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Prometheus and Grafana Setup

Prometheus is an open-source monitoring system with efficient time series database and a modern alerting approach. Together with Grafana it's the recommended way to make sure that your node and validator(s) are performing correctly.

Localized Docker Metrics Script​

The Lodestar team has setup a script which will copy the latest dashboards compiled by our team for development purposes. By utilizing the script located in /docker/docker-compose.local_dev.sh, you can instantly setup the latest dockerized metrics alongside your local beacon node.

Local Monitoring with Docker Compose​

For a quick local monitoring setup, you can use the provided Docker Compose configuration that includes both Prometheus and Grafana with pre-configured dashboards.

Prerequisites​

  1. Start your Lodestar beacon node and validator client locally
  2. Ensure they are running on the default ports:

Setup Instructions​

  1. Run the Docker Compose file in detached mode:

    docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.local.yml up -d --build

  2. Access the monitoring services:

  3. To stop and remove the containers:

    docker-compose -f docker/docker-compose.local.yml down

Configuration Details​

This setup uses host.docker.internal to connect to your local Lodestar instance from within the Docker containers. The configuration automatically:

  • Scrapes metrics from your local beacon node and validator client
  • Provides pre-configured Grafana dashboards for Lodestar monitoring
  • Sets up proper networking between Prometheus and Grafana services
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The Docker Compose setup is ideal for local development and testing. For production deployments, consider using the manual setup described in the sections below.

Prometheus Setup​

To start, download Prometheus from https://prometheus.io/download/. Unzip the downloaded .zip file and run Prometheus from its installed location with the lodestar prometheus.yml passed in as the configuration file

./prometheus --config.file=$dataDir/prometheus.yml
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8008 is also the default port specified in the prometheus.yml in the lodestar repository

Then run the Lodestar beacon node with

lodestar --metrics=true --metrics.port=8008

Navigate to http://localhost:9090/ in your browser to verify that Prometheus is monitoring Lodestar

Grafana Setup​

Download and install Grafana from its official repository https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/installation/debian/

Add Prometheus as a data source to Grafana https://prometheus.io/docs/visualization/grafana/#installing

An example of relevant metrics of interest to monitor are:

  • nodejs_heap_space_size_used_bytes
  • nodejs_eventloop_lag_seconds
  • beaconchain_peers
  • beaconchain_current_slot
  • beaconchain_current_finalized_epoch