Chainguard Image for nginx-prometheus-exporter-fips

The nginx-prometheus-exporte-fips image is designed to scrape metrics from an NGINX instance and expose them to Prometheus in a secure and minimal environment. Below are detailed instructions for using the image in both Docker and Kubernetes environments.

Chainguard Images are regularly-updated, minimal container images with low-to-zero CVEs.

Download this Image

This image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/nginx-prometheus-exporter-fips:latest

Be sure to replace the ORGANIZATION placeholder with the name used for your organization's private repository within the Chainguard registry.

Usage of the nginx-prometheus-exporter Image

The nginx-prometheus-exporter-fips image is designed to scrape metrics from an NGINX instance and expose them to Prometheus in a secure and minimal environment. Below are detailed instructions for using the image in both Docker and Kubernetes environments.

Running with Docker:

To run nginx-prometheus-exporter with a local NGINX instance, use the following commands:

Run NGINX: Start an NGINX instance that has the required /status page enabled.

docker run -d --name nginx -p 8080:80 nginx:stable-alpine

You will need to ensure the /status page is enabled in your NGINX configuration. A simple nginx.conf could look like this:

server {
    listen 80;
    location /status {
        stub_status on;
        allow all;
    }
}

Run the Prometheus Exporter: Start the nginx-prometheus-exporter to scrape metrics from the NGINX instance.

docker run -d --name nginx-prometheus-exporter -p 9113:9113 --link nginx \
  cgr.dev/chainguard/nginx-prometheus-exporter-fips:latest \
  -nginx.scrape-uri="http://nginx/status"

Verify Metrics: You can check if the exporter is running and exposing metrics by visiting the following URL:

http://localhost:9113/metrics

You should see metrics related to your NGINX instance, such as:

nginx_connections_active 1
nginx_connections_reading 0
nginx_connections_writing 1
nginx_connections_waiting 0

Using in Kubernetes

If you're running NGINX in a Kubernetes environment, you can use the following Kubernetes manifest to deploy NGINX and the Prometheus exporter.

Deploy NGINX and Exporter

apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: nginx-exporter-test
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx
  namespace: nginx-exporter-test
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:stable-alpine
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
        volumeMounts:
        - name: nginx-config
          mountPath: /etc/nginx/conf.d
      volumes:
      - name: nginx-config
        configMap:
          name: nginx-config
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: nginx-config
  namespace: nginx-exporter-test
data:
  default.conf: |
    server {
        listen 80;
        location /status {
            stub_status on;
            allow all;
        }
    }
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx-prometheus-exporter
  namespace: nginx-exporter-test
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx-prometheus-exporter
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx-prometheus-exporter
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx-prometheus-exporter
        image: cgr.dev/chainguard/nginx-prometheus-exporter-fips:latest
        args:
        - '-nginx.scrape-uri=http://nginx/status'
        ports:
        - containerPort: 9113
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: nginx-prometheus-exporter
  namespace: nginx-exporter-test
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 9113
    targetPort: 9113
  selector:
    app: nginx-prometheus-exporter

Access Metrics in Kubernetes:

You can use kubectl port-forward to forward the exporter service to your local machine for verification:

kubectl port-forward svc/nginx-prometheus-exporter 9113:9113 -n nginx-exporter-test

Access the metrics at:

http://localhost:9113/metrics

Prometheus Configuration: If you’re using Prometheus to scrape the metrics, add the following configuration to your Prometheus configuration file:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'nginx-prometheus-exporter'
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['nginx-prometheus-exporter.nginx-exporter-test.svc.cluster.local:9113']

Environment Variables and Customization

The nginx-prometheus-exporter allows some additional customization through the following options:

-nginx.scrape-uri: Set the URI where the exporter should scrape NGINX metrics. Defaults to http://localhost/status. -telemetry.address: Set the address where the Prometheus exporter exposes metrics. Defaults to :9113.

You can pass these as arguments in the Docker run command or in your Kubernetes manifest.

Contact Support

If you have a Zendesk account (typically set up for you by your Customer Success Manager) you can reach out to Chainguard's Customer Success team through our Zendesk portal.

What are Chainguard Images?

Chainguard Images are a collection of container images designed for security and minimalism.

Many Chainguard Images are distroless; they contain only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These images do not even contain a shell or package manager. Chainguard Images are built with Wolfi, our Linux undistro designed to produce container images that meet the requirements of a secure software supply chain.

The main features of Chainguard Images include:

• Minimal design, with no unnecessary software bloat
• Automated nightly builds to ensure Images are completely up-to-date and contain all available security patches
• High quality build-time SBOMs (software bills of materials) attesting the provenance of all artifacts within the Image
• Verifiable signatures provided by Sigstore
• Reproducible builds with Cosign and apko (read more about reproducibility)

-dev Variants

As mentioned previously, Chainguard’s distroless Images have no shell or package manager by default. This is great for security, but sometimes you need these things, especially in builder images. For those cases, most (but not all) Chainguard Images come paired with a -dev variant which does include a shell and package manager.

Although the -dev image variants have similar security features as their distroless versions, such as complete SBOMs and signatures, they feature additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. The general recommendation is to use the -dev variants only to build the application and then copy all application artifacts into a distroless image, which will result in a final container image that has a minimal attack surface and won’t allow package installations or logins.

That being said, it’s worth noting that -dev variants of Chainguard Images are completely fine to run in production environments. After all, the -dev variants are still more secure than many popular container images based on fully-featured operating systems such as Debian and Ubuntu since they carry less software, follow a more frequent patch cadence, and offer attestations for what they include.

Learn More

To better understand how to work with Chainguard Images, we encourage you to visit Chainguard Academy, our documentation and education platform.