Monitoring Synthetic PoP

After you install the Instana host agent in a Kubernetes cluster, the Synthetic PoP sensor is automatically installed to monitor Instana Synthetic PoP. You can view the Instana Synthetic PoP metrics in the Instana UI after you configure Synthetic PoP sensor as outlined in this topic.

Supported information
- Supported operating systems
- Supported Synthetic PoP versions and platforms
Configuring
- Basic configuration
- TLS configuration
Viewing metrics
Built-in events
Monitoring issues
- TLS not configured
- Redis TLS not enabled

Supported information

Supported operating systems

The supported operating systems of Synthetic PoP sensor are consistent with host agents requirements, which can be checked in the Supported operating systems section of each host agent, such as Supported operating systems for Unix.

Supported Synthetic PoP versions and platforms

Synthetic PoP sensor supports metrics and configuration data for Synthetic PoP 1.0.9 or later, which must be installed in a Kubernetes cluster. The minimum supported version for the Kubernetes distribution is 1.10.

Configuring

Basic configuration

You can configure the Synthetic PoP sensor in the following Configuration file:

# Synthetic PoP
com.instana.plugin.syntheticpop:
  enabled: true
  poll_rate: 60 # seconds, minimum 60 seconds by default

TLS configuration

If TLS encryption is configured in the Synthetic PoP installation, then the Synthetic PoP sensor uses HTTPS to call the health check service of the Synthetic PoP . You need to configure the caCertificate, clientCertificate, and clientKey fields as TLS encryption configuration in the com.instana.plugin.syntheticpop section of the configuration.yaml file.

To configure the key or cert files, complete the following steps:

In the Instana UI, go to Installing Instana Agents > Kubernetes > YAML
Download the configuration.yaml file.
Create a Kubernetes secret for all TLS key files and certificate files in the instana agent namespace by using the following commands:
```
kubectl create secret generic pop-cert-secret -n instana-agent-namespace \
--type='kubernetes.io/tls' \
--from-file=ca.crt=/path/to/ca.crt \
--from-file=tls.crt=/path/to/tls.crt \
--from-file=tls.key=/path/to/tls.key
```
TLS key files and certificate files must keep the same key and certificate files used in deploying Synthetic PoP with TLS encryption.

Add a property for all key and certificate files in both the volumeMounts and volumes sections in the configuration.yaml file as in the following example:

volumeMounts:
  - name: pop-cert
    mountPath: /opt/instana/agent/etc/pop
volumes:
  - name: pop-cert
    secret:
      secretName: pop-cert-secret

Update the key or certificate file path in the com.instana.plugin.syntheticpop section of the configuration.yaml file as in the following example:

com.instana.plugin.syntheticpop:
  enabled: true
  poll_rate: 60 # seconds, minimum 60 seconds by default
  caCertificate: '/opt/instana/agent/etc/pop/ca.crt' # path to X.509 CA certificate file if HTTPS is enabled for PoP Controller
  clientCertificate: '/opt/instana/agent/etc/pop/tls.crt' # path to X.509 client certificate file if HTTPS is enabled for PoP Controller
  clientKey: '/opt/instana/agent/etc/pop/tls.key' # path to client private key file if HTTPS is enabled for PoP Controller

Update the Download key by following the instructions in Installing the Host Agent on Kubernetes.
Install the Instana agent by applying the updated configuration file:
```
kubectl apply -f configuration.yaml
```

Viewing metrics

To view the Synthetic PoP metrics, complete the following steps:

In the sidebar of the Instana UI, select Infrastructure.
Click the Comparison Table tab, and select Synthetic PoP in the Table content dropdown list.
Click the name of Synthetic PoP to open the dashboard.

You can see a Synthetic PoP dashboard with all the collected performance metrics and configurations.

Configuration data

The following tables list the configuration data that is collected from the Instana Synthetic PoP:

Instana Synthetic PoP

Instana Synthetic PoP	Description
Location Name	Identified name of the Synthetic PoP.
Location Display Name	Displayed name of the Synthetic PoP.
Location Description	Location details of the Synthetic PoP.
Version	Version of the Synthetic PoP.
Started At	Start time of the Synthetic PoP.
Playback Capabilities	Supported Synthetic type of the Synthetic PoP.
Instana Synthetic Endpoint	Backend endpoint of the Synthetic PoP.
Country	Deployed country of the Synthetic PoP.
City	Deployed city of the Synthetic PoP.
Redis TLS	Status of Redis TLS (enabled or disabled).

Instana Synthetic PoP tags

Name	Description
Label	The label of customized tags or properties for this PoP.
Value	The value of customized tags or properties for this PoP.

Instana Synthetic PoP Kubernetes

Synthetic PoP is deployed in a Kubernetes cluster with a namespace. You can go to the Kubernetes namespace and cluster from the Synthetic PoP snapshot or the metric dashboard.

Kubernetes	Description
Namespace	The namespace of the Kubernetes cluster where the PoP is deployed.
Cluster	The cluster name of the Kubernetes cluster where the PoP is deployed.

Supported Synthetic types

Synthetic PoP supports the following Synthetic types:

HTTP: HTTPAction test type.
Javascript: HTTPScript test type.
Browserscript: BrowserScript, WebpageScript, and WebpageAction test types.

Performance metrics

The following table lists the performance metrics that are collected from Instana Synthetic PoP:

Synthetic PoP Metric	Description
Status	The status of the Synthetic PoP.
Scheduled/Completed	The number of total scheduled and completed tests for enabled Synthetic types.
Active Test Count	The number of running Synthetic tests for all Synthetic types.
HTTP Workload	The workload for HTTPAction tests that is running in the HTTP playback engine.
JavaScript Workload	The workload for HTTPScript tests that is running in the Javascript playback engine.
Browserscript Workload	The workload for BrowserScript, WebpageScript, and WebpageAction tests that are running in the Browserscript playback engine.
Queued Tasks	The number of tasks in the task queue that are waiting to be executed for each type.
Result Queue Depth	The number of all Synthetic test results in the result queue that are waiting to be sent to backend.

Built-in events

Built-in events trigger issues or incidents based on failing health signatures on entities, and custom events trigger issues or incidents based on the thresholds of an individual metric of any specific entity.

For more information about built-in events for the Synthetic PoP sensor, see Built-in events reference.

Monitoring issues

TLS not configured

Monitoring issue type: tls_not_configured

This monitoring issue indicates that TLS key and certificate files are not configured. To access the PoP health API through HTTPS, configure the TLS key and certificate files in the sensor configuration.

Redis TLS not enabled

Monitoring issue type: redis_tls_not_enabled

This monitoring issue indicates that Redis TLS is not enabled. To ensure secure communication, enable Redis TLS in the Synthetic PoP production environment. For more information, see Redis TLS.