Set up your Prometheus remote write integration

You can get Prometheus data flowing in New Relic with just a few simple steps. Once you integrate, your data will be visible in query-based dashboards (and other query results), often within about five minutes. This page covers basic setup for the remote write integration, as well as a few common troubleshooting topics. For information on integrating Prometheus servers in a high availability (HA) configuration, see our Prometheus high availability documentation.

(Optional) Prometheus Operator configuration

If you're using the Prometheus Operator, you'll need to create a secret with the New Relic license key for the account to which you want to report data. Make sure the API key is of the type Ingest - License.

$
kubectl -n YOUR_PROM_NAMESPACE create secret generic nr-license-key --from-literal=value=YOUR_LICENSE_KEY

Next, add the following to your Prometheus CRD (kind:Prometheus) in the corresponding field from the Helm chart:

prometheus:
  prometheusSpec:
    remoteWrite:
      - url: https://metric-api.newrelic.com/prometheus/v1/write?prometheus_server=YOUR_CLUSTER_NAME
        authorization:
          credentials:
            key: value
            name: nr-license-key

Set up the integration

Go to the Prometheus remote write setup launcher in the UI, and complete these steps to add Prometheus data.

1. Enter a name for the Prometheus server to be connected and your remote_write URL.

   Important

   The name you enter for the server creates an attribute on your data. This is also the name that identifies which Prometheus server is sending data to New Relic.

2. Add a new remote_write URL to your Prometheus YML file. Add this information under global_config in the file, at the same indentation level as the global section.

   Use the following syntax:

   Prometheus v2.26 and higher

   remote_write:
     - url: https://metric-api.newrelic.com/prometheus/v1/write?prometheus_server=YOUR_DATA_SOURCE_NAME
       authorization:
         credentials: YOUR_LICENSE_KEY

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   Prometheus lower than v2.26

   remote_write:
     - url: https://metric-api.newrelic.com/prometheus/v1/write?prometheus_server=YOUR_DATA_SOURCE_NAME
       bearer_token: YOUR_LICENSE_KEY

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   OR

   Any Prometheus version

   remote_write:
     - url: https://metric-api.newrelic.com/prometheus/v1/write?X-License-Key=YOUR_LICENSE_KEY&prometheus_server=YOUR_DATA_SOURCE_NAME

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   This approach passes credentials in the URL. We don't recommend using it unless one of these other approaches doesn't work in your environment.

   European Union accounts: If you're connecting from the EU, use the following URL:

   https://metric-api.eu.newrelic.com/prometheus/v1/write

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   Kubernetes and Helm remote write integrations: Add the remote write URL to your Helm values.yaml file. Replace remoteWrite: [] with two lines similar to the following example. Be sure to use your remote write URL and use indentation that matches the rest of the file:

   remoteWrite:
     - url: https://metric-api.newrelic.com/prometheus/v1/write?prometheus_server=YOUR_DATA_SOURCE_NAME
       bearer_token: YOUR_LICENSE_KEY

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3. Restart your Prometheus server.

4. View your data in the New Relic UI. For example, use the remote write dashboard we automatically create when you set up your integration.

Map Prometheus and New Relic metric types

The Prometheus remote write protocol doesn't include metric type information or other helpful metric metadata when sending metrics to New Relic, so we infer the metric type based on Prometheus naming conventions. Metrics not following these naming conventions may not be mapped correctly.

We map Prometheus metrics types into New Relic metric types based on Prometheus metric naming conventions as follows:

• metricName_bucket is stored as a New Relic count metric type.
• metricName_count is stored as a New Relic count metric type.
• metricName_total is stored as a New Relic count metric type.
• metricName_sum is stored as a New Relic summary metric type.

Everything else is stored as a New Relic gauge metric type.

Override metric type mappings

If you have metrics that don't follow Prometheus naming conventions, you can configure remote write to tag the metric with a newrelic_metric_type label that indicates the metric type. This label is stripped when received by New Relic.

Example: You have a counter metric named my_counter, which does not have our naming convention suffix of _bucket, _count or _total. In this situation, your metric would be identified as a gauge rather than a counter. To correct this, add the following relabel configuration to your prometheus.yml:

- url: https://metric-api.newrelic.com/prometheus/v1/write?X-License-Key=...
  write_relabel_configs:
    - source_labels: [__name__]
      regex: ^my_counter$
      target_label: newrelic_metric_type
      replacement: "counter"
      action: replace

This rule matches any metric with the name my_counter and adds a newrelic_metric_type label that identifies it as a counter. You can use the following (case sensitive!) values as the replacement value:

• counter
• gauge
• summary

When a newrelic_metric_type label is present on a metric received and set to one of the valid values, New Relic will assign the indicated type to the metric (and strip the label) before downstream consumption in the data pipeline. If you have multiple metrics that don't follow the above naming conventions, you can add multiple rules with each rule matching different source labels.

Set allow or deny lists for sent metrics

If you need greater control over the data you send to New Relic, you can send a subset of your metrics. To do this, configure remote-write with the write_relabel_configs parameter with a subparameter action value of keep or deny.

In this example, you'll only send the metrics that match the regular expression. Unmatched metrics won't be sent. Alternatively, you can use action: drop to drop all of the metrics that match the regular expression.

- url: https://metric-api.newrelic.com/prometheus/v1/write?X-License-Key=...
  write_relabel_configs:
    - source_labels: [__name__]
      regex: "coredns_(.*)|etcd_(.*)"
      action: keep

This Kubernetes example uses this Helm chart's values.yaml file. If you're using a different Helm chart, please check its remoteWrite documentation (for example, some Helm files use camelcase writeRelabelConfigs instead).

remoteWrite:
  - url: https://metric-api.newrelic.com/prometheus/v1/write?X-License-Key=...
    write_relabel_configs:
      - source_labels: [__name__]
        regex: "coredns_(.*)|etcd_(.*)"
        action: keep

Customize remote write behavior

You can customize the following parameters if you are writing to more than one account in New Relic or are connecting more than one Prometheus data source to the same account in New Relic. For more information, see the docs on remote write tuning.

Troubleshoot error messages

If you receive an integration error message from New Relic or error messages in your Prometheus server logs after restarting your Prometheus server, review our remote write troubleshooting documentation. This includes fixing common errors, such as missing or incorrect characters, bad requests, request entity too large, and rate limit errors.

Remove the integration

When you remove the Prometheus remote write integration, this stops new data from flowing, but it will not purge or remove any historical data. To remove the integration, remove the configuration code snippet from your Prometheus YML file, then restart the server.