the global one.

A health check is defined like this:

• interval: the waiting time between checks
• timeout: the maximum time allowed for a check
• rules: the list of validation rules

A rule have the following structure:

• name: rule name
• spec: rule specification

The name selects the validator to be applied. And spec is the configuration of the validator.

Validators are chained (using list order). The first failed validator stops the validation chain and the monitor is considered as DOWN.

Available validators

Service Discovery and dynamic configuration

APImon can work alongside Consul. To do so you must configure the Consul environment variables.

Ex:

$ # Configure Consul access
$ export CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR=127.0.0.1:8500
$ # Start APImon
$ apimon

APImon will then register as a service and you can use the K/V store for monitors configuration.

The configuration is stored in the `apimon/monitors' key in YAML:

- alias: google
  url: https://www.google.com

This is the equivalent of the `monitors' section of the configuration file.

Updating this key will reload APImon monitors.

Usage

Type apimon -help to get the usage.

Basically, all you have to do is to provide the configuration file either using the -c parameter or the standard input of the command.

Here come examples of possible usages:

$ # Using the default configuration file: `./apimon.yml`
$ apimon
$ # Using a specific configuration file
$ apimon -c /etc/apimon.yml
$ # Using a configuration file provided by the shell standard input
$ cat conf.yml | apimon
$ ...

Here an example of a Grafana dashboard displaying metrics form APImon:

You can find dashboard examples into the dashboard folder:

• Grafana dashboard using InfluxDB
• Grafana dashboard using Prometheus

FAQ

I am using InfluxDB with UDP

This is why stdout output is designed. You can pipe the standard output to netcat:

$ # Sending metrics to InfluxDb using UDP
$ cat conf.yml | apimon -o output.log | nc -C -w 1 -u localhost 8125

I am using Elasticsearch

You can either send the metrics (using JSON format as output configuration!) directly to Elasticsearch:

$ apimon -c config.yml -o output.log | curl -X POST - -d @- http://localhost:9200/index/doc
$ # You can also directly use the HTTP output provider into the APIMon configuration

or better: use Logstash to collect the JSON outputs:

input {
  pipe {
    type => "apimon"
    debug => true
    command => "/usr/local/apimon -c /etc/apimon.yml -o /var/log/apimon.log"
  }
}

This software is under MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2018 Nicolas Carlier

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.