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Each node in a CockroachDB cluster exports granular time-series metrics to two available Prometheus-compatible endpoints: The metrics are formatted for integration with Prometheus, an open-source tool for storing, aggregating, and querying time-series data. For details on how to pull these metrics into Prometheus, refer to . The Prometheus format is human-readable and can be processed to work with other Prometheus-compatible third-party monitoring systems, such as Sysdig and Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus. Many of the , such as and , collect metrics from the cluster’s Prometheus endpoint.
In addition to using the exported time-series data to monitor a cluster through an external system, you can write alerting rules to ensure prompt notification of critical events or issues requiring intervention or investigation. Refer to for more details.
Even if you rely on external tools for storing and visualizing your cluster’s time-series metrics, CockroachDB continues to store time-series metrics for its . These stored time-series metrics may be used to generate a , which may be critical during investigations with Cockroach Labs support.

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_status/vars

To access the _status/vars Prometheus endpoint of a cluster running on localhost:8080:
The output will be similar to the following. Note that the metric names are unique for sql_*_count*.

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metrics

This feature is in and subject to change. To share feedback and/or issues, contact Support.
The metrics Prometheus endpoint is commonly used and is the default in Prometheus configurations. To access the metrics Prometheus endpoint of a cluster running on localhost:8080:
The output will be similar to the following. Note that there is one metric name for sql_count, with static labels for query_type (with values of insert, select, update, and delete) and query_internal (with value of true).

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Static labels

One common use of static labels is to allow segmentation of a metric across various facets for later querying and aggregation. For example, rather than emitting separate metrics for INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements, the single metric sql_count uses the query_type label to distinguish between these operations. This enables operators to easily aggregate across query types (e.g., summing a metric for all SQL operations) or filter for a specific type using the appropriate value for the query_type label. The following tables contrast unlabeled metrics from the _status/vars endpoint with their labeled counterparts from the metrics endpoint:
Unlabeled metrics from the \_status/vars endpointLabeled metrics from the metrics endpoint
sql\_insert\_countsql\_count{query\_type="insert"}
sql\_select\_countsql\_count{query\_type="select"}
sql\_update\_countsql\_count{query\_type="update"}
sql\_delete\_countsql\_count{query\_type="delete"}
At metrics query time, labels provide a more seamless user experience:
Unlabeled sum query from the \_status/vars endpointLabeled sum query from the metrics endpoint
sum(sql\_insert\_count, sql\_delete\_count, sql\_select\_count)sum(sql\_count)
This query must be updated if new types are added, as each will have a unique metric name.This query is resilient to new type additions.
Related metrics can be found via autocomplete in a third-party tool, but the results may be ambiguous.All label values can be found through a third-party query engine and used to easily construct a graph with individual lines for each label value.
In other cases, label values can represent distinct categories not intended for aggregation. For example, certificate expiration metrics differ only by the specific certificate type they represent. Operators are unlikely to sum or average these, but may still want to display them side by side on a dashboard for visibility. In this case, a single metric name like security_certificate_expiration is reused, with the certificate type expressed as a label. The metrics endpoint returns output similar to the following:
This approach avoids a proliferation of metric names and allows third-party tools to display each certificate’s expiration as a separate line in a single graph or table.

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See also