gmtprime / extatus

App to report metrics to Prometheus from Elixir GenServers

Extatus

Extatus is an application that reports metrics to Prometheus via the HTTP endpoint /metrics from an instrumented GenServer.

Small Example

The following is an uninstrumented GenServer that tracks its uptime.

defmodule Uninstrumented do
  use GenServer

  def start_link do
    GenServer.start_link(__MODULE__, nil)
  end

  def get_uptime(pid) do
    GenServer.call(pid, :uptime)
  end

  def init(_) do
    start_time = :os.system_time(:seconds)
    {:ok, seconds}
  end

  def handle_call(:uptime, _from, start_time) do
    uptime = :os.system_time(:seconds) - start_time
    {:reply, uptime, start_time}
  end
end

If we would want to track the uptime of this process in Prometheus with Extatus, we would need:

1. use Extatus.Process behaviour.
2. Declare a gauge metric to track the uptime e.g. a metric called :uptime with a label for the module name.
3. Implement the function get_name/1 that receives the GenServer process state and returns the name of the process. This name must be unique.
4. Implement the function report/1 that receives the GenServer process state. In this function, you can report the metrics.
5. Start the Extatus watchdog for your process in the init/1 function by adding the function add_extatus_watchdog/0 (included by use Extatus.Process).

defmodule Instrumented do
  use GenServer
  use Extatus.Process # Extatus behaviour

  def start_link do
    GenServer.start_link(__MODULE__, nil)
  end

  # Metric declaration
  defmetrics do
    gauge :uptime do
      label :module
      help "Uptime gauge"
    end
  end

  # Name of the process. This must be unique.
  def get_name(_state) do
    {:ok, Atom.to_string(__MODULE__)}
  end

  # Report function
  def report(start_time) do
    uptime = :os.system_time(:seconds) - start_time
    Gauge.set(:uptime, [module: Atom.to_string(__MODULE__)], uptime)
  end

  def init(_) do
    :ok = add_extatus_watchdog() # Add extatus watchdog
    {:ok, :os.system_time(:seconds)}
  end
end

The HTTP /metric endpoint is implemented in :cowboy and the output is provided by the library :prometheus_ex. If you start this process, you will see the metric :uptime being reported.

Additionally, for every instrumented GenServer process, extatus reports the metric :extatus_process_activity (gauge). This metric indicates that a process is up (2), down (0) or idle (1) depending on its value.

Extatus uses Yggdrasil to report the status of the processes in the following channel:

%Yggdrasil.Channel{name: :extatus}

This can be used to get the updates on the current state of the processes in a subscriber e.g:

iex> chan = %Yggdrasil.Channel{name: :extatus}
iex> Yggdrasil.subscribe(chan)
iex> flush()
{:Y_CONNECTED, (...)}
iex> {:ok, _} = Instrumented.start_link()
{:ok, #PID<0.603.0>}
iex> flush()
{:Y_EVENT, _, %Extatus.Message{name: "instrumented_process", state: :up}}

Configuration

The following are the configuration arguments available:

• :timeout - Frequency the handlers get the metrics from the processes.
• :port - Port where cowboy is listening to request coming from Prometheus.
• :prometheus_registry - Prometheus registry. By default is :default.

e.g:

config :extatus,
  timeout: 5000,
  port: 1337,
  prometheus_registry: :test

Installation

If available in Hex, the package can be installed as:

1. Add extatus to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

```elixir
def deps do
  [{:extatus, "~> 0.2"}]
end
```

2. Ensure extatus is started before your application:

```elixir
def application do
  [applications: [:extatus]]
end
```