manage/docs/observability-runbooks.md

Observability Runbooks

Operational playbooks for the Manage self-hosted observability stack (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Alertmanager).

Service Overview

Service	Compose name	Internal URL	Health check
Prometheus	prometheus	http://prometheus:9090	/-/healthy
Grafana	grafana	http://grafana:3000	/api/health
Loki	loki	http://loki:3100	/ready
Alloy	alloy	http://alloy:12345	/-/healthy
Alertmanager	alertmanager	http://alertmanager:9093	/-/healthy
Node Exporter	node-exporter	http://node-exporter:9100	/
Manage backend	backend	http://backend:8000	/api/health

---

Alert: BackupJobFailed

Severity: critical
Meaning: A backup job reported status=failed within the last hour.

Steps

1. Open Manage → Backups and identify the failed job/run.
2. Check the run output / logs for the failure reason.
3. Search Loki for {container="backend"} | json | message=~"(?i)backup" around the failure time.
4. If transient (network, lock file), retry the job.
5. If persistent, open a task to fix the backup script or credentials.

---

Alert: BackupJobStuck

Severity: warning
Meaning: No successful backup run has been recorded for a job in the last 24 hours.

Steps

1. Confirm the job is still scheduled and expected to run.
2. Check whether the backup scheduler/host is running.
3. Verify the job can still report success to POST /api/backups/reports.
4. Inspect Prometheus graph for manage_backup_runs_last_success_timestamp by job_name.
5. If the job was intentionally retired, remove or disable its reporting.

---

Alert: PrometheusTargetMissing

Severity: warning
Meaning: A Prometheus scrape target is down (up == 0) for more than 2 minutes.

Steps

1. Identify job and instance from the alert labels.
2. Check the container/process status:
   • docker compose ps <service>
   • docker compose logs --tail 100 <service>
3. Verify network reachability from the Prometheus container:
   • docker compose exec prometheus wget -qO- http://<instance>/
4. If the target is a remote Node Exporter:
   • Check the machine is reachable over SSH.
   • Verify Node Exporter is installed and running (systemctl status node_exporter).
   • Confirm the scrape host/port in Manage → Settings for that machine.
5. Restart if needed: docker compose restart <service>.

---

Alert: AlertmanagerDown

Severity: critical
Meaning: Prometheus cannot scrape Alertmanager; new alerts may not be delivered.

Steps

1. Check container status: docker compose ps alertmanager
2. Review logs: docker compose logs --tail 200 alertmanager
3. Validate config syntax:
   • docker compose exec alertmanager amtool check-config /etc/alertmanager/alertmanager.yml
4. Verify SMTP environment variables are present if using email receivers.
5. Restart: docker compose restart alertmanager

---

Alert: GrafanaDown

Severity: warning
Meaning: Grafana is unreachable; dashboards and iframe panels in Manage are unavailable.

Steps

1. Check container status and logs.
2. Verify the OAuth client configuration is correct (GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_*).
3. If embedded panels are blank, confirm Grafana allow_embedding = true and cookie settings.
4. Restart: docker compose restart grafana

---

Routine Maintenance

Check overall health

cd /path/to/manage
docker compose ps
docker compose exec prometheus wget -qO- http://127.0.0.1:9090/-/healthy
docker compose exec grafana wget -qO- http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/health
docker compose exec loki wget -qO- http://127.0.0.1:3100/ready
docker compose exec alertmanager wget -qO- http://127.0.0.1:9093/-/healthy

Reload Prometheus after rule/config changes

Prometheus is started with --web.enable-lifecycle, so a SIGHUP or HTTP call reloads config:

curl -X POST http://localhost:9090/-/reload

Inspect logs

# All backend logs in Loki via Grafana Explore, or locally:
docker compose logs --tail 500 backend

# Specific service:
docker compose logs -f prometheus

Storage usage

docker system df -v
docker compose exec prometheus du -sh /prometheus
docker compose exec loki du -sh /loki
docker compose exec grafana du -sh /var/lib/grafana

---

Backup and Disaster Recovery

The observability data lives on the host under OBSERVABILITY_DATA_ROOT (./observability-data by default). Subdirectories are created for each service:

• prometheus
• loki
• grafana
• alertmanager
• alloy

Backup data

# Stop the stack to ensure consistency
docker compose -f docker-compose.observability.yml down

# Back up the whole data directory
rsync -aP --delete "$OBSERVABILITY_DATA_ROOT" /mnt/backups/observability-data/

# Start the stack again
docker compose -f docker-compose.observability.yml up -d

Restore data

docker compose -f docker-compose.observability.yml down
rm -rf "$OBSERVABILITY_DATA_ROOT"
rsync -aP /mnt/backups/observability-data/ "$OBSERVABILITY_DATA_ROOT"
docker compose -f docker-compose.observability.yml up -d

---

Standalone Observability Stack

Run the observability services without the Manage backend or frontend:

cd /path/to/manage
cp .env.example .env
# edit .env as needed
docker compose -f docker-compose.observability.yml up -d

Reachable web UIs

Only three services expose a human-facing web interface:

Service	Has UI	Default URL	Notes
Grafana	yes	http://localhost:3000	Dashboards, log explore, alert management
Prometheus	yes	http://localhost:9090	Query, targets, alerts, config status
Alertmanager	yes	http://localhost:9093	Alerts, silences, routing status
Loki	no	http://localhost:3100	Log API only; browse logs through Grafana
Alloy	partial	http://localhost:12345	Agent debug UI for pipeline inspection
Node Exporter	no	http://localhost:9100	Metrics endpoint only (/metrics)

Grafana defaults to admin / admin. Datasources and dashboards are provisioned automatically.

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Purpose
OBSERVABILITY_DATA_ROOT	./observability-data	Host directory where all service data is stored persistently. Each service gets a subdirectory inside it.
PROMETHEUS_PORT	9090	Host port for Prometheus web UI and API.
LOKI_PORT	3100	Host port for Loki API.
ALLOY_PORT	12345	Host port for Alloy debug UI.
GRAFANA_PORT	3000	Host port for Grafana web UI.
ALERTMANAGER_PORT	9093	Host port for Alertmanager web UI.
NODE_EXPORTER_PORT	9100	Host port for Node Exporter metrics endpoint.
GRAFANA_ADMIN_USER	admin	Grafana admin username.
GRAFANA_ADMIN_PASSWORD	admin	Grafana admin password. Change this in production.
GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID	empty	Generic OAuth client ID for Authentik or another provider.
GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET	empty	Generic OAuth client secret.
GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_AUTH_URL	empty	OAuth authorization endpoint.
GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_TOKEN_URL	empty	OAuth token endpoint.
GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_API_URL	empty	OAuth userinfo endpoint.
LOG_LEVEL	INFO	Grafana log level.
SMTP_HOST	smtp.example.com	SMTP host for Alertmanager email notifications.
SMTP_PORT	587	SMTP port for Alertmanager.
SMTP_USERNAME	empty	SMTP username.
SMTP_PASSWORD	empty	SMTP password.
SMTP_FROM_ADDRESS	no-reply@example.com	From address for alert emails.
ALERT_EMAIL_TO	admin@example.com	Default recipient for alert emails.

To scrape a Manage backend from this standalone stack, edit monitoring/prometheus/prometheus.standalone.yml and add a static target for the backend's /metrics endpoint, or drop a file-SD JSON file into monitoring/prometheus/file-sd/.

Backing up standalone data

Because data is stored on the host under OBSERVABILITY_DATA_ROOT, you can back it up with normal filesystem tools:

rsync -aP --delete "$OBSERVABILITY_DATA_ROOT" /mnt/backups/observability-data/

Stop the stack first if you need a consistent snapshot.

Scaling Notes

• The current deploy.resources blocks are tuned for a small homelab. Raise memory limits if you monitor many machines or retain logs longer than 30 days.
• Loki is configured for single-node filesystem storage. For larger deployments, migrate to object storage (S3/GCS/MinIO) and a shared index.
• Prometheus remote-write or Thanos/Cortex can be added later for long-term metrics without changing application instrumentation.