[SOLVED] How can I get cadvisor (Docker) working with AWS/Debian?

Issue

I have an AWS instance set up (Debian) onto which I've installed Docker. I can successfully run the hello-world container, as well as running ubuntu as recommended in the Docker install validation.

I want to run cadvisor. So I ran the recommended quick-start script:

sudo docker run \
  --volume=/:/rootfs:ro \
  --volume=/var/run:/var/run:rw \
  --volume=/sys:/sys:ro \
  --volume=/var/lib/docker/:/var/lib/docker:ro \
  --publish=8080:8080 \
  --detach=true \
  --name=cadvisor \
  google/cadvisor:latest

That gave me no error but when I do a 'sudo docker ps' nothing's there; like it fired up and died or otherwise shut itself down.

I tried adding "--logtostderr" to the end to see what I could see--and saw:

I0108 19:19:55.308016 00001 storagedriver.go:89] Caching 60 recent stats in memory; using "" storage driver
I0108 19:19:55.308353 00001 manager.go:78] cAdvisor running in container: "/docker/e3b5ede6f6def6b36d7682814aefc2b414defaea065ccf977a1a2542a80c310c"
F0108 19:19:55.337891 00001 cadvisor.go:76] Failed to create a Container Manager: failed to get cache information for node 0: open /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cache: no such file or directory

Do I need to do something different for a Debian system?

Solution

If you notice the docker command and the error we are explicitly mounting in the sys directory from the host system. --volume=/sys:/sys:ro and the error is complaining about file in a sub-directory /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cache. So if that file/folder does not exist in your host vm it won't work inside docker.

I have tested both ubuntu and amazon standard AMI and they seem to have the file mentioned. I don't see debian in the standard AMIs so I have no easy way to test debian but I suspect the image you are using has the required kernel modules or settings missing. Why not use one of the standard Amazon AMIs?

Answered By - Usman Ismail

Answer Checked By - Marilyn (WPSolving Volunteer)