Managing monitoring rules in GitHub

Using mkr, you can perform actions such as saving monitoring rules to local files (pull), diffing a local file to Mackerel’s settings (diff), and having the contents of a local file reflect Mackerel’s settings (push).

To see more information about each command, refer to the cli help page

In this document we will introduce how to manage monitoring rules in GitHub using mkr.

Monitoring rule management with mkr

As for how to manage monitoring rules with mkr, there are 2 main patterns- making changes with both the web UI and code, or only using code.

  • Make changes with both the web UI and code
    • Use both pull and push
  • Make changes to monitoring rules only in code, without using the web UI
    • Use only push, not pull

With mkr monitors, id or name will be used as a designation for the monitor rule. id will be assigned by Mackerel when a new monitoring rule is created. name is given by the user.

If you will be doing management based on the former, id, so it will be necessary to also include the id in the JSON file which will be managed. If you will be doing management based on the latter, name, it won’t be necessary to include the id in the JSON file. However it will be necessary that the name is not duplicated.

If the name is duplicated in the JSON file and in Mackerel, mkr will designate monitoring rules based on the id. Regardless of whether or not the name has been duplicated, if and id doesn’t exist for each monitoring rule is the JSON, mkr will consider it invalid JSON.

Using pull and push

Here we will manage monitoring rules based on their id. For that reason it will be necessary to obtain the ids assigned by Mackerel when the monitoring rules were created.

Initialization

  • Create a repository in GitHub
  • Do git clone git clone <repo-url> cd <repo-path>
  • Obtain monitoring rules from Mackerel mkr monitors pull
  • Commit to the repository on GitHub git add monitors.json git commit -m '<commit-msg>' git push

Confirm synchronization of the repository and Mackerel’s settings

  • Bring the latest data from GitHub cd <repo-path> git pull
  • Diff against Mackerel mkr monitors diff If there are no differences, you will get the following result Summary: 0 modify, 0 append, 0 remove

Making changes to rules (web)

  • Making changes to monitoring rules on the web
  • Obtain the monitoring rules that were changed from Mackerel cd <repo-path> mkr monitors pull
  • Commit and push to repository on GitHub git add monitors.json git commit -m '<commit-msg>' git push

Make changes to a saved monitoring rule (code)

  • Make changes and do reviews on GitHub, sync changes to master branch

  • Obtain the monitoring rules that were changed from Mackerel

    cd <repo-path> mkr monitors pull

  • Diff against Mackerel mkr monitors diff
  • Sync the monitoring rules that were changed to Mackerel mkr monitors push

Add new monitoring rules (code)

  • After creating JSON, make changes and do reviews on GitHub, sync changes to master branch
  • Diff against Mackerel mkr monitors diff
  • Sync the added monitoring rules with Mackerel mkr monitors push
  • Obtain the ids Mackerel assigned to the added monitoring rules mkr monitors pull
  • Commit and push to repository on GitHub git add monitors.json git commit -m '<commit-msg>' git push

Using just push

Here we will manage monitoring rules based on their name. It’s necessary to make sure that each monitoring rule’s name hasn’t been duplicated. Also, making changes to monitoring rules in the web UI is not advised. If you have accidentally made changes in the web UI, it will be necessary to either construct the JSON manually or execute a pull.

Initialization

  • Create a repository in GitHub
  • Do git clone git clone <repo-url> cd <repo-path>
  • Obtain monitoring rules from Mackerel mkr monitors pull
  • Commit and push to repository on GitHub git add monitors.json git commit -m '<commit-msg>' git push

Confirm synchronization of the repository and Mackerel’s settings

  • Bring the latest data from GitHub cd <repo-path> git pull

  • Diff against Mackerel mkr monitors diff If there are no differences, you will get the following result

    Summary: 0 modify, 0 append, 0 remove

Making changes to saved monitoring rules (code)

  • Make changes and do reviews on GitHub, sync changes to master branch
  • Obtain the monitoring rules that were changed from Mackerel cd <repo-path> mkr monitors pull
  • Diff against Mackerel mkr monitors diff
  • Sync the monitoring rules that were changed with Mackerel mkr monitors push

Add new monitoring rules (code)

  • After creating JSON, make changes and do reviews on GitHub, sync changes to master branch
  • Diff against Mackerel mkr monitors diff
  • Sync the monitoring rules that were added to Mackerel mkr monitors push
    • For monitoring rules to be judged identically based on name, it’s not necessary to do a pull to sync the ids.

Syncing with rules on Mackerel

If you accidentally make changes in the web UI, you can update those changes using the following process.

  • Obtain the monitoring rule that was changed in Mackerel cd <repo-path> mkr monitors pull
    • By doing a pull you will get JSON with the ids attached
  • Delete the id file from the JSON
    • Even if the id field still exists, it won’t cause any problems so it’s ok to leave it as it is.
  • Diff against Mackerel mkr monitors diff
  • Commit and push to repository on GitHub git add monitors.json git commit -m '<commit-msg>' git push