Namespaces reference

Namespaces partition resources within Sensu. Sensu entities, checks, handlers, and other namespaced resources belong to a single namespace.

Namespaces help teams use different resources (like entities, checks, and handlers) within Sensu and impose their own controls on those resources. A Sensu instance can have multiple namespaces, each with their own set of managed resources. Resource names must be unique within a namespace but do not need to be unique across namespaces.

Namespace configuration applies to sensuctl, the API, and the web UI. To create and manage namespaces, configure sensuctl as the default admin user or create a cluster role with namespaces permissions.

Namespace example

This example shows the resource definition for a production namespace. You can use this example with sensuctl create to create a production namespace in your Sensu deployment:

---
type: Namespace
api_version: core/v2
metadata: {}
spec:
  name: production

{
  "type": "Namespace",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {},
  "spec": {
    "name": "production"
  }
}

Best practices for namespaces

Use namespaces for isolation, not organization

Use namespaces to enforce full isolation of different groups of resources, not to organize resources. An agent cannot belong to two namespaces or execute checks in two different namespaces. To organize resources, use labels rather than multiple namespaces.

Default namespaces

Every Sensu backend includes a default namespace. All resources created without a specified namespace are created within the default namespace.

At startup, Sensu also creates the sensu-system namespace to contain backend entities. The sensu-system namespace and backend entities facilitate backend error reporting and make Sensu deployments more observable by enabling backend-generated status and metrics events.

Only cluster admins have access to the sensu-system namespace. If you have cluster admin permissions, you can use sensuctl and the web UI to access backend entities like other entities.

Manage namespaces

You can use sensuctl to view, create, and delete namespaces. To get help with managing namespaces with sensuctl:

sensuctl namespace help

View namespaces

Use sensuctl to view all namespaces within Sensu:

sensuctl namespace list

Create namespaces

Use sensuctl to create a namespace. For example, the following command creates a namespace called production:

sensuctl namespace create production

Namespace names can contain alphanumeric characters and hyphens and must begin and end with an alphanumeric character.

Delete namespaces

To delete a namespace:

sensuctl namespace delete <namespace-name>

Namespaces must be empty before you can delete them. If the response to sensuctl namespace delete is Error: resource is invalid: namespace is not empty, the namespace may still contain events or other resources. To remove all resources and events so that you can delete a namespace, run this command (replace <namespace-name> with the namespace you want to empty):

sensuctl dump entities,events,assets,checks,filters,handlers,secrets/v1.Secret --namespace <namespace-name> | sensuctl delete

Assign a resource to a namespace

You can assign a resource to a namespace in the resource definition. Only resources that belong to a namespaced resource type (like checks, filters, and handlers) can be assigned to a namespace.

For example, to assign a check called check-cpu to the production namespace, include the namespace attribute in the check definition:

---
type: CheckConfig
api_version: core/v2
metadata:
  name: check-cpu
  namespace: production
spec:
  check_hooks: null
  command: check-cpu.sh -w 75 -c 90
  handlers:
  - slack
  interval: 30
  subscriptions:
  - system
  timeout: 0
  ttl: 0

{
  "type": "CheckConfig",
  "api_version": "core/v2",
  "metadata": {
    "name": "check-cpu",
    "namespace": "production"
  },
  "spec": {
    "check_hooks": null,
    "command": "check-cpu.sh -w 75 -c 90",
    "handlers": ["slack"],
    "interval": 30,
    "subscriptions": ["system"],
    "timeout": 0,
    "ttl": 0
  }
}

Read the reference docs for the corresponding resource type to create resource definitions.

Namespace specification

Top-level attributes

api_version: core/v2

{
  "api_version": "core/v2"
}

metadata: {}

{
  "metadata": {}
}

spec:
  name: production

{
  "spec": {
    "name": "production"
  }
}

type: Namespace

{
  "type": "Namespace"
}

Spec attributes

name: production

{
  "name": "production"
}