Managing actions (Beta)

The Instana automation action framework supports automating actions to diagnose and remediate events. By using the action catalog, you can create new actions or integrate with existing automation through a script, webhook, or other third-party automation providers. You can associate actions with various Instana events and run the actions by using an action sensor on the Instana host agent.

Notes

  • The action framework is available as Beta in Instana. For more information, see this blog post.
  • Action script sensor is supported only for agents that run on Linux operating systems.
  • Automation actions can be associated only with events of type Issue.
  • The logs from an action run might not appear immediately. If the initial view is empty, reload the page to display the logs when they are available.
  • To use the action framework on self-hosted Instana environments, you must enable the feature flag for the action framework.

Prerequisites

Deploying and configuring action sensors

To run actions, enable the action sensors that correspond to your action types. Ensure that the following action sensors are deployed and configured on at least one Instana agent:

Enabling feature flag

To use the action framework on self-hosted Instana environments, you must enable the feature flag for the action framework.

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
    - name:  feature.action.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.
  • Running of automation actions: Required to run 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.
  • View action history: Required to access the Action History, to view the details of action runs.

Note: For information about how to configure users, roles, and permissions, see Managing user access.

Procedure

To use the action framework in Instana, follow the steps:

  1. Enable the action sensors on one or more Instana agents where you can run actions. For more information, see Deploying and configuring action sensors.
  2. In the Instana UI, go to Automation > Action Catalog. For more information, see action catalog.
  3. Associate the actions from the catalog directly by using Instana event definitions. It provides access to actions from the context of an event occurrence. For more information, see Action associations.
  4. Run an action directly from an event instance. For more information, see Running actions.
  5. From the Instana UI, go to Analytics > Logs. You can view the output of an action that is run. For more information, see Action output.