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 If more than one files are included by a single B<Include> option, the files
67 will be included in lexicographical order (as defined by the C<strcmp>
68 function). Thus, you can e.E<nbsp>g. use numbered prefixes to specify the
69 order in which the files are loaded.
71 To prevent loops and shooting yourself in the foot in interesting ways the
72 nesting is limited to a depth of 8E<nbsp>levels, which should be sufficient for
73 most uses. Since symlinks are followed it is still possible to crash the daemon
74 by looping symlinks. In our opinion significant stupidity should result in an
75 appropriate amount of pain.
77 It is no problem to have a block like C<E<lt>Plugin fooE<gt>> in more than one
78 file, but you cannot include files from within blocks.
80 =item B<PIDFile> I<File>
82 Sets where to write the PID file to. This file is overwritten when it exists
83 and deleted when the program is stopped. Some init-scripts might override this
84 setting using the B<-P> command-line option.
86 =item B<PluginDir> I<Directory>
88 Path to the plugins (shared objects) of collectd.
90 =item B<TypesDB> I<File> [I<File> ...]
92 Set one or more files that contain the data-set descriptions. See
93 L<types.db(5)> for a description of the format of this file.
95 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
97 Configures the interval in which to query the read plugins. Obviously smaller
98 values lead to a higher system load produced by collectd, while higher values
99 lead to more coarse statistics.
101 =item B<ReadThreads> I<Num>
103 Number of threads to start for reading plugins. The default value is B<5>, but
104 you may want to increase this if you have more than five plugins that take a
105 long time to read. Mostly those are plugin that do network-IO. Setting this to
106 a value higher than the number of plugins you've loaded is totally useless.
108 =item B<Hostname> I<Name>
110 Sets the hostname that identifies a host. If you omit this setting, the
111 hostname will be determinded using the L<gethostname(2)> system call.
113 =item B<FQDNLookup> B<true|false>
115 If B<Hostname> is determined automatically this setting controls whether or not
116 the daemon should try to figure out the "fully qualified domain name", FQDN.
117 This is done using a lookup of the name returned by C<gethostname>.
119 Using this feature (i.E<nbsp>e. setting this option to B<true>) is recommended.
120 However, to preserve backwards compatibility the default is set to B<false>.
121 The sample config file that is installed with C<makeE<nbsp>install> includes a
122 line which sets this option, though, so that default installations will have
123 this setting enabled.
127 =head1 PLUGIN OPTIONS
129 Some plugins may register own options. These options must be enclosed in a
130 C<Plugin>-Section. Which options exist depends on the plugin used. Some plugins
131 require external configuration, too. The C<apache plugin>, for example,
132 required C<mod_status> to be configured in the webserver you're going to
133 collect data from. These plugins are listed below as well, even if they don't
134 require any configuration within collectd's configfile.
136 A list of all plugins and a short summary for each plugin can be found in the
137 F<README> file shipped with the sourcecode and hopefully binary packets as
140 =head2 Plugin C<apache>
142 To configure the C<apache>-plugin you first need to configure the Apache
143 webserver correctly. The Apache-plugin C<mod_status> needs to be loaded and
144 working and the C<ExtendedStatus> directive needs to be B<enabled>. You can use
145 the following snipped to base your Apache config upon:
148 <IfModule mod_status.c>
149 <Location /mod_status>
150 SetHandler server-status
154 Since its C<mod_status> module is very similar to Apache's, B<lighttpd> is
155 also supported. It introduces a new field, called C<BusyServers>, to count the
156 number of currently connected clients. This field is also supported.
158 The following options are accepted by the C<apache>-plugin:
162 =item B<URL> I<http://host/mod_status?auto>
164 Sets the URL of the C<mod_status> output. This needs to be the output generated
165 by C<ExtendedStatus on> and it needs to be the machine readable output
166 generated by appending the C<?auto> argument.
168 =item B<User> I<Username>
170 Optional user name needed for authentication.
172 =item B<Password> I<Password>
174 Optional password needed for authentication.
176 =item B<CACert> I<File>
178 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
179 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
180 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
184 =head2 Plugin C<apcups>
188 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
190 Hostname of the host running B<apcupsd>. Defaults to B<localhost>. Please note
191 that IPv6 support has been disabled unless someone can confirm or decline that
192 B<apcupsd> can handle it.
194 =item B<Port> I<Port>
196 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<3551>.
200 =head2 Plugin C<cpufreq>
202 This plugin doesn't have any options. It reads
203 F</sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq> (for the first CPU
204 installed) to get the current CPU frequency. If this file does not exist make
205 sure B<cpufreqd> (L<http://cpufreqd.sourceforge.net/>) or a similar tool is
206 installed and an "cpu governor" (that's a kernel module) is loaded.
212 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
214 Set the directory to store CSV-files under. Per default CSV-files are generated
215 beneath the daemon's working directory, i.E<nbsp>e. the B<BaseDir>.
217 =item B<StoreRates> B<true|false>
219 If set to B<true>, convert counter values to rates. If set to B<false> (the
220 default) counter values are stored as is, i.E<nbsp>e. as an increasing integer
229 =item B<Device> I<Device>
231 Select partitions based on the devicename.
233 =item B<MountPoint> I<Directory>
235 Select partitions based on the mountpoint.
237 =item B<FSType> I<FSType>
239 Select partitions based on the filesystem type.
241 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
243 Invert the selection: If set to true, all partitions B<except> the ones that
244 match any one of the criteria are collected. By default only selected
245 partitions are collected if a selection is made. If no selection is configured
246 at all, B<all> partitions are selected.
250 =head2 Plugin C<disk>
252 The C<disk> plugin collects information about the usage of physical disks and
253 logical disks (partitions). Values collected are the number of octets written
254 to and read from a disk or partition, the number of read/write operations
255 issued to the disk and a rather complex "time" it took for these commands to be
258 Using the following two options you can ignore some disks or configure the
259 collection only of specific disks.
263 =item B<Disk> I<Name>
265 Select the disk I<Name>. Whether it is collected or ignored depends on the
266 B<IgnoreSelected> setting, see below. As with other plugins that use the
267 daemon's ignorelist functionality, a string that starts and ends with a slash
268 is interpreted as a regular expression. Examples:
273 =item B<IgnoreSelected> B<true>|B<false>
275 Sets whether selected disks, i.E<nbsp>e. the ones matches by any of the B<Disk>
276 statements, are ignored or if all other disks are ignored. The behavior
277 (hopefully) is intuitive: If no B<Disk> option is configured, all disks are
278 collected. If at least one B<Disk> option is given and no B<IgnoreSelected> or
279 set to B<false>, B<only> matching disks will be collected. If B<IgnoreSelected>
280 is set to B<true>, all disks are collected B<except> the ones matched.
288 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
290 The dns plugin uses B<libpcap> to capture dns traffic and analyses it. This
291 option sets the interface that should be used. If this option is not set, or
292 set to "any", the plugin will try to get packets from B<all> interfaces. This
293 may not work on certain platforms, such as MacE<nbsp>OSE<nbsp>X.
295 =item B<IgnoreSource> I<IP-address>
297 Ignore packets that originate from this address.
301 =head2 Plugin C<email>
305 =item B<SocketFile> I<Path>
307 Sets the socket-file which is to be created.
309 =item B<SocketGroup> I<Group>
311 If running as root change the group of the UNIX-socket after it has been
312 created. Defaults to B<collectd>.
314 =item B<SocketPerms> I<Permissions>
316 Change the file permissions of the UNIX-socket after it has been created. The
317 permissions must be given as a numeric, octal value as you would pass to
318 L<chmod(1)>. Defaults to B<0770>.
320 =item B<MaxConns> I<Number>
322 Sets the maximum number of connections that can be handled in parallel. Since
323 this many threads will be started immediately setting this to a very high
324 value will waste valuable resources. Defaults to B<5> and will be forced to be
325 at most B<16384> to prevent typos and dumb mistakes.
329 =head2 Plugin C<exec>
331 Please make sure to read L<collectd-exec(5)> before using this plugin. It
332 contains valuable information on when the executable is executed and the
333 output that is expected from it.
337 =item B<Exec> I<User>[:[I<Group>]] I<Executable> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> ...]]
339 =item B<NotificationExec> I<User>[:[I<Group>]] I<Executable> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> ...]]
341 Execute the executable I<Executable> as user I<User>. If the user name is
342 followed by a colon and a group name, the effective group is set to that group.
343 The real group and saved-set group will be set to the default group of that
344 user. If no group is given the effective group ID will be the same as the real
347 Please note that in order to change the user and/or group the daemon needs
348 superuser privileges. If the daemon is run as an unprivileged user you must
349 specify the same user/group here. If the daemon is run with superuser
350 privileges, you must supply a non-root user here.
352 The executable may be followed by optional arguments that are passed to the
353 program. Please note that due to the configuration parsing numbers and boolean
354 values may be changed. If you want to be absolutely sure that something is
355 passed as-is please enclose it in quotes.
357 The B<Exec> and B<NotificationExec> statements change the semantics of the
358 programs executed, i.E<nbsp>e. the data passed to them and the response
359 expected from them. This is documented in great detail in L<collectd-exec(5)>.
363 =head2 Plugin C<hddtemp>
365 To get values from B<hddtemp> collectd connects to B<localhost> (127.0.0.1),
366 port B<7634/tcp>. The B<Host> and B<Port> options can be used to change these
367 default values, see below. C<hddtemp> has to be running to work correctly. If
368 C<hddtemp> is not running timeouts may appear which may interfere with other
371 The B<hddtemp> homepage can be found at
372 L<http://www.guzu.net/linux/hddtemp.php>.
376 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
378 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
380 =item B<Port> I<Port>
382 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<7634>.
384 =item B<TranslateDevicename> I<true>|I<false>
386 If enabled, translate the disk names to major/minor device numbers
387 (e.E<nbsp>g. "8-0" for /dev/sda). For backwards compatibility this defaults to
388 I<true> but it's recommended to disable it as it will probably be removed in
389 the next major version.
393 =head2 Plugin C<interface>
397 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
399 Select this interface. By default these interfaces will then be collected. For
400 a more detailed description see B<IgnoreSelected> below.
402 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
404 If no configuration if given, the B<traffic>-plugin will collect data from
405 all interfaces. This may not be practical, especially for loopback- and
406 similar interfaces. Thus, you can use the B<Interface>-option to pick the
407 interfaces you're interested in. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred
408 to collect all interfaces I<except> a few ones. This option enables you to
409 do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to I<true> the effect of
410 B<Interface> is inversed: All selected interfaces are ignored and all
411 other interfaces are collected.
415 =head2 Plugin C<iptables>
419 =item B<Chain> I<Table> I<Chain> [I<Comment|Number> [I<Name>]]
421 Select the rules to count. If only I<Table> and I<Chain> are given, this plugin
422 will collect the counters of all rules which have a comment-match. The comment
423 is then used as type-instance.
425 If I<Comment> or I<Number> is given, only the rule with the matching comment or
426 the I<n>th rule will be collected. Again, the comment (or the number) will be
427 used as the type-instance.
429 If I<Name> is supplied, it will be used as the type-instance instead of the
430 comment or the number.
440 Select this irq. By default these irqs will then be collected. For a more
441 detailed description see B<IgnoreSelected> below.
443 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
445 If no configuration if given, the B<irq>-plugin will collect data from all
446 irqs. This may not be practical, especially if no interrupts happen. Thus, you
447 can use the B<Irq>-option to pick the interrupt you're interested in.
448 Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect all interrupts I<except> a
449 few ones. This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to
450 I<true> the effect of B<Irq> is inversed: All selected interrupts are ignored
451 and all other interrupts are collected.
455 =head2 Plugin C<libvirt>
457 This plugin allows CPU, disk and network load to be collected for virtualized
458 guests on the machine. This means that these characteristics can be collected
459 for guest systems without installing any software on them - collectd only runs
460 on the hosting system. The statistics are collected through libvirt
461 (L<http://libvirt.org/>).
463 Only I<Connection> is required.
467 =item B<Connection> I<uri>
469 Connect to the hypervisor given by I<uri>. For example if using Xen use:
473 Details which URIs allowed are given at L<http://libvirt.org/uri.html>.
475 =item B<RefreshInterval> I<seconds>
477 Refresh the list of domains and devices every I<seconds>. The default is 60
478 seconds. Setting this to be the same or smaller than the I<Interval> will cause
479 the list of domains and devices to be refreshed on every iteration.
481 Refreshing the devices in particular is quite a costly operation, so if your
482 virtualization setup is static you might consider increasing this. If this
483 option is set to 0, refreshing is disabled completely.
485 =item B<Domain> I<name>
487 =item B<BlockDevice> I<name:dev>
489 =item B<InterfaceDevice> I<name:dev>
491 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
493 Select which domains and devices are collected.
495 If I<IgnoreSelected> is not given or I<false> then only the listed domains and
496 disk/network devices are collected.
498 If I<IgnoreSelected> is I<true> then the test is reversed and the listed
499 domains and disk/network devices are ignored, while the rest are collected.
501 The domain name and device names may use a regular expression, if the name is
502 surrounded by I</.../> and collectd was compiled with support for regexps.
504 The default is to collect statistics for all domains and all their devices.
509 IgnoreSelected "true"
511 Ignore all I<hdb> devices on any domain, but other block devices (eg. I<hda>)
514 =item B<HostnameFormat> B<name|uuid|hostname|...>
516 When the libvirt plugin logs data, it sets the hostname of the collected data
517 according to this setting. The default is to use the guest name as provided by
518 the hypervisor, which is equal to setting B<name>.
520 B<uuid> means use the guest's UUID. This is useful if you want to track the
521 same guest across migrations.
523 B<hostname> means to use the global B<Hostname> setting, which is probably not
524 useful on its own because all guests will appear to have the same name.
526 You can also specify combinations of these fields. For example B<name uuid>
527 means to concatenate the guest name and UUID (with a literal colon character
528 between, thus I<"foo:1234-1234-1234-1234">).
532 =head2 Plugin C<logfile>
536 =item B<LogLevel> B<debug|info|notice|warning|err>
538 Sets the log-level. If, for example, set to B<notice>, then all events with
539 severity B<notice>, B<warning>, or B<err> will be written to the logfile.
541 Please note that B<debug> is only available if collectd has been compiled with
544 =item B<File> I<File>
546 Sets the file to write log messages to. The special strings B<stdout> and
547 B<stderr> can be used to write to the standard output and standard error
548 channels, respectively. This, of course, only makes much sense when collectd is
549 running in foreground- or non-daemon-mode.
551 =item B<Timestamp> B<true>|B<false>
553 Prefix all lines printed by the current time. Defaults to B<true>.
557 =head2 Plugin C<mbmon>
559 The C<mbmon plugin> uses mbmon to retrieve temperature, voltage, etc.
561 Be default collectd connects to B<localhost> (127.0.0.1), port B<411/tcp>. The
562 B<Host> and B<Port> options can be used to change these values, see below.
563 C<mbmon> has to be running to work correctly. If C<mbmon> is not running
564 timeouts may appear which may interfere with other statistics..
566 C<mbmon> must be run with the -r option ("print TAG and Value format");
567 Debian's F</etc/init.d/mbmon> script already does this, other people
568 will need to ensure that this is the case.
572 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
574 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
576 =item B<Port> I<Port>
578 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<411>.
582 =head2 Plugin C<memcached>
584 The C<memcached plugin> connects to a memcached server and queries statistics
585 about cache utilization, memory and bandwidth used.
586 L<http://www.danga.com/memcached/>
590 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
592 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
594 =item B<Port> I<Port>
596 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<11211>.
600 =head2 Plugin C<mysql>
602 The C<mysql plugin> requires B<mysqlclient> to be installed. It connects to the
603 database when started and keeps the connection up as long as possible. When the
604 connection is interrupted for whatever reason it will try to re-connect. The
605 plugin will complaint loudly in case anything goes wrong.
607 This plugin issues C<SHOW STATUS> and evaluates C<Bytes_{received,sent}>,
608 C<Com_*> and C<Handler_*> which correspond to F<mysql_octets.rrd>,
609 F<mysql_commands-*.rrd> and F<mysql_handler-*.rrd>. Also, the values of
610 C<Qcache_*> are put in F<mysql_qcache.rrd> and values of C<Threads_*> are put
611 in F<mysql_threads.rrd>. Please refer to the B<MySQL reference manual>,
612 I<5.2.4. Server Status Variables> for an explanation of these values.
614 Use the following options to configure the plugin:
618 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
620 Hostname of the database server. Defaults to B<localhost>.
622 =item B<User> I<Username>
624 Username to use when connecting to the database.
626 =item B<Password> I<Password>
628 Password needed to log into the database.
630 =item B<Database> I<Database>
632 Select this database. Defaults to I<no database> which is a perfectly reasonable
633 option for what this plugin does.
637 =head2 Plugin C<netlink>
639 The C<netlink> plugin uses a netlink socket to query the Linux kernel about
640 statistics of various interface and routing aspects.
644 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
646 =item B<VerboseInterface> I<Interface>
648 Instruct the plugin to collect interface statistics. This is basically the same
649 as the statistics provided by the C<interface> plugin (see above) but
650 potentially much more detailed.
652 When configuring with B<Interface> only the basic statistics will be collected,
653 namely octets, packets, and errors. These statistics are collected by
654 the C<interface> plugin, too, so using both at the same time is no benefit.
656 When configured with B<VerboseInterface> all counters B<except> the basic ones,
657 so that no data needs to be collected twice if you use the C<interface> plugin.
658 This includes dropped packets, received multicast packets, collisions and a
659 whole zoo of differentiated RX and TX errors. You can try the following command
660 to get an idea of what awaits you:
664 If I<Interface> is B<All>, all interfaces will be selected.
666 =item B<QDisc> I<Interface> [I<QDisc>]
668 =item B<Class> I<Interface> [I<Class>]
670 =item B<Filter> I<Interface> [I<Filter>]
672 Collect the octets and packets that pass a certain qdisc, class or filter.
674 QDiscs and classes are identified by their type and handle (or classid).
675 Filters don't necessarily have a handle, therefore the parent's handle is used.
676 The notation used in collectd differs from that used in tc(1) in that it
677 doesn't skip the major or minor number if it's zero and doesn't print special
678 ids by their name. So, for example, a qdisc may be identified by
679 C<pfifo_fast-1:0> even though the minor number of B<all> qdiscs is zero and
680 thus not displayed by tc(1).
682 If B<QDisc>, B<Class>, or B<Filter> is given without the second argument,
683 i.E<nbsp>.e. without an identifier, all qdiscs, classes, or filters that are
684 associated with that interface will be collected.
686 Since a filter itself doesn't necessarily have a handle, the parent's handle is
687 used. This may lead to problems when more than one filter is attached to a
688 qdisc or class. This isn't nice, but we don't know how this could be done any
689 better. If you have a idea, please don't hesitate to tell us.
691 As with the B<Interface> option you can specify B<All> as the interface,
692 meaning all interfaces.
694 Here are some examples to help you understand the above text more easily:
697 VerboseInterface "All"
698 QDisc "eth0" "pfifo_fast-1:0"
700 Class "ppp0" "htb-1:10"
701 Filter "ppp0" "u32-1:0"
704 =item B<IgnoreSelected>
706 The behaviour is the same as with all other similar plugins: If nothing is
707 selected at all, everything is collected. If some things are selected using the
708 options described above, only these statistics are collected. If you set
709 B<IgnoreSelected> to B<true>, this behavior is inversed, i.E<nbsp>e. the
710 specified statistics will not be collected.
714 =head2 Plugin C<network>
718 =item B<Listen> I<Host> [I<Port>]
720 =item B<Server> I<Host> [I<Port>]
722 The B<Server> statement sets the server to send datagrams B<to>. The statement
723 may occur multiple times to send each datagram to multiple destinations.
725 The B<Listen> statement sets the interfaces to bind to. When multiple
726 statements are found the daemon will bind to multiple interfaces.
728 The argument I<Host> may be a hostname, an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address. If
729 the argument is a multicast address the daemon will join that multicast group.
731 If no B<Listen> statement is found the server tries join both, the default IPv6
732 multicast group and the default IPv4 multicast group. If no B<Server> statement
733 is found the client will try to send data to the IPv6 multicast group first. If
734 that fails the client will try the IPv4 multicast group.
736 The default IPv6 multicast group is C<ff18::efc0:4a42>. The default IPv4
737 multicast group is C<239.192.74.66>.
739 The optional I<Port> argument sets the port to use. It can either be given
740 using a numeric port number or a service name. If the argument is omitted the
741 default port B<25826> is assumed.
743 =item B<TimeToLive> I<1-255>
745 Set the time-to-live of sent packets. This applies to all, unicast and
746 multicast, and IPv4 and IPv6 packets. The default is to not change this value.
747 That means that multicast packets will be sent with a TTL of C<1> (one) on most
750 =item B<Forward> I<true|false>
752 If set to I<true>, write packets that were received via the network plugin to
753 the sending sockets. This should only be activated when the B<Listen>- and
754 B<Server>-statements differ. Otherwise packets may be send multiple times to
755 the same multicast group. While this results in more network traffic than
756 necessary it's not a huge problem since the plugin has a duplicate detection,
757 so the values will not loop.
759 =item B<CacheFlush> I<Seconds>
761 For each host/plugin/type combination the C<network plugin> caches the time of
762 the last value being sent or received. Every I<Seconds> seconds the plugin
763 searches and removes all entries that are older than I<Seconds> seconds, thus
764 freeing the unused memory again. Since this process is somewhat expensive and
765 normally doesn't do much, this value should not be too small. The default is
766 1800 seconds, but setting this to 86400 seconds (one day) will not do much harm
771 =head2 Plugin C<nginx>
773 This plugin collects the number of connections and requests handled by the
774 C<nginx daemon> (speak: engineE<nbsp>X), a HTTP and mail server/proxy. It
775 queries the page provided by the C<ngx_http_stub_status_module> module, which
776 isn't compiled by default. Please refer to
777 L<http://wiki.codemongers.com/NginxStubStatusModule> for more information on
778 how to compile and configure nginx and this module.
780 The following options are accepted by the C<nginx plugin>:
784 =item B<URL> I<http://host/nginx_status>
786 Sets the URL of the C<ngx_http_stub_status_module> output.
788 =item B<User> I<Username>
790 Optional user name needed for authentication.
792 =item B<Password> I<Password>
794 Optional password needed for authentication.
796 =item B<CACert> I<File>
798 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
799 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
800 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
804 =head2 Plugin C<ntpd>
808 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
810 Hostname of the host running B<ntpd>. Defaults to B<localhost>.
812 =item B<Port> I<Port>
814 UDP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<123>.
816 =item B<ReverseLookups> B<true>|B<false>
818 Sets wether or not to perform reverse lookups on peers. Since the name or
819 IP-address may be used in a filename it is recommended to disable reverse
820 lookups. The default is to do reverse lookups to preserve backwards
821 compatibility, though.
829 =item B<UPS> I<upsname>B<@>I<hostname>[B<:>I<port>]
831 Add a UPS to collect data from. The format is identical to the one accepted by
836 =head2 Plugin C<perl>
838 This plugin embeds a Perl-interpreter into collectd and provides an interface
839 to collectd's plugin system. See L<collectd-perl(5)> for its documentation.
841 =head2 Plugin C<ping>
845 =item B<Host> I<IP-address>
847 Host to ping periodically. This option may be repeated several times to ping
850 =item B<TTL> I<0-255>
852 Sets the Time-To-Live of generated ICMP packets.
856 =head2 Plugin C<processes>
860 =item B<Process> I<Name>
862 Select more detailed statistics of processes matching this name. The statistics
863 collected for these selected processes are size of the resident segment size
864 (RSS), user- and system-time used, number of processes and number of threads,
865 and minor and major pagefaults.
869 =head2 Plugin C<rrdtool>
871 You can use the settings B<StepSize>, B<HeartBeat>, B<RRARows>, and B<XFF> to
872 fine-tune your RRD-files. Please read L<rrdcreate(1)> if you encounter problems
873 using these settings. If you don't want to dive into the depths of RRDTool, you
874 can safely ignore these settings.
878 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
880 Set the directory to store RRD-files under. Per default RRD-files are generated
881 beneath the daemon's working directory, i.E<nbsp>e. the B<BaseDir>.
883 =item B<StepSize> I<Seconds>
885 B<Force> the stepsize of newly created RRD-files. Ideally (and per default)
886 this setting is unset and the stepsize is set to the interval in which the data
887 is collected. Do not use this option unless you absolutely have to for some
888 reason. Setting this option may cause problems with the C<snmp plugin>, the
889 C<exec plugin> or when the daemon is set up to receive data from other hosts.
891 =item B<HeartBeat> I<Seconds>
893 B<Force> the heartbeat of newly created RRD-files. This setting should be unset
894 in which case the heartbeat is set to twice the B<StepSize> which should equal
895 the interval in which data is collected. Do not set this option unless you have
896 a very good reason to do so.
898 =item B<RRARows> I<NumRows>
900 The C<rrdtool plugin> calculates the number of PDPs per CDP based on the
901 B<StepSize>, this setting and a timespan. This plugin creates RRD-files with
902 three times five RRAs, i. e. five RRAs with the CFs B<MIN>, B<AVERAGE>, and
903 B<MAX>. The five RRAs are optimized for graphs covering one hour, one day, one
904 week, one month, and one year.
906 So for each timespan, it calculates how many PDPs need to be consolidated into
907 one CDP by calculating:
908 number of PDPs = timespan / (stepsize * rrarows)
910 Bottom line is, set this no smaller than the width of you graphs in pixels. The
913 =item B<RRATimespan> I<Seconds>
915 Adds an RRA-timespan, given in seconds. Use this option multiple times to have
916 more then one RRA. If this option is never used, the built-in default of (3600,
917 86400, 604800, 2678400, 31622400) is used.
919 For more information on how RRA-sizes are calculated see B<RRARows> above.
921 =item B<XFF> I<Factor>
923 Set the "XFiles Factor". The default is 0.1. If unsure, don't set this option.
925 =item B<CacheFlush> I<Seconds>
927 When the C<rrdtool plugin> uses a cache (by setting B<CacheTimeout>, see below)
928 it writes all values for a certain RRD-file if the oldest value is older than
929 (or equal to) the number of seconds specified. If some RRD-file is not updated
930 anymore for some reason (the computer was shut down, the network is broken,
931 etc.) some values may still be in the cache. If B<CacheFlush> is set, then the
932 entire cache is searched for entries older than B<CacheTimeout> seconds and
933 written to disk every I<Seconds> seconds. Since this is kind of expensive and
934 does nothing under normal circumstances, this value should not be too small.
935 900 seconds might be a good value, though setting this to 7200 seconds doesn't
936 normally do much harm either.
938 =item B<CacheTimeout> I<Seconds>
940 If this option is set to a value greater than zero, the C<rrdtool plugin> will
941 save values in a cache, as described above. Writing multiple values at once
942 reduces IO-operations and thus lessens the load produced by updating the files.
943 The trade off is that the graphs kind of "drag behind" and that more memory is
948 =head2 Plugin C<sensors>
950 The C<sensors plugin> uses B<lm_sensors> to retrieve sensor-values. This means
951 that all the needed modules have to be loaded and lm_sensors has to be
952 configured (most likely by editing F</etc/sensors.conf>. Read
953 L<sensors.conf(5)> for details.
955 The B<lm_sensors> homepage can be found at
956 L<http://secure.netroedge.com/~lm78/>.
960 =item B<Sensor> I<chip-bus-address/type-feature>
962 Selects the name of the sensor which you want to collect or ignore, depending
963 on the B<IgnoreSelected> below. For example, the option "B<Sensor>
964 I<it8712-isa-0290/voltage-in1>" will cause collectd to gather data for the
965 voltage sensor I<in1> of the I<it8712> on the isa bus at the address 0290.
967 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
969 If no configuration if given, the B<sensors>-plugin will collect data from all
970 sensors. This may not be practical, especially for uninteresting sensors.
971 Thus, you can use the B<Sensor>-option to pick the sensors you're interested
972 in. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect all sensors I<except> a
973 few ones. This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to
974 I<true> the effect of B<Sensor> is inversed: All selected sensors are ignored
975 and all other sensors are collected.
979 =head2 Plugin C<snmp>
981 Since the configuration of the C<snmp plugin> is a little more complicated than
982 other plugins, its documentation has been moved to an own manpage,
983 L<collectd-snmp(5)>. Please see there for details.
985 =head2 Plugin C<syslog>
989 =item B<LogLevel> B<debug|info|notice|warning|err>
991 Sets the log-level. If, for example, set to B<notice>, then all events with
992 severity B<notice>, B<warning>, or B<err> will be submitted to the
995 Please note that B<debug> is only available if collectd has been compiled with
1000 =head2 Plugin C<tail>
1002 The C<tail plugin> plugins follows logfiles, just like L<tail(1)> does, parses
1003 each line and dispatches found values. What is matched can be configured by the
1004 user using (extended) regular expressions, as described in L<regex(7)>.
1007 <File "/var/log/exim4/mainlog">
1010 Regex "S=([1-9][0-9]*)"
1016 Regex "\\<R=local_user\\>"
1019 Instance "local_user"
1024 The config consists of one or more B<File> blocks, each of which configures one
1025 logfile to parse. Within each B<File> block, there are one or more B<Match>
1026 blocks, which configure a regular expression to search for.
1028 The B<Instance> option in the B<File> block may be used to set the plugin
1029 instance. So in the above example the plugin name C<tail-foo> would be used.
1030 This plugin instance is for all B<Match> blocks that B<follow> it, until the
1031 next B<Instance> option. This way you can extract several plugin instances from
1032 one logfile, handy when parsing syslog and the like.
1034 Each B<Match> block has the following options to describe how the match should
1039 =item B<Regex> I<regex>
1041 Sets the regular expression to use for matching against a line. The first
1042 subexpression has to match something that can be turned into a number by
1043 L<strtoll(3)> or L<strtod(3)>, depending on the value of C<CounterAdd>, see
1044 below. Because B<extended> regular expressions are used, you do not need to use
1045 backslashes for subexpressions! If in doubt, please consult L<regex(7)>. Due to
1046 collectd's config parsing you need to escape backslashes, though. So if you
1047 want to match literal parentheses you need to do the following:
1049 Regex "SPAM \\(Score: (-?[0-9]+\\.[0-9]+)\\)"
1051 =item B<DSType> I<Type>
1053 Sets how the values are cumulated. I<Type> is one of:
1057 =item B<GaugeAverage>
1059 Calculate the average.
1063 Use the smallest number only.
1067 Use the greatest number only.
1071 Use the last number found.
1075 The matched number is a counter. Simply sets the internal counter to this
1080 Add the matched value to the internal counter.
1084 Increase the internal counter by one. This B<DSType> is the only one that does
1085 not use the matched subexpression, but simply counts the number of matched
1086 lines. Thus, you may use a regular expression without submatch in this case.
1090 As you'd expect the B<Gauge*> types interpret the submatch as a floating point
1091 number, using L<strtod(3)>. The B<CounterSet> and B<CounterAdd> interpret the
1092 submatch as an integer using L<strtoll(3)>. B<CounterInc> does not use the
1093 submatch at all and it may be omitted in this case.
1095 =item B<Type> I<Type>
1097 Sets the type used to dispatch this value. Detailed information about types and
1098 their configuration can be found in L<types.db(5)>.
1100 =item B<Instance> I<TypeInstance>
1102 This optional setting sets the type instance to use.
1106 =head2 Plugin C<teamspeak2>
1108 The C<teamspeak2 plugin> connects to the query port of a teamspeak2 server and
1109 polls interesting global and virtual server data. The plugin can query only one
1110 physical server but unlimited virtual servers. You can use the following
1111 options to configure it:
1115 =item B<Host> I<hostname/ip>
1117 The hostname or ip which identifies the physical server.
1120 =item B<Port> I<port>
1122 The query port of the physical server. This needs to be a string.
1125 =item B<Server> I<port>
1127 This option has to be added once for every virtual server the plugin should
1128 query. If you want to query the virtual server on port 8767 this is what the
1129 option would look like:
1133 This option, although numeric, needs to be a string, i.E<nbsp>e. you B<must>
1134 use quotes around it! If no such statement is given only global information
1137 =head2 Plugin C<tcpconns>
1139 The C<tcpconns plugin> counts the number of currently established TCP
1140 connections based on the local port and/or the remote port. Since there may be
1141 a lot of connections the default if to count all connections with a local port,
1142 for which a listening socket is opened. You can use the following options to
1143 fine-tune the ports you are interested in:
1149 =item B<ListeningPorts> I<true>|I<false>
1151 If this option is set to I<true>, statistics for all local ports for which a
1152 listening socket exists are collected. The default depends on B<LocalPort> and
1153 B<RemotePort> (see below): If no port at all is specifically selected, the
1154 default is to collect listening ports. If specific ports (no matter if local or
1155 remote ports) are selected, this option defaults to I<false>, i.E<nbsp>e. only
1156 the selected ports will be collected unless this option is set to I<true>
1159 =item B<LocalPort> I<Port>
1161 Count the connections to a specific local port. This can be used to see how
1162 many connections are handled by a specific daemon, e.E<nbsp>g. the mailserver.
1163 You have to specify the port in numeric form, so for the mailserver example
1164 you'd need to set B<25>.
1166 =item B<RemotePort> I<Port>
1168 Count the connections to a specific remote port. This is useful to see how
1169 much a remote service is used. This is most useful if you want to know how many
1170 connections a local service has opened to remote services, e.E<nbsp>g. how many
1171 connections a mail server or news server has to other mail or news servers, or
1172 how many connections a web proxy holds to web servers. You have to give the
1173 port in numeric form.
1177 =head2 Plugin C<unixsock>
1181 =item B<SocketFile> I<Path>
1183 Sets the socket-file which is to be created.
1185 =item B<SocketGroup> I<Group>
1187 If running as root change the group of the UNIX-socket after it has been
1188 created. Defaults to B<collectd>.
1190 =item B<SocketPerms> I<Permissions>
1192 Change the file permissions of the UNIX-socket after it has been created. The
1193 permissions must be given as a numeric, octal value as you would pass to
1194 L<chmod(1)>. Defaults to B<0770>.
1198 =head2 Plugin C<uuid>
1200 This plugin, if loaded, causes the Hostname to be taken from the machine's
1201 UUID. The UUID is a universally unique designation for the machine, usually
1202 taken from the machine's BIOS. This is most useful if the machine is running in
1203 a virtual environment such as Xen, in which case the UUID is preserved across
1204 shutdowns and migration.
1206 The following methods are used to find the machine's UUID, in order:
1212 Check I</etc/uuid> (or I<UUIDFile>).
1216 Check for UUID from HAL (L<http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/hal>) if
1221 Check for UUID from C<dmidecode> / SMBIOS.
1225 Check for UUID from Xen hypervisor.
1229 If no UUID can be found then the hostname is not modified.
1233 =item B<UUIDFile> I<Path>
1235 Take the UUID from the given file (default I</etc/uuid>).
1239 =head2 Plugin C<vmem>
1241 The C<vmem> plugin collects information about the usage of virtual memory.
1242 Since the statistics provided by the Linux kernel are very detailed, they are
1243 collected very detailed. However, to get all the details, you have to switch
1244 them on manually. Most people just want an overview over, such as the number of
1245 pages read from swap space.
1249 =item B<Verbose> B<true>|B<false>
1251 Enables verbose collection of information. This will start collecting page
1252 "actions", e.E<nbsp>g. page allocations, (de)activations, steals and so on.
1253 Part of these statistics are collected on a "per zone" basis.
1257 =head2 Plugin C<vserver>
1259 This plugin doesn't have any options. B<VServer> support is only available for
1260 Linux. It cannot yet be found in a vanilla kernel, though. To make use of this
1261 plugin you need a kernel that has B<VServer> support built in, i.E<nbsp>e. you
1262 need to apply the patches and compile your own kernel, which will then provide
1263 the F</proc/virtual> filesystem that is required by this plugin.
1265 The B<VServer> homepage can be found at L<http://linux-vserver.org/>.
1267 =head1 THRESHOLD CONFIGURATION
1269 Starting with version C<4.3.0> collectd has support for B<monitoring>. By that
1270 we mean that the values are not only stored or sent somewhere, but that they
1271 are judged and, if a problem is recognized, acted upon. The only action
1272 collectd takes itself is to generate and dispatch a "notification". Plugins can
1273 register to receive notifications and perform appropriate further actions.
1275 Since systems and what you expect them to do differ a lot, you can configure
1276 B<thresholds> for your values freely. This gives you a lot of flexibility but
1277 also a lot of responsibility.
1279 Every time a value is out of range a notification is dispatched. This means
1280 that the idle percentage of your CPU needs to be less then the configured
1281 threshold only once for a notification to be generated. There's no such thing
1282 as a moving average or similar - at least not now.
1284 Also, all values that match a threshold are considered to be relevant or
1285 "interesting". As a consequence collectd will issue a notification if they are
1286 not received for twice the last timeout of the values. If, for example, some
1287 hosts sends it's CPU statistics to the server every 60 seconds, a notification
1288 will be dispatched after about 120 seconds. It may take a little longer because
1289 the timeout is checked only once each B<Interval> on the server.
1291 Here is a configuration example to get you started. Read below for more
1304 <Plugin "interface">
1320 WarningMin 100000000
1326 There are basically two types of configuration statements: The C<Host>,
1327 C<Plugin>, and C<Type> blocks select the value for which a threshold should be
1328 configured. The C<Plugin> and C<Type> blocks may be specified further using the
1329 C<Instance> option. You can combine the block by nesting the blocks, though
1330 they must be nested in the above order, i.E<nbsp>e. C<Host> may contain either
1331 C<Plugin> and C<Type> blocks, C<Plugin> may only contain C<Type> blocks and
1332 C<Type> may not contain other blocks. If multiple blocks apply to the same
1333 value the most specific block is used.
1335 The other statements specify the threshold to configure. They B<must> be
1336 included in a C<Type> block. Currently the following statements are recognized:
1340 =item B<FailureMax> I<Value>
1342 =item B<WarningMax> I<Value>
1344 Sets the upper bound of acceptable values. If unset defaults to positive
1345 infinity. If a value is greater than B<FailureMax> a B<FAILURE> notification
1346 will be created. If the value is greater than B<WarningMax> but less than (or
1347 equal to) B<FailureMax> a B<WARNING> notification will be created.
1349 =item B<FailureMin> I<Value>
1351 =item B<WarningMin> I<Value>
1353 Sets the lower bound of acceptable values. If unset defaults to negative
1354 infinity. If a value is less than B<FailureMin> a B<FAILURE> notification will
1355 be created. If the value is less than B<WarningMin> but greater than (or equal
1356 to) B<FailureMin> a B<WARNING> notification will be created.
1358 =item B<Invert> B<true>|B<false>
1360 If set to B<true> the range of acceptable values is inverted, i.E<nbsp>e.
1361 values between B<FailureMin> and B<FailureMax> (B<WarningMin> and
1362 B<WarningMax>) are not okay. Defaults to B<false>.
1364 =item B<Persist> B<true>|B<false>
1366 Sets how often notifications are generated. If set to B<true> one notification
1367 will be generated for each value that is out of the acceptable range. If set to
1368 B<false> (the default) then a notification is only generated if a value is out
1369 of range but the previous value was okay.
1371 This applies to missing values, too: If set to B<true> a notification about a
1372 missing value is generated once every B<Interval> seconds. If set to B<false>
1373 only one such notification is generated until the value appears again.
1380 L<collectd-exec(5)>,
1381 L<collectd-perl(5)>,
1382 L<collectd-unixsock(5)>,
1392 Florian Forster E<lt>octo@verplant.orgE<gt>