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A set of modern Grafana dashboards for
Kubernetes
Introduction
I started working on Kubernetes when I joined Airbus Defense & Space as a DevOps engineer in June 2018.
My first mission there was to test the performance of multiple Go micro-services running on Google
Kubernetes Engine (GKE). To fulfill this mission, I worked on a custom testing platform and used Grafana to
visualize and understand resource usage of our Kubernetes workloads. Since then, I am passionate about
Kubernetes monitoring and never stopped working on it. This project is inspired by all the work I made on this
topic.
How the project started
I started to fork some existing dashboards from the community, mostly from kubernetes-mixin or some
dashboards available on grafana.com like Node Exporter Full. Using theses dashboards and tweaking them
have given me the opportunity to learn a lot on Kubernetes, Prometheus and Grafana.
After two years using Kubernetes, I thought it was time to embed everything I learned in a set of Grafana
dashboard that could help me build and run applications on my Kubernetes clusters. This is why I decided to
start the dotdc/grafana-dashboards-kubernetes as an open source project on GitHub in September 2020.
Scope & Features
What I wanted to do is a set of dashboards that worked together to help me solve my day to day operations
quickly. I didn’t want them to be exhaustive or to showcase the complete metrics available in kube-state-
metrics or node_exporter, but rather to be useful and straightforward when I needed them. So far, they have
been very useful to the tech team at
The project does not claim the use of methods like USE, RED or the Four Golden Signals, but theses
dashboards may include bits and pieces from them. If you you look for a more accurate implementation of one
of them, you should check the kubernetes-mixin project.
Watching GrafanaCON over the last 3 years made me want to use the latest Grafana features and panels.
This is why I decided to use the ones that could bring something useful to the table. The trade-off is that they
are not backward compatible with older Grafana versions because they use:
gradient mode introduced in Grafana 8.1 ()
time series visualization panel introduced in Grafana 7.4 ()
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$__rate_interval variable introduced in Grafana 7.2 ()
Among other things I may have forgotten, they also have a Resolution variable to configure the min_step,
and aPrometheus Datasource variable so they will work on a federated Grafana instance.
How to install
The project is open source and you can find it on GitHub at this address:
https://github.com/dotdc/grafana-dashboards-kubernetes
From there, you will find several installation methods including:
Import JSON files in Grafana
Import them from (using dashboards ids)
Provision using Kubernetes ConfigMaps
Provision using Terraformed Kubernetes ConfigMaps
If you just want to have a quick look, you can clone the repository using:
git clone https://github.com/dotdc/grafana-dashboards-kubernetes.gitcd grafana-
dashboards-kubernetes
Dashboards description & usage
Like I said before, I made theses dashboards so they can work well together. You generally start with the
global view and then zoom-in to a more detailed view depending on the use-case. This is why I decided to call
them “Kubernetes Views” because they show information on your Kubernetes clusters from a certain
perspective and a certain zoom level. You will see at the end that there is also an API Server, a CoreDNS and
a Starboard Operator (now Trivy Operator) dashboards.
Here’s a short description of each of them:
Kubernetes / Views / Global
What’s the general idea?
Be able to get a global view of your Kubernetes cluster quickly
Spot unusual resources usage on your cluster, namespaces & nodes
Spot unusual number of resource types on your Kubernetes cluster
Spot misconfigured applications resources (Requests & Limits VS Real)
Which panels are included?
Total cluster CPU, RAM & Network utilization
Real, Requests & Limits resources usage of the cluster
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Total Kubernetes resources count by type
CPU, RAM & Network utilization by namespace and by node
Kubernetes / Views / Namespaces
What’s the general idea?
Have a namespace(s) view of your Kubernetes cluster
Spot unusual resources usage in your namespace(s)
Spot unusual number of resource types in your namespace(s)
Ability to check pods state & pods replicas
Monitor the persistent volumes capacity & inodes in your namespace(s)
Which panels are included?
Namespace(s) CPU, RAM & Network utilization
Real, Requests & Limits resources usage of your Namespace(s)
Kubernetes resources count by type in your Namespace(s)
Pods state, number of containers per pods & replicas availability
Persistent volumes capacity & inodes in your namespace(s)
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Kubernetes / Views / Nodes
What’s the general idea?
Get a detailed view of your Kubernetes nodes
Spot unusual resources usage in your nodes
Ability to find affected pods on a faulty node
Get operating system metrics from your nodes
Which panels are included?
General CPU & RAM usage of nodes
Pods count & Pods list on each node (with namespace & priority class)
Detailed CPU, RAM & Network usage of nodes
System Load, Context Switches & Interrupts, File Descriptor &Time Sync
Persistent volumes information of workloads attached to nodes
Local node storage capacity, inodes, IOs & errors
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Kubernetes / Views / Pods
What’s the general idea?
Have a detailed view of your pods & containers
CPU & RAM usage and configuration of your containers
Be able to size your containers resources requests & limits
Track network utilization of your pods
Which panels are included?
Pod information: Created by, running on node, Pod IP
Real, Requests & Limits resources usage of your Namespace(s)
CPU & RAM Requests & Limits of your pods container(s)
CPU & RAM resource usage of your containers (real usage)
Network usage of your pods
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Kubernetes / System / API Server
What’s the general idea?
Quickly check Kubernetes API Server health
Get the list of deprecated Kubernetes resources
Get information on API Server to track unusual issues
Which panels are included?
API Server instance(s) health check
List of deprecated Kubernetes resources
Kubernetes API Server requests by code, verb, latency & errors
API Server’s CPU & RAM usage
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Kubernetes / System / CoreDNS
What’s the general idea?
Quickly check CoreDNS instance(s) health
Get information on CoreDNS to track unusual issues
Which panels are included?
CoreDNS instance(s) health check
Kubernetes API Server requests by code, verb, latency & errors
API Server’s CPU & RAM usage
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Kubernetes Addons / Trivy / Starboard Operator
This dashboard is for Starboard / Trivy Operator from Aqua Security. It will require the starboard-exporter
by Giant Swarm in order to work. This dashboard will soon be updated to use the latest trivy-operator metrics
when they are made available.
What’s the general idea?
Have a summary of vulnerabilities by severity
Have a vulnerability list with a clickable link to learn more on each of them
Have a summary of config audit report by severity
Which panels are included?
Vulnerabilities by namespaces & severity
Vulnerability list with a CVE/GHSA link on each of them
Config audit report namespaces & severity
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