Dashboards

Dashboards are an extension of kobs via the Dashboard Custom Resource Definition. Dashboards are used to add additional information for teams and applications via all the configured plugins.

You can access all dashboards via the Dashboards item on the home page of kobs.

Home

On the dashboards page it will show all dashboards from all clusters and namespaces. When you click on one of the dashboards an modal will be shown, where you can provide the default cluster and namespace and placeholders

Dashboards

The dashboards page is only there to explore all the available dashboards, but for your daily work you should add the dashboards as reference in your Team and Applications.

Specification

In the following you can found the specification for the Dashboard CRD. On the bottom of this page you also have a complete example for a Dashboard CR.

Field	Type	Description	Required
description	string	Provide a descriptions for the dashboard with additional details.	No
placeholders	[]Placeholder	A list of placeholders, which can be directly set by the user.	No
variables	[]Variable	A list of variables, where the values are loaded by the specified plugin.	No
rows	[]Row	A list of rows for the dashboard.	Yes

Placeholder

Placeholders are similar to variables with the difference that they must be set when the dashboard is referenced in a Team or an Applications.

The value of a placeholder can be used via the following templating string: {% .<placeholder-name> %}. This string is then replaced with the provided value when the dashboard is loaded.

Field	Type	Description	Required
name	string	The name for the placeholder, which can be used in the dashboard via `{% .<placeholder-name> %}`.	Yes
description	string	An optional description, to provide more information how the placeholder is used.	No

Variable

Variables can be used to select between different values in the dashboard. To use the variable in the dashboard, the following templating string can be used: {% .<variable-name> %}.

Field	Type	Description	Required
name	string	The name of the variable, which can be used in the dashboard via `{% .<variable-name> %}`.	Yes
label	string	An optional label, which is shown in the UI instead of the variable name.	No
hide	boolean	Hide the variable in the UI.	No
plugin	Variable Plugin	The plugin, which should be used to get the values for the variable.	Yes

Note

Dashboards are also supporting some special variables, which always can be used and must not be defined by a users. These variables are:

__cluster: The cluster from the Application / Team were the dashboard is used. This variable can be used via {% .__cluster %} in a dashboard.
__namespace: The cluster from the Application / Team were the dashboard is used. This variable can be used via {% .__namespace %} in a dashboard.
__timeStart: The start time of the selected time range in seconds. This variable can be used via {% .__timeStart %} in a dashboard.
__timeEnd: The end time of the selected time range in seconds. This variable can be used via {% .__timeEnd %} in a dashboard.

Variable Plugin

Field	Type	Description	Required
name	string	The name of the plugin, this must be `core` or the name of an configured Plugin which supports variables (e.g. Prometheus).	Yes
options	Variable Plugin Options	Plugin specific options to retrieve the values for the variable.	Yes

Variable Plugin Options

If the core plugin is used to get the values for a variable the options from the following table can be used. The clusters type let you select a cluster from all the loaded cluster, the plugins type let you select the name of all configured plugins and the static type let you specify a list of static values.

Field	Type	Description	Required
type	string	The type for the `core` plugin. This must be `clusters`, `plugins` or `static`.	Yes
items	[]string	A list of static values for the `static` type.	Yes

Example

---
apiVersion: kobs.io/v1
kind: Dashboard
spec:
  variables:
    - name: cluster
      label: Cluster
      plugin:
        name: core
        options:
          type: clusters
    - name: plugin
      label: Plugins
      plugin:
        name: core
        options:
          type: plugins
    - name: mystaticvalues
      label: My Static Values
      plugin:
        name: core
        options:
          type: static
          items:
            - myvalue1
            - myvalue2
            - myvalue3

It is also possible to use other plugins, to get a list of variable values. These plugins are:

Prometheus

Row

A row can be used to create logical groups in the dashboard.

Field	Type	Description	Required
title	string	The title for a row.	No
description	string	The description for the row, to provide additional details about the content of the row.	No
size	number	The size of the row. This must be a value between `1` and `12`. The default value is `2`. You can also use the special value `-1` to not limit the height of the row. Note: When a dashboard makes use of the `-1` value the Intersection Observer API is disabled, so that all dashboard panels are loaded at once.	No
panels	[]Panel	A list of panels for the row.	Yes

Panel

All specified panels are rendered in a 12 column grid and they are containing the plugin specification.

Field	Type	Description	Required
title	string	The title of the panel.	Yes
description	string	An optional description with additional information about the panel.	No
colSpan	number	The number of columns, which should be used by the panel. This must be a number between `1` and `12`. The default value is `12`.	No
rowSpan	number	The number of rows, which should be used by the panel. This must be a number between `1` and `12`. The default value is `1`.	No
plugin	Plugin	The plugin which should be displayed in the panel.	Yes

Example

The following dashboard, shows the CPU and Memory usage of a selected Pod. When this dashboard is used in via a team or application, it is possible to set the namespace and a regular expression to pre select all the Pods. These values are then used to get the names of all Pods and a user can then select the name of a Pod via the var_pod variable.

The dashboard only uses the Prometheus plugin to show the CPU Usage, Memory Usage, the Network Usage and some other information via different charts and tables.

---
apiVersion: kobs.io/v1
kind: Dashboard
metadata:
  name: resource-usage
  namespace: kobs
spec:
  description: Resources Usage of Pods
  placeholders:
    - name: namespace
      description: Namespace for the Pods
    - name: pod
      description: Pod selector
  variables:
    - name: var_pod
      label: Pod
      plugin:
        name: prometheus
        options:
          type: labelValues
          label: pod
          query: container_cpu_usage_seconds_total{namespace="{% .namespace %}", image!="", pod=~"{% .pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}
          allowAll: false
  rows:
    - size: 1
      panels:
        - title: CPU Usage
          colSpan: 4
          plugin:
            name: prometheus
            options:
              type: sparkline
              unit: Cores
              queries:
                - query: sum(rate(container_cpu_usage_seconds_total{namespace="{% .namespace %}", image!="", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}[2m]))
        - title: Memory Usage
          colSpan: 4
          plugin:
            name: prometheus
            options:
              type: sparkline
              unit: MiB
              queries:
                - query: sum(container_memory_working_set_bytes{namespace="{% .namespace %}", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) / 1024 / 1024
        - title: Restarts
          colSpan: 4
          plugin:
            name: prometheus
            options:
              type: sparkline
              queries:
                - query: kube_pod_container_status_restarts_total{namespace="{% .namespace %}", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}"}
    - size: 3
      panels:
        - title: CPU Usage
          colSpan: 6
          plugin:
            name: prometheus
            options:
              type: line
              unit: Cores
              legend: table
              queries:
                - label: "Usage: {% .container %}"
                  query: sum(rate(container_cpu_usage_seconds_total{namespace="{% .namespace %}", image!="", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}[2m])) by (container)
                - label: "Request: {% .container %}"
                  query: sum(kube_pod_container_resource_requests{namespace="{% .namespace %}", resource="cpu", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (container)
                - label: "Limits: {% .container %}"
                  query: sum(kube_pod_container_resource_limits{namespace="{% .namespace %}", resource="cpu", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (container)
        - title: Memory Usage
          colSpan: 6
          plugin:
            name: prometheus
            options:
              type: line
              unit: MiB
              legend: table
              queries:
                - label: "Usage: {% .container %}"
                  query: sum(container_memory_working_set_bytes{namespace="{% .namespace %}", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (container) / 1024 / 1024
                - label: "Request: {% .container %}"
                  query: sum(kube_pod_container_resource_requests{namespace="{% .namespace %}", resource="memory", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (container) / 1024 / 1024
                - label: "Limits: {% .container %}"
                  query: sum(kube_pod_container_resource_limits{namespace="{% .namespace %}", resource="memory", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (container) / 1024 / 1024
    - title: Network
      size: 3
      panels:
        - title: Bandwidth
          colSpan: 12
          plugin:
            name: prometheus
            options:
              type: area
              unit: bytes/s
              queries:
                - label: Received
                  query: sum(irate(container_network_receive_bytes_total{namespace="{% .namespace %}", pod="{% .var_pod %}"}[2m])) by (pod)
                - label: Transmitted
                  query: -sum(irate(container_network_transmit_bytes_total{namespace="{% .namespace %}", pod="{% .var_pod %}"}[2m])) by (pod)
        - title: Rate of Packets
          colSpan: 6
          plugin:
            name: prometheus
            options:
              type: area
              unit: bytes/s
              queries:
                - label: Received
                  query: sum(irate(container_network_receive_packets_total{namespace=~"{% .namespace %}", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}"}[2m])) by (pod)
                - label: Transmitted
                  query: -sum(irate(container_network_transmit_packets_total{namespace=~"{% .namespace %}", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}"}[2m])) by (pod)
        - title: Rate of Packets Dropped
          colSpan: 6
          plugin:
            name: prometheus
            options:
              type: area
              unit: bytes/s
              queries:
                - label: Received
                  query: sum(irate(container_network_receive_packets_dropped_total{namespace=~"{% .namespace %}", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}"}[2m])) by (pod)
                - label: Transmitted
                  query: -sum(irate(container_network_transmit_packets_dropped_total{namespace=~"{% .namespace %}", pod=~"{% .var_pod %}"}[2m])) by (pod)
    - title: "Resource Usage for all Pods"
      panels:
        - title: Table
          plugin:
            name: prometheus
            options:
              type: table
              queries:
                - label: "{% .pod %}"
                  query: sum(rate(container_cpu_usage_seconds_total{namespace="{% .namespace %}", image!="", pod=~"{% .pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}[2m])) by (pod)
                - label: "{% .pod %}"
                  query: sum(kube_pod_container_resource_requests{namespace="{% .namespace %}", resource="cpu", pod=~"{% .pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (pod)
                - label: "{% .pod %}"
                  query: sum(kube_pod_container_resource_limits{namespace="{% .namespace %}", resource="cpu", pod=~"{% .pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (pod)
                - label: "{% .pod %}"
                  query: sum(container_memory_working_set_bytes{namespace="{% .namespace %}", pod=~"{% .pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (pod) / 1024 / 1024
                - label: "{% .pod %}"
                  query: sum(kube_pod_container_resource_requests{namespace="{% .namespace %}", resource="memory", pod=~"{% .pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (pod) / 1024 / 1024
                - label: "{% .pod %}"
                  query: sum(kube_pod_container_resource_limits{namespace="{% .namespace %}", resource="memory", pod=~"{% .pod %}", container!="POD", container!=""}) by (pod) / 1024 / 1024
              columns:
                - name: pod
                  title: Pod
                - name: value-1
                  title: CPU Usage
                  unit: Cores
                - name: value-2
                  title: CPU Requests
                  unit: Cores
                - name: value-3
                  title: CPU Limits
                  unit: Cores
                - name: value-4
                  title: Memory Usage
                  unit: MiB
                - name: value-5
                  title: Memory Requests
                  unit: MiB
                - name: value-6
                  title: Memory Limits
                  unit: MiB

Dashboard