Prometheus Blackbox Exporter

How to Integrate Prometheus Blackbox Exporter with Apica Ascent:

1. Introduction

This guide explains how to send endpoint monitoring metrics from Prometheus Blackbox Exporter to Apica Ascent, and how to monitor and visualize them.

You’ll learn:

• How to install and run Blackbox Exporter

• How to configure Prometheus to scrape Blackbox metrics

• How to connect Prometheus with Apica Ascent

• How to visualize and alert on endpoint health

2. Install and Run Prometheus Blackbox Exporter

If you are new to Prometheus and Blackbox Exporter, here are some quick deployment options:

Binary installation:

Download the release from Prometheus Blackbox Exporter GitHub and run:

./blackbox_exporter --config.file=blackbox.yml --web.listen-address=":<port-number>" > blackbox.log 2>&1 &

By default, Blackbox Exporter runs on port 9115 and exposes metrics at:

http://<blackbox-ip>:9115/metrics

It also exposes a probe endpoint for checks:

http://<blackbox-ip>:9115/probe?target=<your_target>&module=http_2xx

3. Configure Prometheus to Scrape Blackbox Exporter

Edit prometheus.yml to add a scrape job for Blackbox Exporter.

Example:

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: "blackbox"
    metrics_path: /probe
    params:
      module: [http_2xx]   # Use http_2xx, tcp_connect, icmp, etc.
    static_configs:
      - targets:
          - 
https://example.com

          - 
https://asm.apica.io

    relabel_configs:
      - source_labels: [__address__]
        target_label: __param_target
      - source_labels: [__param_target]
        target_label: instance
      - target_label: __address__
        replacement: <blackbox-ip>:9115

Restart Prometheus and confirm the scrape status at /targets.

4. Connect Prometheus to Apica Ascent

To send Blackbox metrics to Apica Ascent, configure remote_write in prometheus.yml:

remote_write:
  - url: "https://<your-ascent-env>/v1/receive/prometheus"
    tls_config:
      insecure_skip_verify: true
    authorization:
      type: "Bearer"
      credentials: "<YOUR_INGEST_TOKEN>"

Optionally, relabel Blackbox metrics for clarity:

write_relabel_configs:
  - action: replace
    source_labels: [__name__]
    regex: "(.*)"
    target_label: __name__
    replacement: "ascent_$1"

This renames metrics to ascent_<metric-name> before sending them.

5. Verify Metrics in Apica Ascent

1. Log in to Apica Ascent

2. Navigate to Queries → New Query

3. Run queries such as:

probe_success
probe_http_duration_seconds
probe_ssl_earliest_cert_expiry

4. Execute and verify that results are returned.

6. Example Dashboards

You can build dashboards for common Blackbox metrics:

• Endpoint Health Overview

  • probe_success (availability % per endpoint)

  • probe_duration_seconds (latency over time)

  • probe_http_status_code (HTTP response trends)

  • probe_ssl_earliest_cert_expiry (SSL expiry monitoring)

• Alerts:

  • Endpoint down: probe_success == 0

  • High latency: probe_duration_seconds > 2

  • SSL expiring soon: probe_ssl_earliest_cert_expiry < 604800 (7 days)

7. Troubleshooting

• Blackbox Exporter not reachable → Check firewall on port 9115.

• Prometheus not scraping → Validate prometheus.yml relabel configs.

• Metrics missing in Ascent → Verify remote_write URL and ingest token.

• Probes failing unexpectedly → Confirm Blackbox blackbox.yml modules are correctly defined.