PCA Alerting And Dashboarding — 10 Questions

Question 1

Which PromQL function is used to convert a gauge into a rate of increase?

Accepted Answer

rate(). The rate() function is specifically designed to calculate the per-second rate of increase for counter metrics.

Answer

increase()

Answer

avg()

Answer

sum()

Question 2

What does the 'resolve_timeout' setting in Alertmanager do?

Accepted Answer

It determines how long to wait before sending a resolved notification. If an alert stops firing, Alertmanager waits for the resolve_timeout duration to ensure the alert has truly resolved before notifying about the resolution.

Answer

It sets the timeout for external API calls

Answer

It defines how long to store alert history

Answer

It suppresses duplicate alerts

Question 3

How can you view the current status of all alerts directly from the Prometheus server CLI?

Accepted Answer

By visiting the /alerts endpoint in the browser. The Prometheus UI on port 9090 has an 'Alerts' tab that shows every configured rule and its current status.

Answer

By tailing the prometheus.log file

Answer

Using 'curl' on the TSDB files

Answer

Using 'promtool check rules'

Question 4

Which of these is the correct syntax for a simple Alertmanager route?

Accepted Answer

route: { receiver: 'email' }. The route uses a 'match' or 'match_re' block to filter alerts and a 'receiver' field to specify where they go.

Answer

receiver: 'email'

Answer

alerts: { to: 'email' }

Answer

route: [ 'email' ]

Question 5

How can you debug an Alertmanager routing issue?

Accepted Answer

Use 'amtool alert show'. The Alertmanager web UI allows you to see which alerts are arriving and provides information on which route they matched.

Answer

Check the Prometheus metrics for total alerts

Answer

Restart the server

Answer

Delete all silences

Question 6

Which THREE of the following fields exist in the Alertmanager 'inhibit_rules' block?

Accepted Answer

source_match. Inhibition rules require 'source_match', 'target_match', and 'equal' fields to function.

Answer

match_re

Answer

repeat

Question 7

Which THREE of the following are standard ways to integrate Grafana with Prometheus?

Accepted Answer

Using PromQL to query metrics in panels. Grafana connects to Prometheus via the Data Source interface, supports PromQL queries in panels, and can visualize metrics from Prometheus exporters.

Answer

Installing the Prometheus plugin in Grafana

Answer

Configuring alert rules in the Prometheus YAML file

Question 8

You have a Prometheus alerting rule that triggers too frequently during flapping states. Which feature should you use to prevent this without silencing the alert entirely?

Accepted Answer

The 'for' field. The 'for' field in an alerting rule allows you to specify a duration before the alert transitions from 'pending' to 'firing', which filters out short-lived spikes.

Answer

The 'resolve_timeout' parameter

Answer

The 'group_wait' parameter

Answer

The 'inhibit_rules' block

Question 9

You are creating a Grafana dashboard and need to display a gauge showing the current CPU usage percentage from a Prometheus data source. Which function is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

No function (raw query). For a current value, you do not need an aggregation over time; you just query the metric directly.

Answer

predict_linear()

Answer

sum_over_time()

Answer

rate()

Question 10

You have a recording rule named 'job:node_cpu:avg_rate_5m'. Where is this metric stored once the rule is executed?

Accepted Answer

In the Prometheus TSDB. Recording rules store the result of the expression as a new time series in the Prometheus TSDB.

Answer

In the Alertmanager memory

Answer

In the Grafana database

Answer

In a local flat file