Any issues with including NetData on the root server and as an app add-on?

[girish]

For Netdata to work well, it has to run like it runs on the host itself i.e without a sandbox. If you see https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/installing/docker#recommended-way or the compose file @fbartels posted, it is giving access to proc, etc, sys of the host and docker access. This is security risk (or not) depending on whether you trust netdata. Cloudron apps don't have access to any of these things.

[imc67]

@fbartels said in Any issues with including NetData on the root server and as an app add-on?:

Afterwards one can just create an app proxy to http://127.0.0.1:19999 and netdata can be "publicly" reached.

I just installed Netdata (stable) on another Cloudron production server. Installation went well, connection to Netdata cloud dashboard went well and indeed as @fbartels wrote, the "app proxy" works also to have a local only view!

Perfect!

[girish]

@imc67 Did you install as docker container or via the apt repos?

[imc67]

@girish via apt

[d1rk]

@imc67 I understood, that installing netdata via the Kickstart command is not a bad thing to do?

https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/installing/one-line-installer-for-all-linux-systems

ofc, taking into account, that messing with the system like that deviates from what is suggested for obvious reasons by Cloudron and is in my responsibility.

[imc67]

@d1rk on 3 of my Cloudrons it is working without an issue but indeed that’s not a measure for succes

[robi]

It might be useful to use --disable-telemetry: Disable anonymous statistics. for the privacy conscious; as well as the local webUI.

[d1rk]

Thanks for your feedback. Yeah, that would have been my approach, anyway:

• disable any remote communication
• use local webUI
• install via kickstart (which results in apt-packages)

Ok, I would give it a go and see for myself.

[girish]

Looks like we got our first support ticket related to installing netdata. I have not verified this but it seems that installing netdata installs the nodejs package which ends up downgrading nodejs to v12 . This in turn prevents Cloudron from starting up.

It's better to install netdata via Docker, atleast it would prevent the above issue.

[d1rk]

Oh, interesting find. I have to check which version of node I have. Currently it seems to work fine.

Thanks for keeping us posted, here.

[imc67]

Uhoh how do we check the version? And how to install it via Docker?

Netdata is extremely useful and needed like having a live dashboard in your car. Without its hard to drive

[imc67]

@imc67 said in Any issues with including NetData on the root server and as an app add-on?:

Uhoh how do we check the version?

I just found out: node -v on the command line.

On my 3 Cloudron's it says v18.16.0

Is that OK @girish ?

[imc67]

BTW nice to know:

Netdata is the most energy-efficient monitoring tool for Docker-based systems

Dec 11, 2023: University of Amsterdam published a study related to the impact of monitoring tools for Docker based systems, aiming to answer 2 questions:

What is the impact of monitoring tools on the energy efficiency of Docker-based systems?
What is the impact of monitoring tools on the performance of Docker-based systems?
They tested ELK, Prometheus, Netdata and Zipkin, under 9 different configurations (Low, Mid, High Frequency vs. Low, Mid, High Workload, 3x3).

This is how Netdata stands:

Netdata excels in energy efficiency: "... Netdata being the most energy-efficient tool ...", as the study says.
Netdata excels in CPU Usage, RAM Usage and Execution Time, and has a similar impact in Network Traffic as Prometheus.
The study did not normalize the results based on the number of metrics collected. Given that Netdata usually collects singificantly more metrics than the other tools, Netdata managed to outperform the other tools, while ingesting a much higher number of metrics. Read the full study here: https://www.ivanomalavolta.com/files/papers/ICSOC_2023.pdf

source: https://github.com/netdata/netdata

[girish]

@imc67 said in Any issues with including NetData on the root server and as an app add-on?:

On my 3 Cloudron's it says v18.16.0

Is that OK @girish ?

It is correct version right now. If netdata has a nodejs dep, then it might conflict with Cloudron's. We update Cloudron's nodejs without thinking about other software.

[imc67]

Still no single problem with 3 Cloudrons, I guess and am pretty sure it’s not NetData what’s causing your issue.

[cvachery]

Hello,

I'm currently looking at this topic at the moment and maybe it would be possible to split this issue in two different subject.

I understood that the main issue to add netdata to cloudron as an app is the capabilities required from the docker image to be able to collect all the metrics of the host. Which I understand is a problem as it challenge the whole security design actually implemented.

But would it be conceivable to deploy netdata as a cloudron app with limited monitoring capabilities as a known limitation. I know that it can seems counter-productive but I have a specific purpose for which it could be useful : Using this netdata instance as a parent node to centralize all the metrics from different children and use the ldap/proxyauth addon of cloudron to add authentication to the WebUI
That would be a really great use case for me.

And concerning the other subject of actually collecting the data of the cloudron host using netdata. IMHO a tutorial on how to deploy it with docker and /or docker-compose, and the firewall configuration needed would be enough for most admin I think.

[marcusquinn]

@cvachery I believe it makes most sense to install in the root host.

I assume being installed there would give it a view of all Docker Containers, anyway.

Perhaps it should just be an optional install on the root host, with disclaimers that issues might not be supported.

[cvachery]

@marcusquinn I do agree that for a monitoring point of view it indeed makes more sense to deploy on the root host (that was my second point) but as a cloudron app I do believe the not privileged app has an utility.

And using this architecture of a netdata parent node as a cloudron app and a child node being deployed on the root host streaming its data to the parent would be then transparent and we would have the best of the two world if the installation on the root host is at least well documented on the cloudron side or even as you suggest made an optionnal part of the install process

[robi]

@cvachery Start a package for it using the docs and see how far you get, others here can chime in to help. Bit by bit, progress is made.

[cvachery]

I've had some time this week to work on this topic. So here is where I am at the moment.
I packaged an app for cloudron, it does seem to be working properly. (I let you guys have a look/test as it is my first try at packaging for cloudron)

The only thing I can't get to work is the streaming part. (eg a child node stream to my cloudron node which is a parent), my best guess is that the reverse proxy used by cloudron doesn't send the tcp stream to the container but only http. But I don't know how to configure/fix that.

The netdata configuration file is in /app/data/etc so to set up streaming you can add a file stream.conf using the file explorer and restart the app

Infos I can give :
Command used to install : cloudron install --image cvachery/netdata-app:v1.44.1
Github : https://github.com/aylham/cloudron-netdata
Docker image : docker pull cvachery/netdata-app:v1.44.1
Netdata doc on how to setup streaming : https://learn.netdata.cloud/docs/streaming/understanding-how-streaming-works#enable-streaming-between-nodes