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Version: 1.7.x

Monitoring Consul Service Discovery

HertzBeat integrates with Consul registry to automatically discover service instances and create monitoring tasks for them.

Overview​

Consul Service Discovery allows HertzBeat to connect to your Consul server and automatically discover all registered service instances. When a new service instance is registered or an existing instance goes offline, HertzBeat will automatically create or delete corresponding monitoring tasks, achieving automated monitoring in microservice environments.

PreRequisites​

Deploy Consul Server​

  1. Deploy Consul server according to Consul official documentation.
  2. Ensure Consul server is accessible from HertzBeat.
  3. Verify that you can access Consul UI at http://your-consul-server:8500/ui/
  4. Ensure the Consul HTTP API is accessible (default port: 8500)

Configuration parameter​

Parameter nameParameter help description
Target NameIdentify the name of this monitoring. The name needs to be unique.
Consul HostConsul server IP address or domain name. Note⚠️Without protocol header (eg: https://, http://). Example: consul-server or 192.168.1.100
Consul PortPort provided by the Consul server. The default is 8500
Collection intervalInterval time of monitor periodic data collection, unit: second, and the minimum interval that can be set is 30 seconds.
Description remarksFor more information about identifying and describing this monitoring, users can note information here.

Usage Steps​

  1. Create Service Discovery Monitoring

    • In HertzBeat web UI, navigate to Monitoring → New Monitoring
    • Select monitoring type: Consul Service Discovery
    • Fill in the basic configuration parameters

  2. Configure Monitoring Template

    • After creating the service discovery monitoring, you need to specify a monitoring template
    • The template defines what type of monitoring to create for discovered service instances
    • For example: If discovered instances are HTTP services, you can select HTTP monitoring template
    • Common template types: Port, HTTP, HTTPS, Ping, etc.

  3. Automatic Discovery

    • HertzBeat will periodically query Consul server based on the collection interval
    • Automatically create monitoring tasks for newly registered service instances
    • Automatically delete monitoring tasks for offline service instances

  4. View Discovered Instances

    • In the monitoring list, you can see all automatically created sub-monitoring tasks
    • Each sub-monitoring task corresponds to a discovered service instance

Example of usage​

Suppose your Consul server is running at 192.168.1.100:8500, and you want to automatically monitor all service instances registered in it.

Configuration example:

  • Target Name: Consul-Service-Discovery
  • Consul Host: 192.168.1.100
  • Consul Port: 8500
  • Collection interval: 60 seconds
  • Monitoring Template: Select Port monitoring (to detect instance availability)

After configuration:

  1. HertzBeat connects to Consul server via HTTP API
  2. Retrieves all registered service instances
  3. Automatically creates Port monitoring for each instance (e.g., api-service-192.168.1.101:8080)
  4. Every 60 seconds, checks for newly registered or offline services and updates monitoring tasks accordingly

Notes​

  • Network Connectivity: Ensure HertzBeat can access the Consul server address and port (default: 8500)
  • Monitoring Templates: Service discovery only discovers service instance addresses, you need to configure appropriate monitoring templates to actually monitor the instances
  • Collection Interval: Recommended minimum interval is 60 seconds to avoid excessive requests to Consul server
  • ACL Token: If Consul is configured with ACL (Access Control List), you may need to configure the appropriate token
  • Service Health: Consul service discovery will discover both healthy and unhealthy instances
  • Datacenter: By default, discovers services in the local datacenter. If you need to discover services in a specific datacenter, additional configuration may be required
  • Instance Naming: Automatically created monitoring tasks are named in the format: {ServiceName}-{Host}:{Port}

Collection Metric​

Metric set: Monitor Target​

Metric nameMetric unitMetric help description
targetnoneDiscovered service instance target
hostnoneService instance host address
portnoneService instance port number

Use Cases​

  • Microservice Architecture: Automatically monitor all microservice instances registered in Consul
  • Service Mesh: Monitor services using Consul Connect service mesh
  • Multi-Datacenter: Monitor service instances across multiple Consul datacenters
  • Dynamic Scaling: Automatically adapt to service instances added/removed due to autoscaling
  • Health Check: Combine with Consul's health check mechanism to monitor service health status
  • Service Governance: Centrally manage monitoring of all services in the Consul service ecosystem

Integration with Consul Features​

  • Service Health: Consul service discovery can leverage Consul's health check information
  • Service Tags: Service instances discovered from Consul may include tag information
  • KV Storage: Can be used in conjunction with Consul KV storage to achieve more flexible service discovery
  • Service Mesh: Supports service discovery in Consul Connect service mesh environment