Grafana Dashboard for Monitoring APTOS Validator Operations

This is a work-in-progress Grafana dashboard for monitoring Aptos Validators. Setting up Prometheus/Grafana is outside the scope of this repo. Use the excellent guide from Artifact Staking.

New! This Dashboard is also available on the Grafana Dashboard page for one-click install.

A few assumptions and instructions for setup:

• This is in-progress and will have significant updates in 2023 as I (and other operators) better understand the important metrics and alerts for proper node operations.
• This requires a Prometheus data source (obviously), pulling data from the Aptos node's metric port at 9101
• This also requires the Infinity Plugin (for pulling API/JSON information). Install this plugin by executing grafana-cli plugins install yesoreyeram-infinity-datasource on the grafana server, or you can install for grafana.net cloud installs.
• After you install the Infinity Plugin, go to your Datasources and add a new Datasource. Choose type Infinity and hit save. This requires no other configuration.
• Ensure that node-exporter is installed on your Validator to pull machine metrics: apt install prometheus-node-exporter.
• This dashboard assumes you have a chain tag that is used in the prometheus metrics capture. I use this to flip between testnet/mainnet monitoring. This dashboard assumes you have this chain label set and will not show data without it. Setup your prometheus.yml file like this:

# Prometheus.yaml example for node monitoring
  - job_name: aptos
      static_configs:
      - targets: ['val.preview.ip.addy.here:9100','val.preview.ip.addy.here:9101','valFullNode.preview.ip.addy.here:9100','valFullNode.preview.ip.addy.here:9101','valFullNode.preview.ip.addy.here:2019']
          labels:
          chain: 'preview'
      - targets: ['val.mainnet.ip.addy.here:9100','val.mainnet.ip.addy.here:9101','valFullNode.mainnet.ip.addy.here:9100','valFullNode.mainnet.ip.addy.here:9101','valFullNode.mainnet.ip.addy.here:2019']
          labels:
          chain: 'mainnet'

## Important Points:
# • 9100 is prometheus-node-exporter, 9101 is the default APTOS metrics port.  Ensure these are available from the prometheus server.
# • Add both your Validator and Validator Full Node IP addresses.  No need for additional tags.
# • The 2109 port is for Caddy for measuring API statics for the dashboard (see below)

# Prometheus.yaml example for checklyhq integration
  - job_name: aptos_checkly
    metrics_path: "/accounts/<tenant_id>/prometheus/metrics"
    bearer_token: "<token>"
    scrape_interval: 15s
    scheme: https
    static_configs:
      - targets: ["api.checklyhq.com"]

# • The "checklyhq" component is for measurement & alerting through ChecklyHQ (https://www.checklyhq.com/)
# • Read more about this integration here: https://www.checklyhq.com/docs/integrations/prometheus/

Note: These exact prometheus chain labels (preview and mainnet) are used in variables in the dashboard for pulling metrics from the API. If you choose NOT use these chain names in your prometheus.yml file, you will need to change these names in the Variables section within the dashboard itself.

Additional Functionality

• Dashboard can determine validator vs. full-node metrics from data, no need to tag
• PeerID is determined in variable from data
• If you utilize annotations, use tag restart and annotation will occur on all graphs
• Endpoints for chain API metrics are captured in a Grafana variable called chainAPI. It is of the form CollectionLookup(mainnet,mainnet.aptoslabs.com,llt,testnet.aptoslabs.com,preview,vfn-preview.aptos.rhinostake.com,$chain). If you need to change or add an endpoint, add it in the form networkname,endpoint, ensuring the networkname matches the chain label in prometheus.
• ChecklyHQ Integration. ChecklyHQ allows the user to inspect API endpoints for information from both public and private agents. RHINO utilizes ChecklyHQ to inspect the REST interface of both the validator and VFN, reviewing block height, 200 status, response time and other metrics. This integrates into PagerDuty or other controls as an extra check to allow for fast response.
• Caddy Integration. We utilize Caddy as a simple https reverse proxy in front of the REST interface, allowing https, rate limiting, statistics, and many other controls.
• The opportunities for how to configure the Caddy reverse proxy are up to you, but at the very least the following config should be in place, and ports 80/443 exposed

{
    servers {
        metrics
    }
}

:2019 {
    metrics
}

valFullNode.preview.dns.name.here {
  reverse_proxy {
    to http://localhost:8080
  }
}

How to use this file

• Download the .json file from the Grafana folder in this repository
• Hit Import in Grafana

• Click Upload JSON and select the file downloaded
• Select your Prometheus datasource from the dropdown & import!

Have ideas/changes/additions? Great! Feel free to push a PR to this repo or reach out to me on Discord!

Who is RHINO?

RHINO is a professionally managed, highly available validator service. Earn rewards and help secure networks by staking your tokens with RHINO. We operate across the Aptos, Cosmos, Chainlink, and Helium ecosystems. Read more at https://rhinostake.com.