Cloudera Manager alerting and API

[#1]

We are trying to implement alerting in our cluster and alerting is setup in Cloudera Manager.

So when I stop a service in Cloudera Manager, an alert is sent to my email.

Because for some reason I hear that if you stop the service from CM, it is not the same as it crashing on its own. Especially with regards Canary Alerts, which we will not get if we stop a service through Cloudera Manager.

So will I not get Canary Alerts for a service if the service is stopped through Cloudera Manager?

Also I would like to know how to stop a service manually through Cloudera API. I would appreciate it if some forum member could give the command to stop - say Oozie or HBase - through Cloudera Manager API.

Appreciate the help.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

You are correct; stoping a service is not the same as a service crashing. Alerts generally do not cover intentional administrator activity like starting and stopping of services.

However, you do still have access to this information; starting and stopping of services are covered under Events, of the Audit type:

https://docs.cloudera.com/documentation/enterprise/6/6.3/topics/cm_dg_events.html#cmug_topic_10

The AUDIT_EVENT type covers actions performed. This is also where you will track configuration changes.

Turning to the question of API use, here is the Cloudera Manager documentation's section on the API:

https://docs.cloudera.com/documentation/enterprise/6/6.3/topics/cloudera_manager.html#concept_nsg_jq...

Here is the Tutorial linked from that doc, which has a ton of examples, including starting and stopping of services:

https://archive.cloudera.com/cm6/6.3.0/generic/jar/cm_api/apidocs/tutorial.html

While the Alerts don't tell you when services are started and stopped, you can query Events through the API. We have a Knowledge Base Article on the subject:

https://my.cloudera.com/knowledge/Accessing-Critical-Events-Using-the-Cloudera-Manager-API-?id=72521