Use SkyWalking to implement end-to-end monitoring on Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch

Prerequisites

Procedure

1. Step 1: Download and install SkyWalking
2. Step 2: Configure SkyWalking to connect to Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch
3. Step 3: Verify the results

Step 1: Download and install SkyWalking

1. Download the SkyWalking package to the Linux server.
   We recommend that you select the latest version 7.0.0. Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch V7.4 is used in this example. Therefore, Binary Distribution for ElasticSearch 7 is selected. Run the following command to download the package:

   wget https://mirror.bit.edu.cn/apache/skywalking/7.0.0/apache-skywalking-apm-es7-7.0.0.tar.gz

2. Run the following command to decompress the package:

   tar -zxvf apache-skywalking-apm-es7-7.0.0.tar.gz

3. Run the following command to view the decompressed files:

   ll apache-skywalking-apm-bin-es7/

   The following result is returned:

   total 92
   drwxrwxr-x 8 1001 1002 143 Mar 18 23:50 agent
   drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   241 Apr 10 16:03 bin
   drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   221 Apr 10 16:03 config
   -rwxrwxr-x 1 1001 1002 29791 Mar 18 23:37 LICENSE
   drwxrwxr-x 3 1001 1002  4096 Apr 10 16:03 licenses
   -rwxrwxr-x 1 1001 1002 32838 Mar 18 23:37 NOTICE
   drwxrwxr-x 2 1001 1002 12288 Mar 19 00:00 oap-libs
   -rw-rw-r-- 1 1001 1002  1978 Mar 18 23:37 README.txt
   drwxr-xr-x 3 root root    30 Apr 10 16:03 tools
   drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    53 Apr 10 16:03 webapp

Step 2: Configure SkyWalking to connect to Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch

1. Run the following commands to open the application.yml file in the config directory:

   cd apache-skywalking-apm-bin-es7/config/
   vi application.yml

2. Locate storage, change H2 to elasticsearch7, and configure the file as follows:

   storage:
     selector: ${SW_STORAGE:elasticsearch7}
     elasticsearch7:
       nameSpace: ${SW_NAMESPACE:"skywalking-index"}
       clusterNodes: ${SW_STORAGE_ES_CLUSTER_NODES:es-cn-4591kzdzk000i****.public.elasticsearch.aliyuncs.com:9200}
       protocol: ${SW_STORAGE_ES_HTTP_PROTOCOL:"http"}
      # trustStorePath: ${SW_SW_STORAGE_ES_SSL_JKS_PATH:"../es_keystore.jks"}
      # trustStorePass: ${SW_SW_STORAGE_ES_SSL_JKS_PASS:""}
       enablePackedDownsampling: ${SW_STORAGE_ENABLE_PACKED_DOWNSAMPLING:true} # Hour and Day metrics will be merged into minute index.
       dayStep: ${SW_STORAGE_DAY_STEP:1} # Represent the number of days in the one minute/hour/day index.
       user: ${SW_ES_USER:"elastic"}
       password: ${SW_ES_PASSWORD:"es_password"}

   Note SkyWalking stores data in H2 by default. However, H2 does not support persistent data storage, and you must change H2 to Elasticsearch.

   Parameter	Description
   selector	The storage selector. For this example, set the value to elasticsearch7.
   nameSpace	The namespace. The value of this parameter is used as the prefix for all indexes of the Elasticsearch cluster.
   clusterNodes	The endpoint of the Elasticsearch cluster. Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch is not in the same Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) as SkyWalking. You must use the public endpoint to access Elasticsearch. For more information, see View basic information of a cluster.
   user	The username of your Elasticsearch cluster. The default username is elastic.
   password	The password of your Elasticsearch cluster. The password is specified when you create the Elasticsearch cluster.

   Notice Specify only the username and password. Comment out trustStorePath and trustStorePass. Otherwise, the error message "NoSuchFileException: /es_keystore.jks" is reported.
3. Optional:Modify the IP address or port for listening.
   By default, SkyWalking communicates with Elasticsearch over port 12800 for RESTful API operations and port 11800 for gRPC API operations. The IP address or port can be modified in the core part of theapplication.yml file. In this example, the default values are used.

   core:
     selector: ${SW_CORE:default}
     default:
       # Mixed: Receive agent data, Level 1 aggregate, Level 2 aggregate
       # Receiver: Receive agent data, Level 1 aggregate
       # Aggregator: Level 2 aggregate
       role: ${SW_CORE_ROLE:Mixed} # Mixed/Receiver/Aggregator
       restHost: ${SW_CORE_REST_HOST:0.0.0.0}
       restHost: ${SW_CORE_REST_HOST:0.0.0.0}
       restContextPath: ${SW_CORE_REST_CONTEXT_PATH:/}
       gRPCHost: ${SW_CORE_GRPC_HOST:0.0.0.0}
       gRPCPort: ${SW_CORE_GRPC_PORT:11800}

4. Optional:In the webapp directory, modify the configurations in the webapp.yml file.
   Default configurations are used in this example. You can modify the configurations as required.

   server:
     port: 8080
   collector:
     path: /graphql
     ribbon:
       ReadTimeout: 10000
       # Point to all backend's restHost:restPort, split by ,
       listOfServers: 127.0.0.1:12800

Step 3: Verify the results

1. Run the following commands to start SkyWalking on the Linux server:

   cd ../bin
   ./startup.sh

   Notice

   • Make sure that your Elasticsearch cluster is started before you start SkyWalking.
   • SkyWalking Collector and SkyWalking UI are both started by running the startup.sh command.
   If SkyWalking is started, the following result is returned:

   SkyWalking OAP started successfully!
   SkyWalking Web Application started successfully!

2. Enter http://<IP address of the Linux server>:8080/ in the address bar of your browser.
   

   Note When you use SkyWalking to connect to Alibaba Cloud Elasticsearch for the first time, the startup is slow. This is because SkyWalking needs to create a large number of indexes in Elasticsearch. Before the creation is complete, the accessed page is blank. You can view logs that are stored in <SkyWalking installation path>logs/skywalking-oap-server.log to check whether the creation is complete.
3. Log on to the Kibana console of your Elasticsearch cluster. For more information, see Log on to the Kibana console. Run the GET _cat/indices? v command to view the index data.
   In the returned results, a large number of indexes starting with skywalking-index exist.