thermograph/observability
Emi Griffith 9c0f493d68
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Log hygiene: Alloy CPU, Loki chunks/limits, Caddy field-stripping
thermograph-observability (and thermograph-backend/frontend/infra) are
archived on Forgejo now that the monorepo cutover has landed, so this domain's
work lands here in observability/ instead of a standalone repo PR.

Alloy (observability/alloy/config.alloy), deployed from /opt/observability on
prod and beta (confirmed via docker inspect mounts on the live hosts; the
monorepo's own observability/ copy isn't what's running yet -- that's a
separate, not-yet-done cutover step for this domain, flagged below):

- Raise loki.source.file's file_watch poll interval (caddy + app_jsonl) from
  the 250ms/250ms PollingFileWatcher default to 2s/10s, and
  local.file_match's glob-rescan sync_period from 10s to 1m.
- Raise discovery.docker's refresh_interval from 60s to 5m so Swarm task
  churn (~every 90s) stops restarting tailers on every refresh.
- Drop noise/duplicate containers (alloy, autoscaler, thermograph-test_*,
  thermograph-lb, thermograph_worker) via a relabel rule; the worker's
  stdout is pure /healthz noise, already superseded by its own
  access/*.jsonl.
- Fix loki.source.docker double-relabeling: it took both the already-
  relabelled target output AND relabel_rules, running every rule twice per
  entry and making the new drop rules a no-op on the second pass. Pass raw
  discovery targets + relabel_rules instead.
- Add a loki.process stage for Caddy logs that drops well-known crawler/bot
  lines (semrushbot, claudebot, ahrefsbot, yandexbot, bytespider, mj12bot,
  petalbot) -- Caddy's own log_skip needs >= 2.7 and both hosts are older
  (beta confirmed 2.6.2; prod is actually 2.11.4, a version-skew worth
  addressing separately), so this is the shipper-side equivalent.

Loki (observability/loki/config.yml): 30 low-rate streams were hitting the
30m chunk_idle_period long before chunk_target_size, flushing chunks 1.98%
full on average. Raise chunk_idle_period to 2h, max_chunk_age to 12h, set
chunk_target_size/chunk_encoding explicitly. Add explicit ingestion/stream
limits sized for a three-node hobby fleet -- their absence was the source
of the sporadic 429s (Loki was falling back to its stricter multi-tenant
defaults).

CI (.forgejo/workflows/observability-validate.yml): the Alloy config had no
syntax coverage. Download the pinned v1.9.1 alloy binary (matches
observability/alloy/docker-compose.agent.yml) straight from its GitHub
release and run `alloy validate` (minus the one line covering a known gap
where validate doesn't recognize the top-level livedebugging singleton
block, unlike alloy run).

Caddy (infra/terraform/modules/thermograph-host/templates/Caddyfile.tftpl,
the true source for /etc/caddy/Caddyfile -- confirmed live on prod, whose
deployed file's own header says "RENDERED BY TERRAFORM"; infra/deploy/Caddyfile
is the documented manual-apply fallback, updated in step to avoid drift):

- health_interval 5s -> 15s: a quarter of the active-healthcheck polling
  load for the same restart-safety guarantee.
- A `filter` format log encoder deleting request>headers, request>tls, and
  resp_headers (the full-header/TLS-block serialization was the main driver
  of ~1,133B/line on prod, ~922B on beta), plus roll_size/roll_keep so the
  file itself doesn't grow unbounded between logrotate runs.
- Strip the query string entirely from logged request URIs via a `regexp`
  field filter -- Caddy's default logger recorded request.uri *including*
  the query string, so every `?q=<search text>` sat in Loki next to the
  client IP for the full 30-day retention. Confirmed empirically (via
  `caddy validate` and a scratch `caddy run` against beta's real 2.6.2
  binary) that keeping request>headers>User-Agent alongside a parent-level
  header delete isn't achievable in this Caddy version -- deleting the
  parent drops the whole subtree regardless of a child override, and
  `log_append` (which would let it be hoisted out first) needs a newer
  Caddy than beta runs. Traded away rather than block on it.

Deferred (host-level, not in any repo, applied directly and separately):
/etc/docker/daemon.json (10m/3-file json-file log caps) on both hosts --
config written, but NOT restarting dockerd on either: prod is the fleet's
sole Swarm manager with Live Restore disabled, so a daemon restart there
would both interrupt Swarm's control plane and actually stop/restart every
container on the host (no live-restore to keep them up), a real production
outage window, not a blip. Left for a planned maintenance window instead.
A 14-day retention cron for the app's applogs JSONL volume is applied on
both hosts (/etc/cron.d/thermograph-applogs-retention) -- plain find+delete
rather than logrotate, since the app already self-dates one file per day
per category and logrotate's rotate-in-place model doesn't fit files it
doesn't own the naming of.

Grafana itself (docker-compose.yml, grafana/, caddy-grafana.conf,
dashboard.thermograph.org's Caddy block) is untouched by any of this.
2026-07-23 21:34:06 -07:00
..
alloy Log hygiene: Alloy CPU, Loki chunks/limits, Caddy field-stripping 2026-07-23 21:34:06 -07:00
grafana Subtree-merge thermograph-observability (origin/main) into observability/ 2026-07-22 22:01:11 -07:00
loki Log hygiene: Alloy CPU, Loki chunks/limits, Caddy field-stripping 2026-07-23 21:34:06 -07:00
.env.example Subtree-merge thermograph-observability (origin/main) into observability/ 2026-07-22 22:01:11 -07:00
.gitignore Subtree-merge thermograph-observability (origin/main) into observability/ 2026-07-22 22:01:11 -07:00
caddy-grafana.conf Subtree-merge thermograph-observability (origin/main) into observability/ 2026-07-22 22:01:11 -07:00
CLAUDE.md Subtree-merge thermograph-observability (origin/main) into observability/ 2026-07-22 22:01:11 -07:00
docker-compose.yml Subtree-merge thermograph-observability (origin/main) into observability/ 2026-07-22 22:01:11 -07:00
README.md Subtree-merge thermograph-observability (origin/main) into observability/ 2026-07-22 22:01:11 -07:00

Thermograph — observability

Fleet-wide log aggregation for Thermograph: a central Grafana + Loki stack, fed by a Grafana Alloy agent on every node, all over the private WireGuard mesh. This replaces the old in-repo scripts/dashboard.py (an SSH-tailed, single-host, metrics-endpoint view) with a persistent, queryable, fleet-wide log store and UI.

  prod (10.10.0.1)          beta (10.10.0.2)            desktop / LAN dev (10.10.0.3)
  ┌────────────┐            ┌──────────────────┐        ┌────────────┐
  │ Alloy agent│──wg0──┐    │ Loki  ◀── Alloy  │   ┌──wg0│ Alloy agent│
  └────────────┘       └───▶│ Grafana (Caddy)  │◀──┘    └────────────┘
   docker+caddy+app         └──────────────────┘         docker+caddy+app
     logs                    central store + UI            logs
  • Loki stores logs (filesystem, 30-day retention). Listens on the mesh IP 10.10.0.2:3100 — never public.
  • Grafana is the UI, fronted by beta's Caddy at dashboard.thermograph.org, login via Google SSO (with a break-glass local admin); Loki is not exposed.
  • Alloy runs on each node and ships three sources to Loki: every Docker container's stdout/stderr, Caddy's host access logs, and the app's structured JSON logs (errors/access/audit *.jsonl, parsed so level/tag/phase become labels). Every line is tagged with its node (host = prod|beta|dev).

Layout

Path What
docker-compose.yml the central Loki + Grafana stack (runs on beta)
loki/config.yml Loki config (filesystem, retention)
grafana/provisioning/ auto-wired Loki datasource + dashboard provider
grafana/dashboards/thermograph-logs.json the fleet-logs dashboard
alloy/config.alloy the per-node collector config
alloy/docker-compose.agent.yml runs the Alloy agent on a node
caddy-grafana.conf beta Caddy site block for the Grafana UI

Deploy

1. Central stack (on beta)

# on beta (75.119.132.91):
git clone <this repo> thermograph-observability && cd thermograph-observability
cp .env.example .env      # set GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD
docker compose up -d      # Loki on 10.10.0.2:3100 + 127.0.0.1:3100; Grafana on 127.0.0.1:3000

Expose the Grafana UI: point dashboard.thermograph.org at beta, append caddy-grafana.conf to /etc/caddy/Caddyfile, systemctl reload caddy.

Google SSO (Grafana + Forgejo)

Both the dashboard and Forgejo log in with Google. Create one Google Cloud OAuth 2.0 Client (type: Web application) and register both redirect URIs:

  • Grafana: https://dashboard.thermograph.org/login/google
  • Forgejo: https://git.thermograph.org/user/oauth2/google/callback

Grafana: put the client id/secret in .env, set OAUTH_ENABLED=true, and docker compose up -d. Login is locked to pre-provisioned accounts (allow_sign_up=false), so provision your email as an admin once:

# on beta, after the stack is up (uses the break-glass admin creds from .env):
curl -s -u admin:"$GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/admin/users \
  -d '{"name":"you","login":"you@gmail.com","email":"you@gmail.com","password":"'"$(openssl rand -base64 24)"'"}'
# then make that user a Grafana admin (org role Admin + server admin) via the UI
# or /api/org/users; the Google login matches on email.

Forgejo: add the Google auth source (once, as a Forgejo admin):

docker exec -u git <forgejo-container> forgejo admin auth add-oauth \
  --name google --provider openidConnect \
  --key "<CLIENT_ID>" --secret "<CLIENT_SECRET>" \
  --auto-discover-url https://accounts.google.com/.well-known/openid-configuration

2. Alloy agent (on every node — prod, beta, desktop)

cd thermograph-observability/alloy
# Every node (beta included) pushes to Loki over the mesh IP — a containerized
# agent can't reach the host's 127.0.0.1, but it can reach beta's wg0 address:
#   beta:    LOKI_URL=http://10.10.0.2:3100/loki/api/v1/push   ALLOY_NODE=beta
#   prod:    LOKI_URL=http://10.10.0.2:3100/loki/api/v1/push   ALLOY_NODE=prod
#   desktop: LOKI_URL=http://10.10.0.2:3100/loki/api/v1/push   ALLOY_NODE=dev
ALLOY_NODE=prod LOKI_URL=http://10.10.0.2:3100/loki/api/v1/push \
  docker compose -f docker-compose.agent.yml up -d

On the LAN dev node the app's log volume is thermograph-dev_applogs (not thermograph_applogs) — edit the two references in docker-compose.agent.yml there. The mesh must already be up (see the main repo's deploy/swarm/ / INFRA.md); Swarm is not required — the agents talk plain HTTP over wg0.

Verify

# From any mesh node, confirm Loki is receiving from every host:
curl -s 'http://10.10.0.2:3100/loki/api/v1/label/host/values'   # -> {"data":["beta","dev","prod"]}
# Then open Grafana → the "Thermograph — Fleet Logs" dashboard.

The dashboard

Thermograph — Fleet Logs (auto-provisioned), with a Node selector: log volume by service, app error rate by tag, upstream 429 count, Caddy 5xx count, a per-node notifier-liveness indicator (from the heartbeat log), recent app errors, and a live all-container tail. Edit it in Grafana and re-export the JSON here to version a change.

Notes / follow-ups

  • Loki is mesh-only by design; only Grafana (with auth) is public.
  • Alloy reads the Docker socket read-only to discover containers.
  • Retention is 30 days on beta's disk — bump loki/config.yml if you want more.
  • The app emits a tag=heartbeat line for the subscription notifier every ~15m; the dashboard's "Notifier alive?" panel turns red if a node misses it. Extend the same audit.log_heartbeat() to any future background daemon.