Docker container for infrastructure monitoring

The infrastructure monitoring agent for Linux supports Docker environments by default. If you're running a container OS or have restrictions that require deploying the agent as a container, you can run a containerized version of our infrastructure monitoring agent. This can monitor metrics for the container itself, as well as the underlying host.

Using the custom (recommended) or basic setup allows the infrastructure agent to run inside a container environment. A host can only run one instance of the agent at a time, whether that's the containerized agent or the non-containerized version.

Want to try out our infrastructure monitoring agent for Linux? Create a New Relic account for free! No credit card required.

What you need

The containerized version of the infrastructure agent requires Docker 1.12 or higher. The container must run any of the Linux distributions and versions supported by our agent. The container image is available and supported on AMD64 and ARM64 architectures.

The log forwarder is not included with the containerized agent. We recommend installing the agent on the underlying host which provides all capabilities.

Custom setup (recommended)

The following are basic instructions for creating a custom Docker image on Linux. This allows you to deploy the infrastructure agent as a container that can monitor its underlying host.

Recommendation: Extend the newrelic/infrastructure image, and use your own newrelic-infra.yml agent config file. Once your image is built, you can easily spin up a container without having to provide more launch time configurations. Do not provide secrets using environment variables with Docker.

Docker CLI

Create the newrelic-infra.yml agent config file with your New Relic license key. For config option explanations, see configuration settings.
```
license_key: YOUR_LICENSE_KEY
```
Create the Dockerfile extending the newrelic/infrastructure image, and add your config to /etc/newrelic-infra.yml:
```
FROM newrelic/infrastructure:latest
ADD newrelic-infra.yml /etc/newrelic-infra.yml
```
Build and tag your image:
```
docker build -t YOUR_IMAGE_NAME .
```

Run the container from the image you built with the required required run flags:

docker run \
    -d \
    --name newrelic-infra \
    --network=host \
    --cap-add=SYS_PTRACE \
    --privileged \
    --pid=host \
    -v "/:/host:ro" \
    -v "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock" \
    YOUR_IMAGE_NAME

For potential next steps, like how to see data in the UI, see What's next?

Docker Compose

Create a folder to store the configuration files:
```
mkdir ~/newrelic-infra-setup
```
Change directory to the one you've just created:
```
cd ~/newrelic-infra-setup
```
Create the newrelic-infra.yml agent config file with your New Relic license key. For config option explanations, see configuration settings.
```
echo "license_key: YOUR_LICENSE_KEY" > newrelic-infra.yml
```
Create the newrelic-infra.dockerfile extending the newrelic/infrastructure image, and add your config to /etc/newrelic-infra.yml:
```
touch newrelic-infra.dockerfile
```
```
vim newrelic-infra.dockerfile #you can use any text editor
```

Put the following content in the file:

FROM newrelic/infrastructure:latest
ADD newrelic-infra.yml /etc/newrelic-infra.yml

Create docker-compose.yaml:

touch docker-compose.yaml

vim docker-compose.yaml #you can use any text editor

Put following content in the file:

version: '3'

services:
  agent:
    container_name: newrelic-infra
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: newrelic-infra.dockerfile
    cap_add:
      - SYS_PTRACE
    network_mode: host
    pid: host
    privileged: true
    volumes:
      - "/:/host:ro"
      - "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock"
    restart: unless-stopped

Build and start docker-compose:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yaml up -d

For potential next steps, like how to see data in the UI, see What's next?

Basic setup

To use the basic setup with a base New Relic infrastructure image:

Docker CLI

Run the container with the required run flags:

docker run \
   -d \
   --name newrelic-infra \
   --network=host \
   --cap-add=SYS_PTRACE \
   --privileged \
   --pid=host \
   -v "/:/host:ro" \
   -v "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock" \
   -e NRIA_LICENSE_KEY=YOUR_LICENSE_KEY \
   newrelic/infrastructure:latest

For potential next steps, like how to see data in the UI, see What's next?

Docker Compose

Create docker-compose.yaml:

touch docker-compose.yaml

vim docker-compose.yaml #you can use any text editor

Put following content in the file:

version: '3'

services:
  agent:
    container_name: newrelic-infra
    image: newrelic/infrastructure:latest
    cap_add:
      - SYS_PTRACE
    network_mode: host
    pid: host
    privileged: true
    volumes:
      - "/:/host:ro"
      - "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock"
    environment:
      NRIA_LICENSE_KEY: "YOUR_LICENSE_KEY"
    restart: unless-stopped

Build and start docker-compose:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yaml up -d

For potential next steps, like how to see data in the UI, see What's next?

Required container privileges

Due to resource isolation from the host and other containers via Linux namespaces, a container has a very restricted view and control of its underlying host's resources by default. Without these extra privileges, the infrastructure agent cannot monitor the host and its containers.

The infrastructure agent collects data about its host using system files and system calls. For more information about how the infrastructure agent collects data, see our documentation about infrastructure monitoring and security. Required privileges include:

Privilege	Description
`--network=host`	Sets the container's network namespace to the host's network namespace. This allows the agent to collect the network metrics about the host.
`-v "/:/host:ro"`	Bind mounts the host's root volume to the container. This read-only access to the host's root allows the agent to collect process and storage metrics as well as Inventory data from the host.
`--cap-add=SYS_PTRACE`	Adds the Linux capability to trace system processes. This allows the agent to gather data about processes running on the host. Read more here.
`--privileged`
`--pid=host`
`-v "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock"`	Bind mounts the host's Docker daemon socket to the container. This allows the agent to connect to the Engine API via the Docker daemon socket to collect the host's container data.

Next steps after install

For next steps after install is completed, see What's next?

Inventory collected

Inventory is collected from the infrastructure agent's built-in data collectors. The infrastructure agent collects this data for Linux systems running with containers.

Category	Source	Data collected using
`metadata`	`agent_config`	Agent's complete config file
`metadata`	`system`	`uptime -s, /etc/redhat-release, /proc/cpuinfo, /etc/os-release, /proc/sys/kernel/random/boot_id, /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease, /sys/class/dmi/id/product_uuid, /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/sys_vendor, /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/product_name`

Container data

Once the infrastructure agent is running in a Docker container, it can collect the same host compute data and event data that the infrastructure agent is capable of collecting when running natively on a host. For more information, see our documentation about how to view your Docker container data.

Containerized agent image

The containerized agent image is built from an Alpine base image.

Alpine is used as the base image since version 0.0.55. This is the one pointed by latest tag. Earlier versions used CentOS 7 as base image.

Check the source code

This integration is open source software. You can browse its source code and send improvements, or create your own fork and build it.