Managing actions (Technology Preview)

Instana is introducing an action framework where you can use automation to perform an action to diagnose and remediate events. By using an action catalog, you can create new actions or integrate with existing automation through a script, webhook, or other 3rd-party automation providers. These actions can be associated with various Instana events, and can be executed by using an action sensor on the Instana agent.

Notes

  • Instana action framework is currently a limited Technology Preview in Instana. For more information, refer to this blog post and contact us.
  • Action script sensor is supported (currently) for only agents that run on Linux operating systems.
  • Currently, actions can't be associated to a Smart Alert (only built-in and custom events are supported).
  • Currently, actions can only be associated to events of type Issue.
  • When you view the output logs from an action execution, the logs might take a while to appear. If the initial view is empty, reloading the page will make the logs appear when they are available.
  • If your Instana is on a self-hosted (on-premises) Docker environment, the Instana logging framework that is used to collect action output is currently not available.
  • If you want to use Instana action framework in Instana SaaS, you need to contact with Instana support team with the request to enable Instana action framework first.

Prerequisites

Deploying and configuring action sensors

Ensure that you have deployed and configured the following action sensors:

Enabling feature flag

To use the automation framework on self-hosted Instana environments, the feature flag must be enabled for the action framework. Use either of the following ways based on your Instana environment:

Self-hosted Instana on Docker (on-premises)

  1. Enable the feature flag in the settings.hcl file, which is generated automatically when you install the Instana backend:
    ...
feature "actionAutomationEnabled" {
    enabled=true
}
...
  2. Apply the changes by running the instana update command.

Note: For more information about self-hosted Instana backend on Docker (on-premises), see enabling feature flags.

Self-hosted Instana on Kubernetes/OpenShift (on-premises)

  1. Enable the feature flag in the core.yaml file as follows:
    apiVersion: instana.io/v1beta2
kind: Core
metadata:
  name: instana-core
  namespace: core
spec:
  ...
  featureFlags:
    - name:  feature.automation.enabled
      enabled: true
  ...
  2. Apply the changes by running the command kubectl apply -f core.yaml.

Note: For more information about self-hosted Instana backend on Kubernetes/OpenShift (on-premises), see feature flags API reference.

Configuring user permissions

The following user permissions are required to work with the action framework:

  • Configuration of automation actions: Required to access the Action Catalog, add, delete, or modify actions, and associate actions to event types.
  • Execution of automation actions: Required to execute actions (either from event context or through “Test” in the action catalog).
  • Configuration of Events, Alerts and Smart Alerts: Required to associate actions to event types.

Note: For information about how to configure users, roles, and permissions, see managing users docs.

Procedure

To use action framework in Instana, follow the steps:

  1. Click Settings > Automation > Action Catalog in the Instana UI, you can see the action catalog. Then, click an action in the catalog to get the action definition where you can create, edit, and delete actions. For more information, see Action catalog.
  2. Associate the actions from the catalog directly by using Instana event definitions. This allows you to have access to your automation from the context of an event occurrence. For more information, see Action associations.
  3. Execute an action directly from an event instance. For more information, see Action associations.
  4. Go to Analytics > Logs in the Instana UI, you can view the output of an action execution. For more information, see Action output.