How to run Pactus Metrics?

Preface

Pactus can be run with metrics, providing you with the ability to monitor your node. This tutorial will guide you through the steps to run Pactus with metrics, suitable for advanced users.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with the steps below, ensure that you have the following:

• An understanding of Prometheus and Grafana.
• Have a running Pactus Node.

Configure Pactus Node for Metrics

To Configure the Pactus Node for Metrics, navigate to the Pactus directory; by default, it’s located at the following path.

/home/YourUsername/pactus

There’s a file named config.toml that contains all the configurations for your node. There are two parameters that you should enable for metrics: the first is enable_metrics, and the second is enable http. After editing the config.toml you should restart your node. The metrics now can be accessed at http://localhost:80/metrics/prometheus (this url going to be use by prometheus).

Configure Grafana And Prometheus

You should run Grafana and Prometheus for gathering metrics and displaying them in charts. First, create a directory named prometheus-grafana. Inside the directory, create a docker-compose.yml file and paste the code below.

services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus
    container_name: prometheus
    command:
      - "--config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
    ports:
      - 9090:9090
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus:/etc/prometheus
      - prom_data:/prometheus
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana
    container_name: grafana
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER=admin
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin
    volumes:
      - ./grafana:/etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources
volumes: prom_data

You can change the default username and password of Grafana by modifying the values of GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER and GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD. Now, save the file. Then, in the current directory (meaning you are inside the prometheus-grafana directory), create another directory named grafana. Then, go to the directory. So now you’re in the path /prometheus-grafana/grafana/. In the current directory, create a file named datasource.yml and paste the code below there.

apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: Prometheus
    type: prometheus
    url: http://prometheus:9090
    isDefault: true
    access: proxy
    editable: true

Then save the file and exit. Now, we should go up one directory level from the current directory and navigate to the /prometheus-grafana directory. In the current directory, which is /prometheus-grafana, create another directory named prometheus, then go into the directory.In the prometheus directory create a file named prometheus.yml and paste below code there.

global:
  scrape_interval: 15s
  scrape_timeout: 10s
  evaluation_interval: 15s
alerting:
  alertmanagers:
    - static_configs:
        - targets: []
      scheme: http
      timeout: 10s
      api_version: v1
scrape_configs:
  - job_name: prometheus
    honor_timestamps: true
    scrape_interval: 15s
    scrape_timeout: 10s
    metrics_path: /metrics/prometheus
    scheme: http
    static_configs:
      - targets:
          - 127.0.0.1

Then save the file and exit.

Run Grafana and Prometheus

Go to the /prometheus-grafana directory where the docker-compose.yml is located and run the command below.

docker compose up -d

Congratulations! Grafana and Prometheus are now up and accessible at ports 3000 and 9090 respectively.

Import Pactus Metrics to Grafana Dashboard

As Pactus uses libp2p for its peer-to-peer network, we should import libp2p metrics that you can find here. Download one of the metrics config and then Import it into Grafana Dashboard.

Congratulations! You did it. Now, you can perform the same operations for other configurations.