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Ignite Alerting with Prometheus

This tutorial shows you how to configure Prometheus-based alerting for a KubeDB-managed Ignite instance using the ignite-alerts Helm chart. This chart also bundles a Grafana dashboard that it imports automatically through a post-install Job — no separate dashboard chart is required.

Before You Begin

• Ensure you have a Kubernetes cluster and that kubectl is configured to communicate with it. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one using kind.

• Install the KubeDB operator by following the steps here.

• Deploy the database in the alert-ignite namespace:

  $ kubectl create ns alert-ignite
  namespace/alert-ignite created
  

• To learn more about how Prometheus monitoring works with KubeDB, see the overview here.

• You will also need a Grafana API key / token with Editor permission so the chart’s dashboard-import Job can push the dashboard. See Step 1 below.

Note: YAML files used in this tutorial are stored in docs/examples/ignite folder in GitHub repository kubedb/docs.

Configuration

Step 1 (kube-prometheus-stack) is required to follow this tutorial. Step 2 (Panopticon) is required for the Provisioner Group alerts below (KubeDBIgnitePhase...) — skip it only if you just want the exporter-based Database Group alerts. If you have already completed the step(s) you need in another guide, skip ahead.

Step 1: Deploy kube-prometheus-stack

kube-prometheus-stack installs Prometheus, Prometheus Operator, Alertmanager, and Grafana together. This is the recommended way to get the full monitoring stack on Kubernetes.

Add the prometheus-community Helm repo and install:

$ helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
$ helm repo update

$ helm upgrade --install prometheus prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack \
  --namespace monitoring --create-namespace \
  --set grafana.image.tag=7.5.5

Wait for all pods to be ready:

$ kubectl get pods -n monitoring
NAME                                                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
alertmanager-prometheus-kube-prometheus-alertmanager-0 2/2     Running   0          2m
prometheus-grafana-xxxx                                3/3     Running   0          2m
prometheus-kube-prometheus-operator-xxxx               1/1     Running   0          2m
prometheus-kube-prometheus-prometheus-0                2/2     Running   0          2m
prometheus-kube-state-metrics-xxxx                     1/1     Running   0          2m

Find the serviceMonitorSelector/ruleSelector labels that Prometheus uses to pick up ServiceMonitor/PrometheusRule objects — this is the release: prometheus label used throughout this tutorial.

$ kubectl get prometheus -n monitoring -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.ruleSelector}'
{"matchLabels":{"release":"prometheus"}}

$ kubectl get prometheus -n monitoring -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.serviceMonitorSelector}'
{"matchLabels":{"release":"prometheus"}}

Step 2: Install Panopticon (required for the Provisioner Group alerts)

Panopticon is the Appscode operator that exports the KubeDB operator’s own view of every resource — kubedb_com_ignite_status_phase and related metrics. It’s what powers the Provisioner Group alerts below (KubeDBIgnitePhaseNotReady/KubeDBIgnitePhaseCritical). Skip this step if you only need the exporter-based Database Group alerts.

$ helm repo add appscode https://charts.appscode.com/stable/
$ helm repo update

$ helm upgrade --install panopticon appscode/panopticon \
  --version v2026.4.30 \
  --namespace kubeops --create-namespace \
  --set monitoring.enabled=true \
  --set monitoring.agent=prometheus.io/operator \
  --set monitoring.serviceMonitor.labels.release=prometheus \
  --set-file license=/path/to/kubedb-license.txt \
  --wait --timeout 5m0s

Verify Panopticon is running:

$ kubectl get pods -n kubeops
NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
panopticon-xxxx               1/1     Running   0          1m

Overview

• KubeDB deploys Ignite with a metrics-exporter sidecar (container exporter) that exposes Ignite’s own JMX-derived metrics (sys_*, io_*, cluster_*, ignite_*).
• ServiceMonitor (named {ignite-name}-stats) is created automatically by KubeDB and tells Prometheus to scrape the exporter every 10 seconds.
• PrometheusRule is created by the ignite-alerts chart and contains alert definitions grouped by concern: database health (which also embeds KubeDB-operator-sourced IgniteDown/IgnitePhaseCritical alerts) and provisioner.
• Dashboard-import Job — when grafana.enabled is true, the chart also creates a one-shot Job that POSTs a bundled dashboard JSON straight to your Grafana instance’s /api/dashboards/import endpoint.
• Prometheus Operator evaluates every rule expression every 30 seconds and fires matching alerts to AlertManager.
• AlertManager groups, inhibits, and silences alerts, then routes them to configured receivers (Slack, email, PagerDuty, webhook, etc.).

Deploy Ignite with Monitoring Enabled

At first, let’s deploy an Ignite instance with monitoring enabled. Below is the Ignite object we are going to create.

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha2
kind: Ignite
metadata:
  name: ignite-alert-demo
  namespace: alert-ignite
spec:
  replicas: 1
  version: "2.17.0"
  storage:
    storageClassName: "local-path"
    accessModes:
      - ReadWriteOnce
    resources:
      requests:
        storage: 1Gi
  deletionPolicy: WipeOut
  monitor:
    agent: prometheus.io/operator
    prometheus:
      serviceMonitor:
        labels:
          release: prometheus
        interval: 10s

Here,

• spec.replicas: 1 deploys a single-node Ignite instance.
• spec.monitor.agent: prometheus.io/operator tells KubeDB to create a ServiceMonitor resource managed by the Prometheus operator.
• spec.monitor.prometheus.serviceMonitor.labels.release: prometheus adds the release: prometheus label to the created ServiceMonitor, matching the Prometheus serviceMonitorSelector so the target is discovered automatically.

$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2026.7.10/docs/examples/ignite/monitoring/ignite-alert-demo.yaml
ignite.kubedb.com/ignite-alert-demo created

Now, wait for the database to go into Ready state.

$ kubectl get ignite -n alert-ignite ignite-alert-demo
NAME                VERSION   STATUS   AGE
ignite-alert-demo   2.17.0    Ready    3m

KubeDB creates a dedicated stats service with the -stats suffix for monitoring.

$ kubectl get svc -n alert-ignite --selector="app.kubernetes.io/instance=ignite-alert-demo"
NAME                          TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)     AGE
ignite-alert-demo             ClusterIP   10.43.10.20    <none>        10800/TCP   3m
ignite-alert-demo-pods        ClusterIP   None           <none>        10800/TCP   3m
ignite-alert-demo-stats       ClusterIP   10.43.10.21    <none>        8080/TCP    3m

KubeDB also creates a ServiceMonitor that tells Prometheus where to scrape.

$ kubectl get servicemonitor -n alert-ignite
NAME                       AGE
ignite-alert-demo-stats    3m

Verify that the ServiceMonitor carries the release: prometheus label so Prometheus discovers it.

$ kubectl get servicemonitor -n alert-ignite ignite-alert-demo-stats \
    -o jsonpath='{.metadata.labels.release}'
prometheus

Step 1 — Create a Grafana API Key

The chart’s dashboard-import Job authenticates to Grafana with a bearer token, so create one first.

• Grafana 9+: Administration → Service accounts → Add service account → role Editor → Add token. Copy the token.

• Grafana 8.x and earlier (no Service Accounts UI, e.g. the bundled kube-prometheus-stack Grafana 7.5.5): use the legacy API Keys endpoint instead:

  # Port-forward Grafana
  $ kubectl port-forward -n monitoring svc/prometheus-grafana 3000:80&
  
  # Retrieve the admin password
  $ kubectl get secret -n monitoring prometheus-grafana \
      -o jsonpath='{.data.admin-password}' | base64 -d && echo
  
  # Create an API key with Editor role
  $ curl -s -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -u admin:<grafana_password> \
      http://localhost:3000/api/auth/keys \
      -d '{"name":"ignite-alerts-demo","role":"Editor"}'
  # Note the returned "key"
  
  # Stop the port-forward
  $ kill %1
  

Either way, you end up with a bearer token to use as grafana.apikey below.

Step 2 — Install ignite-alerts

Why the Helm release name matters

The chart derives the PrometheusRule name and scopes every PromQL expression from the Helm release name — so the release name must match the Ignite object’s name (ignite-alert-demo).

Install

$ helm upgrade -i ignite-alert-demo oci://ghcr.io/appscode-charts/ignite-alerts \
    -n alert-ignite \
    --create-namespace \
    --version=v2026.7.14 \
    --set form.alert.labels.release=prometheus \
    --set grafana.enabled=true \
    --set grafana.url="http://prometheus-grafana.monitoring.svc:80" \
    --set grafana.apikey="<token-from-above>" \
    --set grafana.jobName=ignite-alert-demo-stats \
    --set form.alert.appSuffix=ig-grafana-demo

To install alerts only, without the dashboard, omit the grafana.* flags (or set --set grafana.enabled=false).

Verify the PrometheusRule is created

$ kubectl get prometheusrule -n alert-ignite
NAME                  AGE
ignite-alert-demo     30s

$ kubectl get prometheusrule -n alert-ignite ignite-alert-demo \
    -o jsonpath='{.metadata.labels.release}'
prometheus

Verify the dashboard-import Job

$ kubectl get job -n alert-ignite
NAME                         STATUS     COMPLETIONS   AGE
ignite-alert-demo-post-job   Complete   1/1           17s

$ kubectl logs -n alert-ignite job/ignite-alert-demo-post-job
{"pluginId":"","title":"kubedb.com / Ignite / alert-ignite / ignite-alert-demo","imported":true, ...}

A "imported":true response confirms the dashboard kubedb.com / Ignite / alert-ignite / ignite-alert-demo now exists in Grafana.

Confirm Prometheus loaded the rules

$ kubectl port-forward -n monitoring \
    svc/prometheus-kube-prometheus-prometheus 9090:9090

Open http://localhost:9090/rules and locate the ignite.database and ignite.provisioner groups.

Both groups should show OK. ignite-alerts v2026.7.14 has no opsManager/stash/kubeStash groups — only database and provisioner.

Note the overlap: the database group’s IgniteDown (for: 30s) and IgnitePhaseCritical (for: 1m) key off the same kubedb_com_ignite_status_phase metric as the provisioner group’s KubeDBIgnitePhaseNotReady/KubeDBIgnitePhaseCritical (for: 1m/15m) — expect both pairs to eventually fire together during a real outage, at different times.

Verify End-to-End

1. Check the Prometheus target is UP

Open http://localhost:9090/query?g0.expr=up%7Bnamespace%3D%22alert-ignite%22%7D&g0.tab=1.

2. Confirm the Ignite alerts are inactive

Open http://localhost:9090/alerts.

All rules should show INACTIVE. IgniteClusterNoBaselineNode will only have data once the cluster’s baseline topology is activated (a normal part of Ignite persistence setup, not KubeDB-specific).

3. Check AlertManager

$ kubectl port-forward -n monitoring \
    svc/prometheus-kube-prometheus-alertmanager 9093:9093

Open http://localhost:9093.

Simulating a Firing Alert

This section deliberately triggers IgniteDown (for: 30s, the fastest down-signal) by crashing the main Ignite JVM process.

1. Crash the Ignite process

$ kubectl exec -n alert-ignite ignite-alert-demo-0 -c ignite -- sh -c '
    end=$(( $(date +%s) + 60 ));
    while [ $(date +%s) -lt $end ]; do
      pid=$(pgrep -f "org.apache.ignite" | head -1);
      [ -n "$pid" ] && kill -9 "$pid" 2>/dev/null;
      sleep 1;
    done'

2. Watch the alert fire in Prometheus

Open http://localhost:9090/alerts.

IgniteDown (kubedb_com_ignite_status_phase{phase!="Ready"} == 1, for: 30s) should transition to FIRING first.

3. Check the AlertManager dashboard

Open http://localhost:9093.

4. Restore Ignite

Stop the loop from step 1.

$ kubectl get ignite -n alert-ignite ignite-alert-demo -w
NAME                VERSION   STATUS   AGE
ignite-alert-demo   2.17.0    Ready    24m

If Ignite does not recover on its own within a minute or two, force a clean restart: kubectl delete pod -n alert-ignite ignite-alert-demo-0.

Alert Reference

All alerts are scoped to the ignite-alert-demo instance in the alert-ignite namespace via job="ignite-alert-demo-stats" / namespace="alert-ignite" (database group), or app="ignite-alert-demo" / namespace="alert-ignite" (provisioner group and the two operator-phase alerts embedded in the database group).

Database Group

Fired based on live metrics from the Ignite exporter sidecar and node/kubelet metrics, plus two KubeDB-operator-sourced phase alerts (IgniteDown, IgnitePhaseCritical).

Provisioner Group

Monitors the KubeDB operator’s view of the Ignite resource phase.

Customising Alerts

# custom-alerts.yaml
form:
  alert:
    labels:
      release: prometheus
    groups:
      database:
        enabled: warning
        rules:
          igniteHighCPULoad:
            enabled: true
            duration: "5m"
            severity: warning

$ helm upgrade ignite-alert-demo oci://ghcr.io/appscode-charts/ignite-alerts \
    -n alert-ignite \
    --version=v2026.7.14 \
    -f custom-alerts.yaml

Cleaning up

To remove all resources created in this tutorial, run the following commands.

# Remove the ignite-alerts release (PrometheusRule + dashboard-import Job)
$ helm uninstall ignite-alert-demo -n alert-ignite

# Remove the imported Grafana dashboard (it is not removed by helm uninstall)
$ curl -s -X DELETE -H "Authorization: Bearer <grafana-token>" \
    http://localhost:3000/api/dashboards/uid/<uid>

$ kubectl delete ignite -n alert-ignite ignite-alert-demo
$ kubectl delete ns alert-ignite

# Uninstall monitoring stack (optional — skip if other tutorials on this cluster still need them)
$ helm uninstall panopticon -n kubeops
$ helm uninstall prometheus -n monitoring

Next Steps

• Monitor your Ignite instance with KubeDB using built-in Prometheus.
• Monitor your Ignite instance with KubeDB using Prometheus operator.
• Want to hack on KubeDB? Check our contribution guidelines.