3 collectd.conf - Configuration for the system statistics collection daemon B<collectd>
7 BaseDir "/path/to/data/"
8 PIDFile "/path/to/pidfile/collectd.pid"
9 Server "123.123.123.123" 12345
22 This config file controls how the system statistics collection daemon
23 B<collectd> behaves. The most significant option is B<LoadPlugin>, which
24 controls which plugins to load. These plugins ultimately define collectd's
27 The syntax of this config file is similar to the config file of the famous
28 B<Apache Webserver>. Each line contains either a key-value-pair or a
29 section-start or -end. Empty lines and everything after the hash-symbol `#' is
30 ignored. Values are either string, enclosed in double-quotes,
31 (floating-point-)numbers or a boolean expression, i.E<nbsp>e. either B<true> or
32 B<false>. String containing of only alphanumeric characters and underscores do
33 not need to be quoted.
35 The configuration is read and processed in order, i.E<nbsp>e. from top to
36 bottom. So the plugins are loaded in the order listed in this config file. It
37 is a good idea to load any logging plugins first in order to catch messages
38 from plugins during configuration. Also, the C<LoadPlugin> option B<must> occur
39 B<before> the C<E<lt>Plugin ...E<gt>> block.
45 =item B<BaseDir> I<Directory>
47 Sets the base directory. This is the directory beneath all RRD-files are
48 created. Possibly more subdirectories are created. This is also the working
49 directory for the daemon.
51 =item B<LoadPlugin> I<Plugin>
53 Loads the plugin I<Plugin>. There must be at least one such line or B<collectd>
54 will be mostly useless.
56 =item B<Include> I<Path>
58 If I<Path> points to a file, includes that file. If I<Path> points to a
59 directory, recursively includes all files within that directory and its
60 subdirectories. If the C<wordexp> function is available on your system,
61 shell-like wildcards are expanded before files are included. This means you can
62 use statements like the following:
64 Include "/etc/collectd.d/*.conf"
66 To prevent loops and shooting yourself in the foot in interesting ways the
67 nesting is limited to a depth of 8E<nbsp>levels, which should be sufficient for
68 most uses. Since symlinks are followed it is still possible to crash the daemon
69 by looping symlinks. In our opinion significant stupidity should result in an
70 appropriate amount of pain.
72 It is no problem to have a block like C<E<lt>Plugin fooE<gt>> in more than one
73 file, but you cannot include files from within blocks.
75 =item B<PIDFile> I<File>
77 Sets where to write the PID file to. This file is overwritten when it exists
78 and deleted when the program is stopped. Some init-scripts might override this
79 setting using the B<-P> command-line option.
81 =item B<PluginDir> I<Directory>
83 Path to the plugins (shared objects) of collectd.
85 =item B<TypesDB> I<File> [I<File> ...]
87 Set one or more files that contain the data-set descriptions. See
88 L<types.db(5)> for a description of the format of this file.
90 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
92 Configures the interval in which to query the read plugins. Obviously smaller
93 values lead to a higher system load produced by collectd, while higher values
94 lead to more coarse statistics.
96 =item B<ReadThreads> I<Num>
98 Number of threads to start for reading plugins. The default value is B<5>, but
99 you may want to increase this if you have more than five plugins that take a
100 long time to read. Mostly those are plugin that do network-IO. Setting this to
101 a value higher than the number of plugins you've loaded is totally useless.
103 =item B<Hostname> I<Name>
105 Sets the hostname that identifies a host. If you omit this setting, the
106 hostname will be determinded using the L<gethostname(2)> system call.
108 =item B<FQDNLookup> B<true|false>
110 If B<Hostname> is determined automatically this setting controls whether or not
111 the daemon should try to figure out the "fully qualified domain name", FQDN.
112 This is done using a lookup of the name returned by C<gethostname>.
114 Using this feature (i.E<nbsp>e. setting this option to B<true>) is recommended.
115 However, to preserve backwards compatibility the default is set to B<false>.
116 The sample config file that is installed with C<makeE<nbsp>install> includes a
117 line which sets this option, though, so that default installations will have
118 this setting enabled.
122 =head1 PLUGIN OPTIONS
124 Some plugins may register own options. These options must be enclosed in a
125 C<Plugin>-Section. Which options exist depends on the plugin used. Some plugins
126 require external configuration, too. The C<apache plugin>, for example,
127 required C<mod_status> to be configured in the webserver you're going to
128 collect data from. These plugins are listed below as well, even if they don't
129 require any configuration within collectd's configfile.
131 A list of all plugins and a short summary for each plugin can be found in the
132 F<README> file shipped with the sourcecode and hopefully binary packets as
135 =head2 Plugin C<apache>
137 To configure the C<apache>-plugin you first need to configure the Apache
138 webserver correctly. The Apache-plugin C<mod_status> needs to be loaded and
139 working and the C<ExtendedStatus> directive needs to be B<enabled>. You can use
140 the following snipped to base your Apache config upon:
143 <IfModule mod_status.c>
144 <Location /mod_status>
145 SetHandler server-status
149 Since its C<mod_status> module is very similar to Apache's, B<lighttpd> is
150 also supported. It introduces a new field, called C<BusyServers>, to count the
151 number of currently connected clients. This field is also supported.
153 The following options are accepted by the C<apache>-plugin:
157 =item B<URL> I<http://host/mod_status?auto>
159 Sets the URL of the C<mod_status> output. This needs to be the output generated
160 by C<ExtendedStatus on> and it needs to be the machine readable output
161 generated by appending the C<?auto> argument.
163 =item B<User> I<Username>
165 Optional user name needed for authentication.
167 =item B<Password> I<Password>
169 Optional password needed for authentication.
171 =item B<CACert> I<File>
173 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
174 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
175 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
179 =head2 Plugin C<apcups>
183 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
185 Hostname of the host running B<apcupsd>. Defaults to B<localhost>. Please note
186 that IPv6 support has been disabled unless someone can confirm or decline that
187 B<apcupsd> can handle it.
189 =item B<Port> I<Port>
191 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<3551>.
195 =head2 Plugin C<cpufreq>
197 This plugin doesn't have any options. It reads
198 F</sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq> (for the first CPU
199 installed) to get the current CPU frequency. If this file does not exist make
200 sure B<cpufreqd> (L<http://cpufreqd.sourceforge.net/>) or a similar tool is
201 installed and an "cpu governor" (that's a kernel module) is loaded.
207 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
209 Set the directory to store CSV-files under. Per default CSV-files are generated
210 beneath the daemon's working directory, i.E<nbsp>e. the B<BaseDir>.
212 =item B<StoreRates> B<true|false>
214 If set to B<true>, convert counter values to rates. If set to B<false> (the
215 default) counter values are stored as is, i.E<nbsp>e. as an increasing integer
224 =item B<Device> I<Device>
226 Select partitions based on the devicename.
228 =item B<MountPoint> I<Directory>
230 Select partitions based on the mountpoint.
232 =item B<FSType> I<FSType>
234 Select partitions based on the filesystem type.
236 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
238 Invert the selection: If set to true, all partitions B<except> the ones that
239 match any one of the criteria are collected. By default only selected
240 partitions are collected if a selection is made. If no selection is configured
241 at all, B<all> partitions are selected.
249 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
251 The dns plugin uses B<libpcap> to capture dns traffic and analyses it. This
252 option sets the interface that should be used. If this option is not set, or
253 set to "any", the plugin will try to get packets from B<all> interfaces. This
254 may not work on certain platforms, such as MacE<nbsp>OSE<nbsp>X.
256 =item B<IgnoreSource> I<IP-address>
258 Ignore packets that originate from this address.
262 =head2 Plugin C<email>
266 =item B<SocketFile> I<Path>
268 Sets the socket-file which is to be created.
270 =item B<SocketGroup> I<Group>
272 If running as root change the group of the UNIX-socket after it has been
273 created. Defaults to B<collectd>.
275 =item B<SocketPerms> I<Permissions>
277 Change the file permissions of the UNIX-socket after it has been created. The
278 permissions must be given as a numeric, octal value as you would pass to
279 L<chmod(1)>. Defaults to B<0770>.
281 =item B<MaxConns> I<Number>
283 Sets the maximum number of connections that can be handled in parallel. Since
284 this many threads will be started immediately setting this to a very high
285 value will waste valuable resources. Defaults to B<5> and will be forced to be
286 at most B<16384> to prevent typos and dumb mistakes.
290 =head2 Plugin C<exec>
292 Please make sure to read L<collectd-exec(5)> before using this plugin. It
293 contains valuable information on when the executable is executed and the
294 output that is expected from it.
298 =item B<Exec> I<User>[:[I<Group>]] I<Executable> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> ...]]
300 =item B<NotificationExec> I<User>[:[I<Group>]] I<Executable> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> ...]]
302 =item B<NagiosExec> I<User>[:[I<Group>]] I<Executable> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> ...]]
304 Execute the executable I<Executable> as user I<User>. If the user name is
305 followed by a colon and a group name, the effective group is set to that group.
306 The real group and saved-set group will be set to the default group of that
307 user. If no group is given the effective group ID will be the same as the real
310 Please note that in order to change the user and/or group the daemon needs
311 superuser privileges. If the daemon is run as an unprivileged user you must
312 specify the same user/group here. If the daemon is run with superuser
313 privileges, you must supply a non-root user here.
315 The executable may be followed by optional arguments that are passed to the
316 program. Please note that due to the configuration parsing numbers and boolean
317 values may be changed. If you want to be absolutely sure that something is
318 passed as-is please enclose it in quotes.
320 The B<Exec>, B<NotificationExec>, and B<NagiosExec> statements change the
321 semantics of the programs executed, i.E<nbsp>e. the data passed to them and the
322 response expected from them. This is documented in great detail in
327 =head2 Plugin C<hddtemp>
329 To get values from B<hddtemp> collectd connects to B<localhost> (127.0.0.1),
330 port B<7634/tcp>. The B<Host> and B<Port> options can be used to change these
331 default values, see below. C<hddtemp> has to be running to work correctly. If
332 C<hddtemp> is not running timeouts may appear which may interfere with other
335 The B<hddtemp> homepage can be found at
336 L<http://www.guzu.net/linux/hddtemp.php>.
340 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
342 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
344 =item B<Port> I<Port>
346 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<7634>.
350 =head2 Plugin C<interface>
354 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
356 Select this interface. By default these interfaces will then be collected. For
357 a more detailed description see B<IgnoreSelected> below.
359 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
361 If no configuration if given, the B<traffic>-plugin will collect data from
362 all interfaces. This may not be practical, especially for loopback- and
363 similar interfaces. Thus, you can use the B<Interface>-option to pick the
364 interfaces you're interested in. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred
365 to collect all interfaces I<except> a few ones. This option enables you to
366 do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to I<true> the effect of
367 B<Interface> is inversed: All selected interfaces are ignored and all
368 other interfaces are collected.
372 =head2 Plugin C<iptables>
376 =item B<Chain> I<Table> I<Chain> [I<Comment|Number> [I<Name>]]
378 Select the rules to count. If only I<Table> and I<Chain> are given, this plugin
379 will collect the counters of all rules which have a comment-match. The comment
380 is then used as type-instance.
382 If I<Comment> or I<Number> is given, only the rule with the matching comment or
383 the I<n>th rule will be collected. Again, the comment (or the number) will be
384 used as the type-instance.
386 If I<Name> is supplied, it will be used as the type-instance instead of the
387 comment or the number.
397 Select this irq. By default these irqs will then be collected. For a more
398 detailed description see B<IgnoreSelected> below.
400 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
402 If no configuration if given, the B<irq>-plugin will collect data from all
403 irqs. This may not be practical, especially if no interrupts happen. Thus, you
404 can use the B<Irq>-option to pick the interrupt you're interested in.
405 Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect all interrupts I<except> a
406 few ones. This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to
407 I<true> the effect of B<Irq> is inversed: All selected interrupts are ignored
408 and all other interrupts are collected.
412 =head2 Plugin C<libvirt>
414 This plugin allows CPU, disk and network load to be collected for virtualized
415 guests on the machine. This means that these characteristics can be collected
416 for guest systems without installing any software on them - collectd only runs
417 on the hosting system. The statistics are collected through libvirt
418 (L<http://libvirt.org/>).
420 Only I<Connection> is required.
424 =item B<Connection> I<uri>
426 Connect to the hypervisor given by I<uri>. For example if using Xen use:
430 Details which URIs allowed are given at L<http://libvirt.org/uri.html>.
432 =item B<RefreshInterval> I<seconds>
434 Refresh the list of domains and devices every I<seconds>. The default is 60
435 seconds. Setting this to be the same or smaller than the I<Interval> will cause
436 the list of domains and devices to be refreshed on every iteration.
438 Refreshing the devices in particular is quite a costly operation, so if your
439 virtualization setup is static you might consider increasing this.
441 =item B<Domain> I<name>
443 =item B<BlockDevice> I<name:dev>
445 =item B<InterfaceDevice> I<name:dev>
447 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
449 Select which domains and devices are collected.
451 If I<IgnoreSelected> is not given or I<false> then only the listed domains and
452 disk/network devices are collected.
454 If I<IgnoreSelected> is I<true> then the test is reversed and the listed
455 domains and disk/network devices are ignored, while the rest are collected.
457 The domain name and device names may use a regular expression, if the name is
458 surrounded by I</.../> and collectd was compiled with support for regexps.
460 The default is to collect statistics for all domains and all their devices.
465 IgnoreSelected "true"
467 Ignore all I<hdb> devices on any domain, but other block devices (eg. I<hda>)
470 =item B<HostnameFormat> B<name|uuid|hostname|...>
472 When the libvirt plugin logs data, it sets the hostname of the collected data
473 according to this setting. The default is to use the guest name as provided by
474 the hypervisor, which is equal to setting B<name>.
476 B<uuid> means use the guest's UUID. This is useful if you want to track the
477 same guest across migrations.
479 B<hostname> means to use the global B<Hostname> setting, which is probably not
480 useful on its own because all guests will appear to have the same name.
482 You can also specify combinations of these fields. For example B<name uuid>
483 means to concatenate the guest name and UUID (with a literal colon character
484 between, thus I<"foo:1234-1234-1234-1234">).
488 =head2 Plugin C<logfile>
492 =item B<LogLevel> B<debug|info|notice|warning|err>
494 Sets the log-level. If, for example, set to B<notice>, then all events with
495 severity B<notice>, B<warning>, or B<err> will be written to the logfile.
497 Please note that B<debug> is only available if collectd has been compiled with
500 =item B<File> I<File>
502 Sets the file to write log messages to. The special strings B<stdout> and
503 B<stderr> can be used to write to the standard output and standard error
504 channels, respectively. This, of course, only makes much sense when collectd is
505 running in foreground- or non-daemon-mode.
507 =item B<Timestamp> B<true>|B<false>
509 Prefix all lines printed by the current time. Defaults to B<true>.
513 =head2 Plugin C<mbmon>
515 The C<mbmon plugin> uses mbmon to retrieve temperature, voltage, etc.
517 Be default collectd connects to B<localhost> (127.0.0.1), port B<411/tcp>. The
518 B<Host> and B<Port> options can be used to change these values, see below.
519 C<mbmon> has to be running to work correctly. If C<mbmon> is not running
520 timeouts may appear which may interfere with other statistics..
522 C<mbmon> must be run with the -r option ("print TAG and Value format");
523 Debian's F</etc/init.d/mbmon> script already does this, other people
524 will need to ensure that this is the case.
528 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
530 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
532 =item B<Port> I<Port>
534 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<411>.
538 =head2 Plugin C<memcached>
540 The C<memcached plugin> connects to a memcached server and queries statistics
541 about cache utilization, memory and bandwidth used.
542 L<http://www.danga.com/memcached/>
546 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
548 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
550 =item B<Port> I<Port>
552 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<11211>.
556 =head2 Plugin C<mysql>
558 The C<mysql plugin> requires B<mysqlclient> to be installed. It connects to the
559 database when started and keeps the connection up as long as possible. When the
560 connection is interrupted for whatever reason it will try to re-connect. The
561 plugin will complaint loudly in case anything goes wrong.
563 This plugin issues C<SHOW STATUS> and evaluates C<Bytes_{received,sent}>,
564 C<Com_*> and C<Handler_*> which correspond to F<mysql_octets.rrd>,
565 F<mysql_commands-*.rrd> and F<mysql_handler-*.rrd>. Also, the values of
566 C<Qcache_*> are put in F<mysql_qcache.rrd> and values of C<Threads_*> are put
567 in F<mysql_threads.rrd>. Please refer to the B<MySQL reference manual>,
568 I<5.2.4. Server Status Variables> for an explanation of these values.
570 Use the following options to configure the plugin:
574 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
576 Hostname of the database server. Defaults to B<localhost>.
578 =item B<User> I<Username>
580 Username to use when connecting to the database.
582 =item B<Password> I<Password>
584 Password needed to log into the database.
586 =item B<Database> I<Database>
588 Select this database. Defaults to I<no database> which is a perfectly reasonable
589 option for what this plugin does.
593 =head2 Plugin C<netlink>
595 The C<netlink> plugin uses a netlink socket to query the Linux kernel about
596 statistics of various interface and routing aspects.
600 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
602 =item B<VerboseInterface> I<Interface>
604 Instruct the plugin to collect interface statistics. This is basically the same
605 as the statistics provided by the C<interface> plugin (see above) but
606 potentially much more detailed.
608 When configuring with B<Interface> only the basic statistics will be collected,
609 namely octets, packets, and errors. These statistics are collected by
610 the C<interface> plugin, too, so using both at the same time is no benefit.
612 When configured with B<VerboseInterface> all counters B<except> the basic ones,
613 so that no data needs to be collected twice if you use the C<interface> plugin.
614 This includes dropped packets, received multicast packets, collisions and a
615 whole zoo of differentiated RX and TX errors. You can try the following command
616 to get an idea of what awaits you:
620 If I<Interface> is B<All>, all interfaces will be selected.
622 =item B<QDisc> I<Interface> [I<QDisc>]
624 =item B<Class> I<Interface> [I<Class>]
626 =item B<Filter> I<Interface> [I<Filter>]
628 Collect the octets and packets that pass a certain qdisc, class or filter.
630 QDiscs and classes are identified by their type and handle (or classid).
631 Filters don't necessarily have a handle, therefore the parent's handle is used.
632 The notation used in collectd differs from that used in tc(1) in that it
633 doesn't skip the major or minor number if it's zero and doesn't print special
634 ids by their name. So, for example, a qdisc may be identified by
635 C<pfifo_fast-1:0> even though the minor number of B<all> qdiscs is zero and
636 thus not displayed by tc(1).
638 If B<QDisc>, B<Class>, or B<Filter> is given without the second argument,
639 i.E<nbsp>.e. without an identifier, all qdiscs, classes, or filters that are
640 associated with that interface will be collected.
642 Since a filter itself doesn't necessarily have a handle, the parent's handle is
643 used. This may lead to problems when more than one filter is attached to a
644 qdisc or class. This isn't nice, but we don't know how this could be done any
645 better. If you have a idea, please don't hesitate to tell us.
647 As with the B<Interface> option you can specify B<All> as the interface,
648 meaning all interfaces.
650 Here are some examples to help you understand the above text more easily:
653 VerboseInterface "All"
654 QDisc "eth0" "pfifo_fast-1:0"
656 Class "ppp0" "htb-1:10"
657 Filter "ppp0" "u32-1:0"
660 =item B<IgnoreSelected>
662 The behaviour is the same as with all other similar plugins: If nothing is
663 selected at all, everything is collected. If some things are selected using the
664 options described above, only these statistics are collected. If you set
665 B<IgnoreSelected> to B<true>, this behavior is inversed, i.E<nbsp>e. the
666 specified statistics will not be collected.
670 =head2 Plugin C<network>
674 =item B<Listen> I<Host> [I<Port>]
676 =item B<Server> I<Host> [I<Port>]
678 The B<Server> statement sets the server to send datagrams B<to>. The statement
679 may occur multiple times to send each datagram to multiple destinations.
681 The B<Listen> statement sets the interfaces to bind to. When multiple
682 statements are found the daemon will bind to multiple interfaces.
684 The argument I<Host> may be a hostname, an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address. If
685 the argument is a multicast address the daemon will join that multicast group.
687 If no B<Listen> statement is found the server tries join both, the default IPv6
688 multicast group and the default IPv4 multicast group. If no B<Server> statement
689 is found the client will try to send data to the IPv6 multicast group first. If
690 that fails the client will try the IPv4 multicast group.
692 The default IPv6 multicast group is C<ff18::efc0:4a42>. The default IPv4
693 multicast group is C<239.192.74.66>.
695 The optional I<Port> argument sets the port to use. It can either be given
696 using a numeric port number or a service name. If the argument is omitted the
697 default port B<25826> is assumed.
699 =item B<TimeToLive> I<1-255>
701 Set the time-to-live of sent packets. This applies to all, unicast and
702 multicast, and IPv4 and IPv6 packets. The default is to not change this value.
703 That means that multicast packets will be sent with a TTL of C<1> (one) on most
706 =item B<Forward> I<true|false>
708 If set to I<true>, write packets that were received via the network plugin to
709 the sending sockets. This should only be activated when the B<Listen>- and
710 B<Server>-statements differ. Otherwise packets may be send multiple times to
711 the same multicast group. While this results in more network traffic than
712 necessary it's not a huge problem since the plugin has a duplicate detection,
713 so the values will not loop.
715 =item B<CacheFlush> I<Seconds>
717 For each host/plugin/type combination the C<network plugin> caches the time of
718 the last value being sent or received. Every I<Seconds> seconds the plugin
719 searches and removes all entries that are older than I<Seconds> seconds, thus
720 freeing the unused memory again. Since this process is somewhat expensive and
721 normally doesn't do much, this value should not be too small. The default is
722 1800 seconds, but setting this to 86400 seconds (one day) will not do much harm
727 =head2 Plugin C<nginx>
729 This plugin collects the number of connections and requests handled by the
730 C<nginx daemon> (speak: engineE<nbsp>X), a HTTP and mail server/proxy. It
731 queries the page provided by the C<ngx_http_stub_status_module> module, which
732 isn't compiled by default. Please refer to
733 L<http://wiki.codemongers.com/NginxStubStatusModule> for more information on
734 how to compile and configure nginx and this module.
736 The following options are accepted by the C<nginx plugin>:
740 =item B<URL> I<http://host/nginx_status>
742 Sets the URL of the C<ngx_http_stub_status_module> output.
744 =item B<User> I<Username>
746 Optional user name needed for authentication.
748 =item B<Password> I<Password>
750 Optional password needed for authentication.
752 =item B<CACert> I<File>
754 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
755 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
756 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
760 =head2 Plugin C<ntpd>
764 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
766 Hostname of the host running B<ntpd>. Defaults to B<localhost>.
768 =item B<Port> I<Port>
770 UDP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<123>.
772 =item B<ReverseLookups> B<true>|B<false>
774 Sets wether or not to perform reverse lookups on peers. Since the name or
775 IP-address may be used in a filename it is recommended to disable reverse
776 lookups. The default is to do reverse lookups to preserve backwards
777 compatibility, though.
785 =item B<UPS> I<upsname>B<@>I<hostname>[B<:>I<port>]
787 Add a UPS to collect data from. The format is identical to the one accepted by
792 =head2 Plugin C<perl>
794 This plugin embeds a Perl-interpreter into collectd and provides an interface
795 to collectd's plugin system. See L<collectd-perl(5)> for its documentation.
797 =head2 Plugin C<ping>
801 =item B<Host> I<IP-address>
803 Host to ping periodically. This option may be repeated several times to ping
806 =item B<TTL> I<0-255>
808 Sets the Time-To-Live of generated ICMP packets.
812 =head2 Plugin C<processes>
816 =item B<Process> I<Name>
818 Select more detailed statistics of processes matching this name. The statistics
819 collected for these selected processes are size of the resident segment size
820 (RSS), user- and system-time used, number of processes and number of threads,
821 and minor and major pagefaults.
825 =head2 Plugin C<rrdtool>
827 You can use the settings B<StepSize>, B<HeartBeat>, B<RRARows>, and B<XFF> to
828 fine-tune your RRD-files. Please read L<rrdcreate(1)> if you encounter problems
829 using these settings. If you don't want to dive into the depths of RRDTool, you
830 can safely ignore these settings.
834 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
836 Set the directory to store RRD-files under. Per default RRD-files are generated
837 beneath the daemon's working directory, i.E<nbsp>e. the B<BaseDir>.
839 =item B<StepSize> I<Seconds>
841 B<Force> the stepsize of newly created RRD-files. Ideally (and per default)
842 this setting is unset and the stepsize is set to the interval in which the data
843 is collected. Do not use this option unless you absolutely have to for some
844 reason. Setting this option may cause problems with the C<snmp plugin>, the
845 C<exec plugin> or when the daemon is set up to receive data from other hosts.
847 =item B<HeartBeat> I<Seconds>
849 B<Force> the heartbeat of newly created RRD-files. This setting should be unset
850 in which case the heartbeat is set to twice the B<StepSize> which should equal
851 the interval in which data is collected. Do not set this option unless you have
852 a very good reason to do so.
854 =item B<RRARows> I<NumRows>
856 The C<rrdtool plugin> calculates the number of PDPs per CDP based on the
857 B<StepSize>, this setting and a timespan. This plugin creates RRD-files with
858 three times five RRAs, i. e. five RRAs with the CFs B<MIN>, B<AVERAGE>, and
859 B<MAX>. The five RRAs are optimized for graphs covering one hour, one day, one
860 week, one month, and one year.
862 So for each timespan, it calculates how many PDPs need to be consolidated into
863 one CDP by calculating:
864 number of PDPs = timespan / (stepsize * rrarows)
866 Bottom line is, set this no smaller than the width of you graphs in pixels. The
869 =item B<RRATimespan> I<Seconds>
871 Adds an RRA-timespan, given in seconds. Use this option multiple times to have
872 more then one RRA. If this option is never used, the built-in default of (3600,
873 86400, 604800, 2678400, 31622400) is used.
875 For more information on how RRA-sizes are calculated see B<RRARows> above.
877 =item B<XFF> I<Factor>
879 Set the "XFiles Factor". The default is 0.1. If unsure, don't set this option.
881 =item B<CacheFlush> I<Seconds>
883 When the C<rrdtool plugin> uses a cache (by setting B<CacheTimeout>, see below)
884 it writes all values for a certain RRD-file if the oldest value is older than
885 (or equal to) the number of seconds specified. If some RRD-file is not updated
886 anymore for some reason (the computer was shut down, the network is broken,
887 etc.) some values may still be in the cache. If B<CacheFlush> is set, then the
888 entire cache is searched for entries older than B<CacheTimeout> seconds and
889 written to disk every I<Seconds> seconds. Since this is kind of expensive and
890 does nothing under normal circumstances, this value should not be too small.
891 900 seconds might be a good value, though setting this to 7200 seconds doesn't
892 normally do much harm either.
894 =item B<CacheTimeout> I<Seconds>
896 If this option is set to a value greater than zero, the C<rrdtool plugin> will
897 save values in a cache, as described above. Writing multiple values at once
898 reduces IO-operations and thus lessens the load produced by updating the files.
899 The trade off is that the graphs kind of "drag behind" and that more memory is
904 =head2 Plugin C<sensors>
906 The C<sensors plugin> uses B<lm_sensors> to retrieve sensor-values. This means
907 that all the needed modules have to be loaded and lm_sensors has to be
908 configured (most likely by editing F</etc/sensors.conf>. Read
909 L<sensors.conf(5)> for details.
911 The B<lm_sensors> homepage can be found at
912 L<http://secure.netroedge.com/~lm78/>.
916 =item B<Sensor> I<chip-bus-address/type-feature>
918 Selects the name of the sensor which you want to collect or ignore, depending
919 on the B<IgnoreSelected> below. For example, the option "B<Sensor>
920 I<it8712-isa-0290/voltage-in1>" will cause collectd to gather data for the
921 voltage sensor I<in1> of the I<it8712> on the isa bus at the address 0290.
923 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
925 If no configuration if given, the B<sensors>-plugin will collect data from all
926 sensors. This may not be practical, especially for uninteresting sensors.
927 Thus, you can use the B<Sensor>-option to pick the sensors you're interested
928 in. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect all sensors I<except> a
929 few ones. This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to
930 I<true> the effect of B<Sensor> is inversed: All selected sensors are ignored
931 and all other sensors are collected.
935 =head2 Plugin C<snmp>
937 Since the configuration of the C<snmp plugin> is a little more complicated than
938 other plugins, its documentation has been moved to an own manpage,
939 L<collectd-snmp(5)>. Please see there for details.
941 =head2 Plugin C<syslog>
945 =item B<LogLevel> B<debug|info|notice|warning|err>
947 Sets the log-level. If, for example, set to B<notice>, then all events with
948 severity B<notice>, B<warning>, or B<err> will be submitted to the
951 Please note that B<debug> is only available if collectd has been compiled with
956 =head2 Plugin C<tcpconns>
958 The C<tcpconns plugin> counts the number of currently established TCP
959 connections based on the local port and/or the remote port. Since there may be
960 a lot of connections the default if to count all connections with a local port,
961 for which a listening socket is opened. You can use the following options to
962 fine-tune the ports you are interested in:
966 =item B<ListeningPorts> I<true>|I<false>
968 If this option is set to I<true>, statistics for all local ports for which a
969 listening socket exists are collected. The default depends on B<LocalPort> and
970 B<RemotePort> (see below): If no port at all is specifically selected, the
971 default is to collect listening ports. If specific ports (no matter if local or
972 remote ports) are selected, this option defaults to I<false>, i.E<nbsp>e. only
973 the selected ports will be collected unless this option is set to I<true>
976 =item B<LocalPort> I<Port>
978 Count the connections to a specific local port. This can be used to see how
979 many connections are handled by a specific daemon, e.E<nbsp>g. the mailserver.
980 You have to specify the port in numeric form, so for the mailserver example
981 you'd need to set B<25>.
983 =item B<RemotePort> I<Port>
985 Count the connections to a specific remote port. This is useful to see how
986 much a remote service is used. This is most useful if you want to know how many
987 connections a local service has opened to remote services, e.E<nbsp>g. how many
988 connections a mail server or news server has to other mail or news servers, or
989 how many connections a web proxy holds to web servers. You have to give the
990 port in numeric form.
994 =head2 Plugin C<unixsock>
998 =item B<SocketFile> I<Path>
1000 Sets the socket-file which is to be created.
1002 =item B<SocketGroup> I<Group>
1004 If running as root change the group of the UNIX-socket after it has been
1005 created. Defaults to B<collectd>.
1007 =item B<SocketPerms> I<Permissions>
1009 Change the file permissions of the UNIX-socket after it has been created. The
1010 permissions must be given as a numeric, octal value as you would pass to
1011 L<chmod(1)>. Defaults to B<0770>.
1015 =head2 Plugin C<uuid>
1017 This plugin, if loaded, causes the Hostname to be taken from the machine's
1018 UUID. The UUID is a universally unique designation for the machine, usually
1019 taken from the machine's BIOS. This is most useful if the machine is running in
1020 a virtual environment such as Xen, in which case the UUID is preserved across
1021 shutdowns and migration.
1023 The following methods are used to find the machine's UUID, in order:
1029 Check I</etc/uuid> (or I<UUIDFile>).
1033 Check for UUID from HAL (L<http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/hal>) if
1038 Check for UUID from C<dmidecode> / SMBIOS.
1042 Check for UUID from Xen hypervisor.
1046 If no UUID can be found then the hostname is not modified.
1050 =item B<UUIDFile> I<Path>
1052 Take the UUID from the given file (default I</etc/uuid>).
1056 =head2 Plugin C<vserver>
1058 This plugin doesn't have any options. B<VServer> support is only available for
1059 Linux. It cannot yet be found in a vanilla kernel, though. To make use of this
1060 plugin you need a kernel that has B<VServer> support built in, i.E<nbsp>e. you
1061 need to apply the patches and compile your own kernel, which will then provide
1062 the F</proc/virtual> filesystem that is required by this plugin.
1064 The B<VServer> homepage can be found at L<http://linux-vserver.org/>.
1066 =head1 THRESHOLD CONFIGURATION
1068 Starting with version C<4.3.0> collectd has support for B<monitoring>. By that
1069 we mean that the values are not only stored or sent somewhere, but that they
1070 are judged and, if a problem is recognized, acted upon. The only action
1071 collectd takes itself is to generate and dispatch a "notification". Plugins can
1072 register to receive notifications and perform appropriate further actions.
1074 Since systems and what you expect them to do differ a lot, you can configure
1075 B<thresholds> for your values freely. This gives you a lot of flexibility but
1076 also a lot of responsibility.
1078 Every time a value is out of range a notification is dispatched. This means
1079 that the idle percentage of your CPU needs to be less then the configured
1080 threshold only once for a notification to be generated. There's no such thing
1081 as a moving average or similar - at least not now.
1083 Also, all values that match a threshold are considered to be relevant or
1084 "interesting". As a consequence collectd will issue a notification if they are
1085 not received for twice the last timeout of the values. If, for example, some
1086 hosts sends it's CPU statistics to the server every 60 seconds, a notification
1087 will be dispatched after about 120 seconds. It may take a little longer because
1088 the timeout is checked only once each B<Interval> on the server.
1090 Here is a configuration example to get you started. Read below for more
1103 <Plugin "interface">
1119 WarningMin 100000000
1125 There are basically two types of configuration statements: The C<Host>,
1126 C<Plugin>, and C<Type> blocks select the value for which a threshold should be
1127 configured. The C<Plugin> and C<Type> blocks may be specified further using the
1128 C<Instance> option. You can combine the block by nesting the blocks, though
1129 they must be nested in the above order, i.E<nbsp>e. C<Host> may contain either
1130 C<Plugin> and C<Type> blocks, C<Plugin> may only contain C<Type> blocks and
1131 C<Type> may not contain other blocks. If multiple blocks apply to the same
1132 value the most specific block is used.
1134 The other statements specify the threshold to configure. They B<must> be
1135 included in a C<Type> block. Currently the following statements are recognized:
1139 =item B<FailureMax> I<Value>
1141 =item B<WarningMax> I<Value>
1143 Sets the upper bound of acceptable values. If unset defaults to positive
1144 infinity. If a value is greater than B<FailureMax> a B<FAILURE> notification
1145 will be created. If the value is greater than B<WarningMax> but less than (or
1146 equal to) B<FailureMax> a B<WARNING> notification will be created.
1148 =item B<FailureMin> I<Value>
1150 =item B<WarningMin> I<Value>
1152 Sets the lower bound of acceptable values. If unset defaults to negative
1153 infinity. If a value is less than B<FailureMin> a B<FAILURE> notification will
1154 be created. If the value is less than B<WarningMin> but greater than (or equal
1155 to) B<FailureMin> a B<WARNING> notification will be created.
1157 =item B<Invert> B<true>|B<false>
1159 If set to B<true> the range of acceptable values is inverted, i.E<nbsp>e.
1160 values between B<FailureMin> and B<FailureMax> (B<WarningMin> and
1161 B<WarningMax>) are not okay. Defaults to B<false>.
1163 =item B<Persist> B<true>|B<false>
1165 Sets how often notifications are generated. If set to B<true> one notification
1166 will be generated for each value that is out of the acceptable range. If set to
1167 B<false> (the default) then a notification is only generated if a value is out
1168 of range but the previous value was okay.
1170 This applies to missing values, too: If set to B<true> a notification about a
1171 missing value is generated once every B<Interval> seconds. If set to B<false>
1172 only one such notification is generated until the value appears again.
1179 L<collectd-exec(5)>,
1180 L<collectd-perl(5)>,
1181 L<collectd-unixsock(5)>,
1191 Florian Forster E<lt>octo@verplant.orgE<gt>