container_accounting

The below documentation assumes deploying the entire system as docker containers. Other deployment methods (such as using non-containerized versions of the software) is theoretically possible, but not supported.

Running the container accounting collector involves running two containers.

1. cAdvisor 0.35.0
2. an APEL container

The APEL container:

• Periodically and frequently polls the cAdvisor API to "monitor" the running containers, storing one measurement per container per day in a remote elasticsearch.

Running the container accounting collector

To run the container accounting collector

1. Make sure you have the latest versions of the docker-compose.yml file and the client.cfg file. Further instructions will assume a directory structre as follows

    .
    |__ docker-compose.yml
    |__ conf
        |__ client.cfg

2. Pull the latest images.

docker-compose pull

3. Edit conf/client.cfg

• set site_name to a meaningful, human readable, identifier for your site. This will be visible in the accounting dashboard.
• set the elasticsearch url

4. Edit docker-compose.yml to suit your exact deployment

• You'll need to replace ./conf/client.cfg with the absolute path.
• Possibly edit PUBLISH_FREQUENCY. This is the delay (in seconds) between runs of the accounting client and should correspond to how much accounting data you are happy to risk loosing. If a container is stopped between runs of the accounting client, the final resource usage for that container may not get accounted for.

5. Run the two containers

docker-compose up -d cadvisor
docker-compose up -d apel

6. You should start see data in the accounting dashboard within minutes, although it will take 24 hours for some charts to update.