Single Instance

Bindplane server's default architecture is monolithic. In this mode, Bindplane depends only on a PostgreSQL database. All other components are bundled with the Bindplane server installation.

Bindplane manages several sub-processes:

• Prometheus: For recording collector throughput metrics
• Transform Agent: For Live Preview

The Prometheus and Transform Agent software are included with the Bindplane server installation and do not require configuration by the user.

Installing Bindplane on Linux is as simple as running the installation script and following the initialization prompts.

curl -fsSlL https://storage.googleapis.com/bindplane-op-releases/bindplane/latest/install-linux.sh -o install-linux.sh && bash install-linux.sh --init && rm install-linux.sh

Read more by checking out the Quick Start Guide.

Event Bus

Local

The Local event bus is the default event bus used by Bindplane. Unless operating Bindplane in high availability mode, the Local event bus is sufficient.

The configuration will look like this by default:

eventBus:
  type: local

Store

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is the storage backend used for all Bindplane installations. When operating Bindplane as a single instance, it is safe to install PostgreSQL on the same server as Bindplane.

Follow the PostgreSQL installation instructions to install PostgreSQL.

You can avoid using username and password credentials by configuring PostgreSQL to allow processes owned by the bindplane user to connect to the database over localhost without a password. Update your pg_hba.conf configuration with the following entries:

host    all   bindplane   ::1/128        trust
host    all   bindplane   127.0.0.1/32   trust

Prometheus

All Bindplane installations include a bundled version of Prometheus. Bindplane will use the bundled Prometheus as its default measurement metrics storage backend.

It is unnecessary to configure Prometheus when using the bundled option. This documentation can be used as a reference for the default Prometheus installation.

Configuration

The configuration file at /etc/bindplane/config.yaml will contain the following prometheus block after the installation is configured.

prometheus:
  localFolder: /var/lib/bindplane/prometheus
  host: localhost
  port: '9090'
  remoteWrite:
    endpoint: /api/v1/write
  auth:
    type: none

Directory Structure

Once Bindplane is started, the /var/lib/bindplane/prometheusdirectory structure will look like this:

/var/lib/bindplane/prometheus
├── console_libraries
│   ├── menu.lib
│   └── prom.lib
├── consoles
│   ├── index.html.example
│   ├── node-cpu.html
│   ├── node-disk.html
│   ├── node.html
│   ├── node-overview.html
│   ├── prometheus.html
│   └── prometheus-overview.html
├── data
│   ├── chunks_head
│   ├── lock
│   ├── queries.active
│   └── wal
│       └── 00000000
├── LICENSE
├── NOTICE
├── prometheus
├── prometheus.yml
├── promtool
├── rules.yml
└── web.yml

Prometheus's configuration and storage are located at /var/lib/bindplane/prometheus.

Process

Bindplane manages the Prometheus process directly as a subprocess. When viewing the process list with ps, you will notice the following:

USER         PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
bindplane  143936  0.0  0.0 1319104 64000 ?       Sl   12:20   0:00 /var/lib/bindplane/prometheus/prometheus --config.file prometheus.yml --web.config.file web.yml --storage.tsdb.retention.time 2d --web.listen-address :9090 --web.enable-remote-write-receiver

The Prometheus process is executed with the following flags:

• --config.file prometheus.yml: The main Prometheus configuration file, managed by Bindplane.
• --web.config.file web.yml: The Prometheus web configuration file, managed by Bindplane.
• --storage.tsdb.retention.time 2d: The retention time, managed by Bindplane. Bindplane uses rollup metrics for tracking collector measurements over time and does not require Prometheus to store data for longer than two days.
• --web.listen-address localhost:9090: Listen address, managed by Bindplane. Prometheus is not reachable outside of the Bindplane system.
• --web.enable-remote-write-receiver: Bindplane uses remote write to push metrics to Prometheus.