Ceph Dashboard and Automated Monitoring Integration (Prometheus + Alertmanager)

🔰 Introduction

As enterprise Ceph storage clusters grow in scale and complexity,
manual monitoring or CLI-based observation is no longer sufficient to ensure stability.

By integrating Ceph Dashboard with Prometheus and Alertmanager,
administrators can achieve real-time visibility, analytics, and automated alerts —
building a complete observability platform for predictive and proactive storage management.

This article explains:
1️⃣ Ceph Dashboard architecture
2️⃣ Integration with Prometheus for metrics collection
3️⃣ Automated alerting with Alertmanager
4️⃣ Unified visualization and monitoring for Proxmox + Ceph environments

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🧩 1. Ceph Dashboard Architecture Overview

1️⃣ Architecture Diagram

Starting from Ceph Mimic (v13), the Dashboard module is built into the Ceph Manager (MGR).
It provides a web-based interface for managing and monitoring the entire storage cluster.

               ┌────────────────────────────┐
               │        Ceph Dashboard      │
               │   (Integrated in MGR)      │
               └───────────┬────────────────┘
                           │ REST API / Metrics Export
                           ▼
           ┌───────────────────────────┐
           │       Prometheus          │
           │   (Metrics Collector)     │
           └───────────┬───────────────┘
                       │ Alerts / Rules
                       ▼
           ┌───────────────────────────┐
           │       Alertmanager         │
           │   (Notifications / Triggers) │
           └───────────────────────────┘

2️⃣ Core Dashboard Features

• Real-time cluster health and performance overview
• Visualization of OSD / MON / MGR states
• Pool and capacity statistics
• Integrated Prometheus metrics export
• Role-based access control (RBAC)

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⚙️ 2. Enabling the Ceph Dashboard

Enable the module:

ceph mgr module enable dashboard

Create an admin account:

ceph dashboard ac-user-create admin admin123 administrator

Enable HTTPS access:

ceph dashboard set-login-credentials admin admin123
ceph config set mgr mgr/dashboard/server_port 8443
ceph config set mgr mgr/dashboard/ssl true
systemctl restart ceph-mgr@<node>

Access via browser:

https://<mgr-node-ip>:8443

---

📈 3. Integrating Prometheus for Metrics Collection

1️⃣ Enable the Prometheus Module

ceph mgr module enable prometheus

Check available services:

ceph mgr services

Output example:

{
    "dashboard": "https://10.0.0.11:8443/",
    "prometheus": "http://10.0.0.11:9283/"
}

Prometheus can now scrape metrics from http://<mgr-node>:9283/metrics,
including:

• OSD latency, throughput, and health
• MON quorum status
• Pool usage and replication metrics
• RBD, CephFS, and RGW performance data

---

2️⃣ Prometheus Configuration Example

Edit prometheus.yml:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'ceph'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['10.0.0.11:9283']

Restart Prometheus:

systemctl restart prometheus

---

📊 4. Grafana Visualization (Optional)

For advanced visualization, import the official Ceph Grafana Dashboard (ID: 2842):
1️⃣ Log in to Grafana → Import Dashboard
2️⃣ Choose data source: Prometheus
3️⃣ Displays include:

• Pool utilization and performance trends
• OSD IOPS and latency charts
• Cluster health overview

📊 Grafana provides a unified view across storage, network, and compute metrics —
ideal for NOC and IT operations centers.

---

🔔 5. Automated Alerts with Alertmanager

1️⃣ Enable Ceph Alerts Module

ceph mgr module enable alerts

Configure the Alertmanager endpoint:

ceph config set mgr mgr/alerts/alertmanager_address http://10.0.0.20:9093

---

2️⃣ Example Alertmanager Configuration

alertmanager.yml:

route:
  receiver: 'email-alert'

receivers:
  - name: 'email-alert'
    email_configs:
      - to: 'itops@nuface.tw'
        from: 'ceph-monitor@nuface.tw'
        smarthost: 'smtp.nuface.tw:587'
        auth_username: 'ceph-monitor@nuface.tw'
        auth_password: 'yourpassword'

Alertmanager supports multiple notification channels —
including Slack, Webhook, LINE Notify, and Microsoft Teams.

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3️⃣ Common Alert Examples

Alert Type	Trigger Condition	Recommended Action
OSD Down	OSD offline > 300s	Verify disk or node network
Pool Near Full	Pool usage > 85%	Expand capacity or clean old snapshots
MON Quorum Lost	< 2 MON nodes active	Check connectivity and restart MONs
RBD Image Error	Volume mount failure	Check RADOS and network connectivity

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🧠 6. Unified Monitoring for Proxmox + Ceph

Component	Integration Method	Function
Proxmox VE	Built-in Prometheus exporter	VM and container resource metrics
Ceph MGR	Prometheus module	Storage health and performance data
Grafana	Unified dashboard visualization	Cross-layer observability
Alertmanager	Centralized alert routing	Automated alerts and escalation
N8N / Webhooks	Custom automation	Self-healing and remediation workflows

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🔒 7. Best Practices and Governance

• Deploy at least one dedicated MGR + Prometheus node per cluster.
• Classify alerts by severity: Critical, Warning, Informational.
• Integrate logs and alerts into a central SIEM / log server.
• Regularly review Ceph Health Reports and long-term trends.
• Combine Ansible + Webhooks for automated remediation actions.

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✅ Conclusion

By integrating Ceph Dashboard, Prometheus, and Alertmanager,
enterprises can build a comprehensive observability and automation framework
for large-scale distributed storage environments.

This solution enables:

• Real-time visibility into system health
• Proactive alerting and predictive analytics
• Automated response and repair workflows

Together, they transform Ceph operations into a visible, controllable, and intelligent system,
supporting long-term reliability and scalability across global environments.

💬 Coming next:
“Ceph in AI Training and Data Lake Architectures” —
exploring how Ceph integrates with large-scale data processing and AI workloads
as the foundation of elastic, intelligent enterprise data infrastructure.