Getting Started with Sensu Go

Whether you’re completely new to Sensu, or a long-time Sensu user looking to see what’s new in Sensu Go — you’ve come to the right place.

Getting Started is easy

Get Sensu up and running in as little as 15 minutes. In fact, you may be able to take the first steps in under a minute! Don’t believe us? Give the following quick start guide a try, and let us know if we can help!

STEP 1: Install Sensu Go
STEP 2: Install the Sensu Go CLI
STEP 3: Configure your first monitor

Install Sensu Go

Deploy our official Docker container to get up and running in seconds. Follow these steps, then visit your Sensu Go dashboard at http://localhost:3000/.

(You can click on the copy icon on bottom right to copy and paste into a terminal shell window).

$ sudo docker network create sensu
$ sudo docker volume create sensu-backend-data
$ sudo docker run -d --rm --name sensu-backend \
  --network sensu -p 8080:8080 -p 3000:3000 \
  -v sensu-backend-data:/var/lib/sensu \
  sensu/sensu:6.14.0 sensu-backend start
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$ sudo docker run -d --rm --network sensu -p :3030 \
  sensu/sensu:6.14.0 sensu-agent start \
  --backend-url ws://sensu-backend:8081 --deregister \
  --keepalive-interval=5 --keepalive-warning-timeout=10 --subscriptions linux
$ curl -s http://localhost:8080/version
{"etcd":{"etcdserver":"3.3.13","etcdcluster":"3.3.0"},"sensu_backend":"6.14.0"}
$ _

Install the Sensu Go CLI

Sensuctl is a command line interface for running commands against Sensu clusters. Install sensuctl on your laptop to gain access to your multi-cloud monitoring control plane.

$ curl -LO https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sensu.io/sensu-go/6.14.0/sensu-go_6.14.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
$ sudo tar -xzf sensu-go_6.14.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz -C /usr/local/bin/
$ sensuctl configure -n --url http://127.0.0.1:8080 \
  --username admin \
  --password "P@ssw0rd!" \
  --namespace default
$ sensuctl cluster health
ID                NAME     ERROR   HEALTHY
8927110dc66458af  default          true
$ sensuctl cluster id
sensu cluster id: "227b26eb-26c4-46b2-bc7c-8c080b072e6b"
$ _

Configure your first monitor

Sensu makes it easy to deploy instrumentation (e.g. plugins or scripts) and configure new monitors. This example shows how to monitor NTP system clock drift.

$ sensuctl asset add sensu/monitoring-plugins:2.2.0-1
fetching bonsai asset: sensu/monitoring-plugins:2.2.0-1
added asset: sensu/monitoring-plugins:2.2.0-1
$ sensuctl check create ntp \
  --runtime-assets "sensu/monitoring-plugins" \
  --command "check_ntp_time -H time.nist.gov --warn 0.5 --critical 1.0" \
  --output-metric-format nagios_perfdata \
  --publish="true" --interval 30 --timeout 10 --subscriptions linux
$ sensuctl event list
ENTITY        CHECK      OUTPUT                                                                    STATUS  SILENCED   TIMESTAMP
a749e3a10d86  keepalive  Keepalive last sent from a749e3a10d86 at 2019-09-11 15:34:25 +0000 UTC    0       false      2019-09-11 08:34:25 -0700 PDT
a749e3a10d86  ntp        NTP OK: Offset -0.03375908732 secs|offset=-0.033759s;0.500000;1.000000;   0       false      2019-09-11 08:34:22 -0700 PDT
$ _

Continue your journey with Sensu

Congrats on completing this quick start guide. This brief tutorial was designed to show you just how easy it can be to get up and running with Sensu. If you like what you’ve seen so far, the following resources will help you continue your journey.

Level-up your Sensu knowledge

If you’re brand new to Sensu or need more information about Sensu concepts, check out the following resources.

To learn at a more leisurely pace, sign up for our email courses to have Sensu lessons delivered to your inbox.

Keep experimenting

Now that you have a simple Sensu development environment running on your workstation it’s a great time to check out our guides. The Sensu Go Guides describe how to configure Sensu to complete specific observability tasks and workflows to monitor server resources, route alerts and reduce alert fatigue, export metrics, plan maintenance windows, and more, with examples and step-by-step walkthroughs.

Prepare for production rollout

Are you ready to put Sensu to work outside your local installation? You can use the monitoring as code templates you’ve created and edited in this quick start tutorial and any guides you’ve followed to realize Sensu’s value at any scale, whether you’re deploying Sensu in a lab with 10 machines, a production environment with hundreds or thousands of servers, compute instances, and containers, and beyond.

Join the community

The Sensu Community communicates and collaborates on three main platforms.