Monitoring Node Health

A Flow node generates logs and publishes metrics as it runs. These logs and metrics can be used to gain insights into the health of the node.

Logs

Logs are emitted to stdout as JSON formed strings. Where these logs are available on your system depends on how you launch your containers. On systemd systems for example, the logs will be sent to the system journal daemon journald. Other systems may log to /var/log.

Metrics

Flow nodes produce health metrics in the form of Prometheus metrics, exposed from the node software on /metrics.

If you wish to make use of these metrics, you'll need to set up a Prometheus server to scrape your Nodes. Alternatively, you can deploy the Prometheus Server on top of your current Flow node to see the metrics without creating an additional server.

The flow-go application doesn't expose any metrics from the underlying host such as CPU, network, or disk usages. It is recommended you collect these metrics in addition to the ones provided by flow using a tool like node exporter (https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter)

1. Copy the following Prometheus configuration into your current flow node

   
   

   _12

   global:

   _12

   scrape_interval: 15s # By default, scrape targets every 15 seconds.

   _12

   _12

   scrape_configs:

   _12

   # The job name is added as a label `job=<job_name>` to any timeseries scraped from this config.

   _12

   - job_name: 'prometheus'

   _12

   _12

   # Override the global default and scrape targets from this job every 5 seconds.

   _12

   scrape_interval: 5s

   _12

   _12

   static_configs:

   _12

   - targets: ['localhost:8080']

   
   

2. Start Prometheus server

   
   

   _10

   docker run \

   _10

   --network=host \

   _10

   -p 9090:9090 \

   _10

   -v /path/to/prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml \

   _10

   prom/prometheus"

   
   

3. (optional) Port forward to the node if you are not able to access port 9090 directly via the browser ssh -L 9090:127.0.0.1:9090 YOUR_NODE

4. Open your browser and go to the URL http://localhost:9090/graph to load the Prometheus Dashboard

Key Metric Overview

The following are some important metrics produced by the node.

Metric Name	Description
go_*	Go runtime metrics
consensus_compliance_finalized_height	Latest height finalized by this node; should increase at a constant rate.
consensus_compliance_sealed_height	Latest height sealed by this node; should increase at a constant rate.
consensus_hotstuff_cur_view	Current view of the HotStuff consensus algorith; Consensus/Collection only; should increase at a constant rate.
consensus_hotstuff_timeout_seconds	How long it takes to timeout failed rounds; Consensus/Collection only; values consistently larger than 5s are abnormal.

Machine Account

Collection and consensus nodes use a machine account that must be kept funded. See here for details.

Nodes check their machine account's configuration and funding and produce metrics.

Metric Name	Description
machine_account_balance	The current balance (FLOW)
machine_account_recommended_min_balance	The recommended minimum balance (FLOW)
machine_account_is_misconfigured	0 if the node is configured correctly; 1 if the node is misconfigured

To be notified when your node's machine account needs to be refilled or has a configuration error, you can set up alerts.

When the machine account balance needs to be refilled:

_10

machine_account_balance < machine_account_recommended_min_balance

When the machine account has a configuration error:

_10

machine_account_is_misconfigured > 0

The metrics include the account address of the machine account (acct_address label) for convenience:

_10

# HELP machine_account_balance the last observed balance of this node's machine account, in units of FLOW

_10

# TYPE machine_account_balance gauge

_10

machine_account_balance{acct_address="7b16b57ae0a3c6aa"} 9.99464935

Monitoring a Flow node using Metrika Monitoring

Metrika has developed the Flow node monitoring service and is the recommended way of monitoring a Flow node. It is a free tool that uses the logs and metrics published by the node and provides access to private node-specific dashboards. Follow this link to setup the Metrika monitoring for your node.