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5 Install Metrics Server

The document provides an overview of the Metrics Server in Kubernetes, detailing its purpose, installation, and data flow. It explains the transition from Heapster to Metrics Server, emphasizing its role in collecting resource usage metrics for nodes and Pods without storing historical data. The installation process using Helm is outlined, along with specific notes for users of GKE, AKS, minikube, and Docker for Desktop.

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0 views6 pages

5 Install Metrics Server

The document provides an overview of the Metrics Server in Kubernetes, detailing its purpose, installation, and data flow. It explains the transition from Heapster to Metrics Server, emphasizing its role in collecting resource usage metrics for nodes and Pods without storing historical data. The installation process using Helm is outlined, along with specific notes for users of GKE, AKS, minikube, and Docker for Desktop.

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kotten7
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Install Metrics Server

In this lesson, we will see what Metrics Server is and how to install it?

WE'LL COVER THE FOLLOWING

• From Heapster to Metrics Server


• What is Metrics Server ?
• Installation of Metrics Server
• Flow of data in Metrics Server
• Retrieve the metrics of nodes

From Heapster to Metrics Server #


The critical element in scaling Pods is the Kubernetes Metrics Server. You
might consider yourself a Kubernetes ninja and yet never heard of the Metrics
Server. Don’t be ashamed if that’s the case. You’re not the only one.

If you started observing Kubernetes metrics, you might have used Heapster.
It’s been around for a long time, and you likely have it running in your cluster,
even if you don’t know what it is. Both the Metrics server and Heapster serve
the same purpose, with one being deprecated for a while, so let’s clarify things
a bit.

Early on, Kubernetes introduced Heapster as a tool that enables Container


Cluster Monitoring and Performance Analysis for Kubernetes. It’s been
around since Kubernetes version 1.0.6. You can say that Heapster has been
part of Kubernetes’ life since its toddler age. It collects and interprets various
metrics like resource usage, events, and so on. Heapster has been an integral
part of Kubernetes and enabled it to schedule Pods appropriately. Without it,
Kubernetes would be blind. It would not know which node has available
memory, which Pod is using too much CPU, and so on. But, just as with most
other tools that become available early, its design was a “failed experiment”.
As Kubernetes continued growing, we (the community around Kubernetes)

started realizing that a new, better, and, more importantly, a more extensible
design is required. Hence, the Metrics Server was born. Right now, even
though Heapster is still in use, it is considered deprecated, even though today
the Metrics Server is still in beta state.

What is Metrics Server ? #


A simple explanation is that it collects information about used resources
(memory and CPU) of nodes and Pods. It does not store metrics, so do not
think that you can use it to retrieve historical values and predict tendencies.
There are other tools for that, and we’ll explore them later. Instead, Metrics
Server's goal is to provide an API that can be used to retrieve current
resource usage. We can use that API through kubectl or by sending direct
requests with, let’s say, curl . In other words, the Metrics Server collects
cluster-wide metrics and allows us to retrieve them through its API. That, by
itself, is very powerful, but it is only part of the story.

I already mentioned extensibility. We can extend the Metrics Server to collect


metrics from other sources. We’ll get there in due time. For now, we’ll explore
what it provides out of the box and how it interacts with some other
Kubernetes resources that will help us make our Pods scalable and more
resilient.

Installation of Metrics Server #


Helm makes the installation of almost any publicly available software very
easy if there is a Chart available. If there isn’t, you might want to consider an
alternative since that is a clear indication that the vendor or the community
behind it does not believe in Kubernetes. Or, maybe they do not have the skills
necessary to develop a Chart. Either way, the best course of action is to run
away from it and adopt an alternative. If that’s not an option, develop a Helm
Chart yourself. In our case, there won’t be a need for such measures. Metrics
Server does have a Helm Chart, and all we need to do is to install it.

A note to GKE and AKS users


Google and Microsoft already ship Metrics Server as part of their
managed Kubernetes clusters (GKE and AKS). There is no need to install

it, so please skip the commands that follow.

A note to minikube users


Metrics Server is available as one of the plugins. Please execute minikube
addons enable metrics-server and kubectl -n kube-system rollout
status deployment metrics-server commands instead of those below.

A note to Docker For Desktop users


Recent updates to the Metrics Server do not work with self-signed
certificates by default. Since Docker For Desktop uses such certificates,
you’ll need to allow insecure TLS. Please add --set args={"--kubelet-
insecure-tls=true"} argument to the helm install command that
follows.

helm repo update

kubectl create namespace metrics

helm install metrics-server \


stable/metrics-server \
--version 2.0.2 \
--namespace metrics

kubectl -n metrics \
rollout status \
deployment metrics-server

We used Helm to install Metrics Server , and we waited until it rolled out.

Flow of data in Metrics Server #


Metrics Server will periodically fetch metrics from Kubeletes running on the
nodes. Those metrics, for now, contain memory and CPU utilization of the
Pods and the nodes. Other entities can request data from the Metrics Server
through the API Server which has the Master Metrics API. An example of
those entities is the Scheduler that, once Metrics Server is installed, uses its

data to make decisions. As you will see soon, the usage of the Metrics Server
goes beyond the Scheduler but, for now, the explanation should provide an
image of the basic flow of data.

The basic flow of the data to and from the Metrics Server (arrows show directions of data flow)

Q
Metrics Server will periodically fetch metrics from Kubeletes running
on ______?
COMPLETED 0%
1 of 1

Retrieve the metrics of nodes #


Now we can explore one of the ways we can retrieve the metrics. We’ll start
with those related to nodes.

kubectl top nodes

If you were fast, the output should state that metrics are not available yet .
That’s normal. It takes a few minutes before the first iteration of metrics
retrieval is executed. The exception is GKE and AKS that already come with
the Metrics Server baked in.

Fetch some coffee before we repeat the command.

kubectl top nodes

This time, the output is different.

In this chapter, I’ll show the outputs from Docker For Desktop.
Depending on the Kubernetes flavor you’re using, your outputs will be
different. Still, the logic is the same and you should not have a problem
following along.

My output is as follows.

NAME CPU(cores) CPU% MEMORY(bytes) MEMORY%


docker-for-desktop 248m 12% 1208Mi 63%

We can see that I have one node called docker-for-desktop . It is using 248 CPU
milliseconds. Since the node has two cores, that’s 12% of the total available

CPU. Similarly, 1.2GB of RAM is used, which is 63% of the total available
memory of 2GB.

In the next lesson, we will observe how much memory each of our Pods is
using.

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