Get started with Kubernetes/OpenShift monitoring

This page describes how to set up monitoring via Dynatrace Operator version 0.3.0+ on Kubernetes (with kubectl) and OpenShift (with oc) using the following deployment options:

• Classic full-stack
• Cloud-native full-stack
• Host monitoring
• Automatic application-only

There are two ways to set up Dynatrace Operator to monitor your Kubernetes cluster:

• The automated mode provides a simple setup with basic configuration using the Dynatrace web UI.

• The manual mode allows complex configuration options.

See below for instructions.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes version 1.21+ or OpenShift version 4.7+
• See Support lifecycle for Kubernetes or Support lifecycle for OpenShift for supported versions.
• Pods must allow egress to your Dynatrace environment or to your Environment ActiveGate in order for metric routing to work properly.
• For OpenShift (cloudNativeFullStack and applicationMonitoring with CSI driver deployments), you need to configure security context constraints (OpenShift).

Note: By default, the OneAgent and ActiveGate images are pulled from the configured Dynatrace Cluster endpoint, unless differently specified. For details, see Parameters.

Tokens and permissions required

• Create an API token in your Dynatrace environment and enable the following permissions:

  • Access problem and event feed, metrics, and topology (API v1)
  • PaaS integration - Installer download
  • optional Dynatrace Operator version 0.4.0+ If you want Dynatrace Operator to automatically handle the connection to ActiveGate via public API for Kubernetes monitoring, be sure to also enable the following permissions:
    • Read entities (API v2)
    • Read settings (API v2)
    • Write settings (API v2)

• Dynatrace Operator version 0.4.0+ For cloudNativeFullStack and applicationMonitoring deployments, in addition to the API token, you also need to generate a dataIngestToken token for metadata metric enrichment, and enable the Ingest metrics permission (API v2).

• For OpenShift Dedicated, you need cluster-admin privileges.

Set up monitoring via Dynatrace Operator using the automated mode

1. In the Dynatrace menu, go to Kubernetes.

2. Select Connect automatically via Dynatrace Operator.

3. Enter the following details.

   • Name: Defines the display name of your Kubernetes cluster. Additionally, this name will be used as a prefix for naming Dynatrace-specific resources inside the Kubernetes cluster, such as DynaKube (custom resource), ActiveGate (pod), OneAgents (pods), and as a name for the secret holding your tokens.

   • optional Group: Defines a group that will be used by various Dynatrace settings, including network zone, ActiveGate group, and host group. If not set, defaults or empty values are used.

   • Dynatrace Operator token: Enter the API token you created in Prerequisites, or select Create token to have it automatically created for you.

   • optional Data ingest token: For cloudNativeFullStack and applicationMonitoring deployments, enter the data ingest token you created in Prerequisites, or select Create token to have it automatically created for you.

4. optional Select whether you want Dynatrace to check your SSL certificate.

   Note: The SSL certificate is only verified for the Dynatrace Operator API requests.

5. For GKE, Anthos, CaaS, TGKI, and IKS, turn on Enable volume storage (required only for classicFullStack deployments).

6. Under Kubernetes/OpenShift, select Download dynakube.yaml, then copy the code block created by Dynatrace based on your input from previous steps and run it in your terminal. Be sure to execute the commands in the same directory where you downloaded the YAML, or adapt the commands to link to the location of the YAML.

   Note: The downloaded YAML file is a basic version of the DynaKube custom resource definition. To adapt values to your specific needs, see our preconfigured DynaKube custom resource samples from GitHub. For more information about deployment options, see Deployment options on Kubernetes/OpenShift.

7. To see the deployment status, select Show deployment status.

Set up monitoring via Dynatrace Operator using the manual mode

1. Create a dynatrace namespace (Kubernetes)/Add a dynatrace project (OpenShift)

Depending on your platform, select one of the options below.

shellcopydownload
kubectl create namespace dynatrace

shellcopydownload
oc adm new-project --node-selector="" dynatrace

2. Install Dynatrace Operator

Depending on your deployment type, select one of the following.

For classicFullStack, applicationMonitoring without CSI driver, and hostMonitoring when readonly is disabled, run the command below.

shellcopydownload
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes.yaml

shellcopydownload
oc apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift.yaml

shellcopydownload
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes.yaml
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes-csi.yaml

shellcopydownload
oc apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift.yaml
oc apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift-csi.yaml

shellcopydownload
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes.yaml
kubectl apply -f kubernetes-csi.yaml

shellcopydownload
oc apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift.yaml
oc apply -f openshift-csi.yaml

3. Wait for Dynatrace Operator components to finish initialization

Run the following command to see when Dynatrace Operator components finish initialization.

shellcopydownload
kubectl -n dynatrace wait pod --for=condition=ready --selector=app.kubernetes.io/name=dynatrace-operator,app.kubernetes.io/component=webhook --timeout=300s

shellcopydownload
oc -n dynatrace wait pod --for=condition=ready --selector=app.kubernetes.io/name=dynatrace-operator,app.kubernetes.io/component=webhook --timeout=300s

4. Create a secret holding your tokens

Depending on your deployment type, select one of the following.

For classicFullStack, create a secret named dynakube holding the API token obtained in Tokens and permissions required. Be sure to replace the placeholder (<...>) with your own value.

shellcopydownload
kubectl -n dynatrace create secret generic dynakube --from-literal="apiToken=<API_TOKEN>"

shellcopydownload
oc -n dynatrace create secret generic dynakube --from-literal="apiToken=API_TOKEN"

shellcopydownload
kubectl -n dynatrace create secret generic dynakube --from-literal="apiToken=<API_TOKEN>" --from-literal="dataIngestToken=<DATA_INGEST_TOKEN>"

shellcopydownload
oc -n dynatrace create secret generic dynakube --from-literal="apiToken=<API_TOKEN>" --from-literal="dataIngestToken=<DATA_INGEST_TOKEN>"

5. Download a preconfigured DynaKube custom resource sample

Download one of the preconfigured DynaKube custom resource samples from GitHub, according to your monitoring approach.

6. Review the parameters

Review the available parameters, and adapt the DynaKube custom resource according to your requirements.

7. Review the available configuration options optional

Review the available configuration options for this integration:

• Add a custom properties file
• Add a custom certificate for ActiveGate
• Configure proxy
• Read-only file systems support
• Configure monitoring for namespaces and pods
• Import Kubernetes API certificates
• Metadata metric enrichment
• Enable AppArmor for enhanced security
• High availability
• Authenticate ActiveGate to the Dynatrace Cluster

8. Apply the DynaKube custom resource

Run the command below to apply the DynaKube custom resource, making sure to replace <your-DynaKube-CR> with your actual DynaKube custom resource file name. A validation webhook will provide helpful error messages if there's a problem.

shellcopydownload
kubectl apply -f <your-DynaKube-CR>.yaml

shellcopydownload
oc apply -f <your-DynaKube-CR>.yaml

Connect your Kubernetes cluster to Dynatrace

Some Kubernetes pages require that your Kubernetes cluster be connected to Dynatrace. This connection creates relationships among applications, services, processes, hosts, and Kubernetes objects, such as pods and namespaces.

To deploy an ActiveGate in a container

1. Set the ActiveGate values of the DynaKube configuration file according to the list of parameters.

   Note: To enable ActiveGate, in the ActiveGate section, add routing and/or kubernetes-monitoring to capabilities.

   Example:

   yamlcopydownload
   activeGate:
     capabilities:
       - routing
       - kubernetes-monitoring
     ...

2. Follow the instructions on how to activate ActiveGate on Kubernetes using Dynatrace Operator.

Limitations

Dynatrace Operator doesn't support OpenShift version 3.11 or earlier.

Monitor large Kubernetes environments

Contact Dynatrace ONE if you want to monitor environments that are larger than:

• 1,000 Kubernetes clusters per Dynatrace environment
• 500 nodes per Kubernetes cluster
• 50,000 pods per Kubernetes cluster

Update Dynatrace Operator

Depending on your deployment type, select one of the following.

For classicFullStack, applicationMonitoring without CSI driver, and hostMonitoring when readonly is disabled, run the command below.

shellcopydownload
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes.yaml

shellcopydownload
oc apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift.yaml

shellcopydownload
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes.yaml
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes-csi.yaml

shellcopydownload
oc apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift.yaml
oc apply -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift-csi.yaml

Update OneAgent if automatic updates are disabled

By default, Dynatrace Operator handles OneAgent updates automatically. If you choose to disable automatic updates, and haven't set any standard OneAgent version in Dynatrace, you can manually update OneAgent by running the command below.

shellcopydownload
kubectl -n dynatrace rollout restart daemonset/<DYNAKUBE>-oneagent

shellcopydownload
oc -n dynatrace rollout restart daemonset/<DYNAKUBE>-oneagent

Uninstall Dynatrace Operator

Depending on your deployment type, select one of the following.

For classicFullStack and applicationMonitoring without CSI driver, run the command below.

shellcopydownload
kubectl delete -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes.yaml

shellcopydownload
oc delete -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift.yaml

shellcopydownload
kubectl delete dynakube --all -n dynatrace

shellcopydownload
oc delete dynakube --all -n dynatrace

shellcopydownload
kubectl -n dynatrace wait pod --for=condition=delete --selector=app.kubernetes.io/name=oneagent,app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=dynatrace-operator --timeout=300s

shellcopydownload
oc -n --for=condition=delete --selector=app.kubernetes.io/name=oneagent,app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=dynatrace-operator --timeout=300s

shellcopydownload
kubectl delete -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes-csi.yaml
kubectl delete -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/kubernetes.yaml
kubectl delete namespace dynatrace

shellcopydownload
oc delete -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift-csi.yaml
oc delete -f https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/releases/download/v0.8.0/openshift.yaml
oc delete project dynatrace

Alternative deployments

Besides the main deployment of Dynatrace Operator on Kubernetes via kubectl and OpenShift via oc, you have the following alternatives, depending on your needs.

• Set up Kubernetes/OpenShift monitoring with Helm
• Set up application-only monitoring (automatic/pod runtime/container build-time)
• Set up Kubernetes/OpenShift monitoring with DaemonSet
• Set up OpenShift monitoring via OperatorHub

Other configuration options

• Deployment options on Kubernetes/OpenShift
• DynaKube parameters for Dynatrace Operator on Kubernetes/OpenShift
• Configuration options for Dynatrace Operator on Kubernetes/OpenShift
• Migrate from OneAgent Operator to Dynatrace Operator on Kubernetes/OpenShift using kubectl/oc