AWS RDS

• Introduction
• Compatibility matrix
• Prerrequisites
• Parameters and configuration
• Manual execution
• Discovery
• Agents and modules generated by the plugin

Introduction

The purpose of this plugin is to monitor RDS instances and AWS regions, using key metrics regarding CPU, networks, IOPs and disks that are essential to control and monitor these machines and to guarantee optimal performance, solve problems, plan scaling , comply with SLAs and improve security.

The plugin connects to the AWS API and monitors zones and instances using the aforementioned metrics, generating an agent for each zone and instance via XML that is sent to the Pandora server.

Compatibility matrix

Systems where it has been tested	Rocky linux, Fedora 34
Systems where it works	Any linux system

Prerrequisites

• AWS API Connectivity
  The plugin is a binary that contains the packaged dependencies so it is not necessary to install any type of dependency for its use.
• Permissions
  To make requests through the API, the account used to authenticate during execution requires certain permissions.

 

Permission Assignment

Create a policy in JSON like the following:

{
   "Version": "2012-10-17",
   "Statement": [
       {
           "Sid": "VisualEditor0",
           "Effect": "Allow",
           "Action": [
  			   "rds:DescribeDBInstances",
               "cloudwatch:Get*",
           ],
           "Resource": "*"
       }
   ]
}

The previous policy must be assigned to a new user.

Parameters and configuration

Parameters

--conf

Path to configuration file

Configuration file (--conf)

agents_group_name = < Name of the target group for the created agents >
interval = < Interval in seconds for agents and for metric analysis >
threads = < Number of execution threads, each zone/instance will be equally distributed in the number of threads >
transfer_mode = < Transfer mode, tentacle or local >
tentacle_ip = < IP of the target machine for the created agents >
tentacle_port = <tentacle port, default: 41121>
tentacle_opts = < Tentacle client additional options >
data_dir = < (Only activated if the transfer_mode is local) Destination path for the XML of each agent, by default "/var/spool/pandora/data_in/" >

advance_monitoring = < Activate with 1 to enable widespread monitoring (these modules will only be created in the agents of the running instances) >
cpu_summary = < Enable with 1 to enable CPU monitoring >
iops_summary = < Enable with 1 to enable IOPS monitoring >
disk_summary = < Enable with 1 to enable disk monitoring >
network_summary = < Enable with 1 to enable network monitoring >

stats_agent = < Activate with 1 to enable a global agent that will monitor based on the task created and the parameters used >
stats_agent_name = < Name for the agent that is activated with the "stats_agent" parameter. If you do not use and "stats_agent" is enabled, the agent will be called "Aws.rds" by default >

aws_regions = < List of regions to monitor (when you mark a region to monitor, it automatically monitors all buckets found within that region) >
aws_instances = < List with the id of the rds instances to monitor >

creds_b64 = < Base64 credentials in the JSON file to authenticate >

Example

agents_group_name  = "aws"
interval           = 300
threads            = 4
transfer_mode      = tentacle 
tentacle_ip        = 172.42.42.101
tentacle_port      = 41121
data_dir           = /var/spool/pandora/data_in/

advance_monitoring = 1
cpu_summary        = 1
iops_summary       = 1
disk_summary       = 1
network_summary    = 1

stats_agent        = 1
stats_agent_name   = "Rds"

aws_instances = ["database-1","database-2"]
aws_regions   = ["us-east-1","ap-northeast-1","ap-southeast-1"]

creds_b64          =  ewdhBDJDdvb2tleV9pZGdhjDNDHDhbdjdKKDNDbdBiwKInNlY3JldFSHSHHDGJCJChfDHCNCNHCdjdghDMDBGBkxlSLiIKfQ==

Manual execution

The plugin execution format is as follows:

./pandora_aws_rds --conf < path to configuration file >

For example 

./pandora_aws_ec2 --conf /usr/share/pandora_server/util/plugin/aws_rds.conf

The execution will return an output in JSON format with information about the execution, and will generate an XML file for each monitored agent that will be sent to the Pandora FMS server by the transfer method indicated in the configuration.

For example:

{"summary": {"Total agents": 5, "Zones agents": 6, "Instances agents": 18}}

 

Discovery

This plugin can be integrated with Pandora FMS Discovery.

To do this, you must load the ".disco" package that you can download from the Pandora FMS library:

https://pandorafms.com/library/

Once loaded, Amazon RDS environments can be monitored by creating Discovery tasks from the Management > Discovery > Cloud section.

For each task, the following minimum data will be requested:

• AWS Credentials: Connection credentials to the AWS API to be used by the task. They must be previously registered in the Pandora FMS credential store.
  
• Max threads: To optimize the execution time, multiple threads can be configured to monitor the agents of the task. Keep in mind that setting up multiple threads can increase the CPU usage of the task.
  
• Tentacle IP – Tentacle server IP to send agent data to. Normally this parameter will not be modified.
  
• Tentacle port: Tentacle server port to send data to. Normally this parameter will not be modified.
  
• Tentacle extra options: Additional options for sending data through the Tentacle client. Normally this parameter will not be modified.
  
• Add global stats agent: If activated, a global agent will be generated with task statistics.
  
• Stats agent name: It will allow you to indicate the name of the agent for global statistics of the task. If no name is provided, the default name of the plugin will be used.

If the credentials provided are correct and the Pandora FMS server is able to connect to the AWS API, you will be able to see a tree with AWS RDS zones and instances, which can be marked for monitoring.

If a zone is selected, in addition to the zone itself, all the instances it contains will be monitored (both at the time of configuring the task and later if new instances are included).

If specific instances are selected, they will be monitored regardless of whether their zones have not been selected.

Next you can adjust the monitoring you want to obtain for each agent:

• Scan and general monitoring: If activated, the task will be enabled to obtain additional monitoring for the agents, described in the following fields.
  
• CPU performance summary: If activated, the CPU performance modules will be included in the monitoring.
  
• IOPs performance summary: If activated, the IOPs performance modules will be included in the monitoring.
  
• Disk performance summary: If enabled, the disk performance modules will be included in the monitoring.
  
• Network performance summary: If activated, the network performance modules will be included in the monitoring.

Tasks that are successfully completed will have an execution summary with the following information:

• Total agents: Total number of agents generated by the task.
  
• Zones agents: Total number of regions monitored by the task.
  
• Instances agents: Total number of instances monitored by the task.

The tasks that are not completed successfully will have an execution summary recording the errors produced.

Agents and modules generated by the plugin

Running the plugin will create the following agents and modules:

• Global agent

< Name used with the parameter "stats_agent_name" or failing that "Aws.rds" >

Modules

AWS RDS Instances count

Total instances registered in AWS

• One agent for each monitored region.

<Region name>

Modules

summary.aws.rds.DBconnections	Summary of the number of connections for each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.CPUUtilization	Average CPU percentage used for instances in this zone
summary.aws.rds.CPUCreditBalance	Summary of the number of CPU credits earned from each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.CPUCreditUsage	Summary of the number of CPU credits spent for each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.CPUSurplusCreditBalance	Summary of the number of surplus CPU credits available for each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.CPUSurplusCreditsCharged	Summary of the number of CPU surplus credits used for each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.DiskReadBytes	Summary of the number of bytes read from disk for each instance of this zone
summary.aws.rds.DiskReadOps	Summary of the number of read operations performed on the disk of each instance of this zone
summary.aws.rds.diskWriteBytes	Summary of the number of bytes written to disk for each instance of this zone
summary.aws.rds.DiskWriteOps	Summary of the number of write operations performed on the disk for each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.BinLogDiskUsage	Summary of the amount of disk space occupied by the binary logs of each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.LVMReadIOPS	Summary of the number of read operations performed per second on an LVM-based storage system for each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.LVMWriteIOPS	Summary of the number of writes performed per second on an LVM-based storage system for each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.instances	Number of instances monitored in this zone
summary.aws.rds.NetworkReceiveThroughput	Summary of incoming network traffic for each instance in this zone
summary.aws.rds.NetworkTransmitThroughput	Summary of outbound network traffic for each instance in this zone

• One agent for each monitored instance

<instance ID>

 

Modules

State	Machine status, in string format
Instance State (bool)	State of the machine, 1 if it is running, 0 otherwise
DatabaseConnections	The number of client network connections to the database instance
CPUUtilization	Percentage of CPU utilization used
CPUCreditBalance	The number of earned CPU credits that an instance has accumulated since it was launched or started
CPUCreditUsage	The number of CPU credits spent by the instance for CPU utilization
CPUSurplusCreditBalance	The number of surplus CPU credits available for an Amazon RDS instance
CPUSurplusCreditsCharged	The number of surplus CPU credits used by an Amazon RDS instance
DiskReadBytes	Number of bytes read from disk
DiskReadOps	The number of read operations performed on the disk
DiskWriteBytes	Number of bytes written to disk
DiskWriteOps	Number of write operations performed on the disk
BinLogDiskUsage	The amount of disk space occupied by binary logs
LVMReadIOPS	The number of read operations performed per second on an LVM-based storage system
LVMWriteIOPS	The number of write operations performed per second on an LVM-based storage system
NetworkReceiveThroughput	The incoming (receiving) network traffic on the database instance
NetworkTransmitThroughput	Outbound (transfer) network traffic on the database instance