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. Lines may be wrapped by using `\' as the last character
34 before the newline. This allows long lines to be split into multiple lines.
35 Quoted strings may be wrapped as well. However, those are treated special in
36 that whitespace at the beginning of the following lines will be ignored, which
37 allows for nicely indenting the wrapped lines.
39 The configuration is read and processed in order, i.E<nbsp>e. from top to
40 bottom. So the plugins are loaded in the order listed in this config file. It
41 is a good idea to load any logging plugins first in order to catch messages
42 from plugins during configuration. Also, the C<LoadPlugin> option B<must> occur
43 B<before> the C<E<lt>Plugin ...E<gt>> block.
49 =item B<BaseDir> I<Directory>
51 Sets the base directory. This is the directory beneath all RRD-files are
52 created. Possibly more subdirectories are created. This is also the working
53 directory for the daemon.
55 =item B<LoadPlugin> I<Plugin>
57 Loads the plugin I<Plugin>. There must be at least one such line or B<collectd>
58 will be mostly useless.
60 =item B<Include> I<Path>
62 If I<Path> points to a file, includes that file. If I<Path> points to a
63 directory, recursively includes all files within that directory and its
64 subdirectories. If the C<wordexp> function is available on your system,
65 shell-like wildcards are expanded before files are included. This means you can
66 use statements like the following:
68 Include "/etc/collectd.d/*.conf"
70 If more than one files are included by a single B<Include> option, the files
71 will be included in lexicographical order (as defined by the C<strcmp>
72 function). Thus, you can e.E<nbsp>g. use numbered prefixes to specify the
73 order in which the files are loaded.
75 To prevent loops and shooting yourself in the foot in interesting ways the
76 nesting is limited to a depth of 8E<nbsp>levels, which should be sufficient for
77 most uses. Since symlinks are followed it is still possible to crash the daemon
78 by looping symlinks. In our opinion significant stupidity should result in an
79 appropriate amount of pain.
81 It is no problem to have a block like C<E<lt>Plugin fooE<gt>> in more than one
82 file, but you cannot include files from within blocks.
84 =item B<PIDFile> I<File>
86 Sets where to write the PID file to. This file is overwritten when it exists
87 and deleted when the program is stopped. Some init-scripts might override this
88 setting using the B<-P> command-line option.
90 =item B<PluginDir> I<Directory>
92 Path to the plugins (shared objects) of collectd.
94 =item B<TypesDB> I<File> [I<File> ...]
96 Set one or more files that contain the data-set descriptions. See
97 L<types.db(5)> for a description of the format of this file.
99 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
101 Configures the interval in which to query the read plugins. Obviously smaller
102 values lead to a higher system load produced by collectd, while higher values
103 lead to more coarse statistics.
105 =item B<Timeout> I<Iterations>
107 Consider a value list "missing" when no update has been read or received for
108 I<Iterations> iterations. By default, I<collectd> considers a value list
109 missing when no update has been received for twice the update interval. Since
110 this setting uses iterations, the maximum allowed time without update depends
111 on the I<Interval> information contained in each value list. This is used in
112 the I<Threshold> configuration to dispatch notifications about missing values,
113 see L<"THRESHOLD CONFIGURATION"> below.
115 =item B<ReadThreads> I<Num>
117 Number of threads to start for reading plugins. The default value is B<5>, but
118 you may want to increase this if you have more than five plugins that take a
119 long time to read. Mostly those are plugin that do network-IO. Setting this to
120 a value higher than the number of plugins you've loaded is totally useless.
122 =item B<Hostname> I<Name>
124 Sets the hostname that identifies a host. If you omit this setting, the
125 hostname will be determined using the L<gethostname(2)> system call.
127 =item B<FQDNLookup> B<true|false>
129 If B<Hostname> is determined automatically this setting controls whether or not
130 the daemon should try to figure out the "fully qualified domain name", FQDN.
131 This is done using a lookup of the name returned by C<gethostname>. This option
132 is enabled by default.
134 =item B<PreCacheChain> I<ChainName>
136 =item B<PostCacheChain> I<ChainName>
138 Configure the name of the "pre-cache chain" and the "post-cache chain". Please
139 see L<FILTER CONFIGURATION> below on information on chains and how these
140 setting change the daemon's behavior.
144 =head1 PLUGIN OPTIONS
146 Some plugins may register own options. These options must be enclosed in a
147 C<Plugin>-Section. Which options exist depends on the plugin used. Some plugins
148 require external configuration, too. The C<apache plugin>, for example,
149 required C<mod_status> to be configured in the webserver you're going to
150 collect data from. These plugins are listed below as well, even if they don't
151 require any configuration within collectd's configfile.
153 A list of all plugins and a short summary for each plugin can be found in the
154 F<README> file shipped with the sourcecode and hopefully binary packets as
157 =head2 Plugin C<amqp>
159 The I<AMQMP plugin> can be used to communicate with other instances of
160 I<collectd> or third party applications using an AMQP message broker. Values
161 are sent to or received from the broker, which handles routing, queueing and
162 possibly filtering or messages.
165 # Send values to an AMQP broker
166 <Publish "some_name">
172 Exchange "amq.fanout"
173 # RoutingKey "collectd"
179 # Receive values from an AMQP broker
180 <Subscribe "some_name">
186 Exchange "amq.fanout"
187 # ExchangeType "fanout"
189 # RoutingKey "collectd.#"
193 The plugin's configuration consists of a number of I<Publish> and I<Subscribe>
194 blocks, which configure sending and receiving of values respectively. The two
195 blocks are very similar, so unless otherwise noted, an option can be used in
196 either block. The name given in the blocks starting tag is only used for
197 reporting messages, but may be used to support I<flushing> of certain
198 I<Publish> blocks in the future.
202 =item B<Host> I<Host>
204 Hostname or IP-address of the AMQP broker. Defaults to the default behavior of
205 the underlying communications library, I<rabbitmq-c>, which is "localhost".
207 =item B<Port> I<Port>
209 Service name or port number on which the AMQP broker accepts connections. This
210 argument must be a string, even if the numeric form is used. Defaults to
213 =item B<VHost> I<VHost>
215 Name of the I<virtual host> on the AMQP broker to use. Defaults to "/".
217 =item B<User> I<User>
219 =item B<Password> I<Password>
221 Credentials used to authenticate to the AMQP broker. By default "guest"/"guest"
224 =item B<Exchange> I<Exchange>
226 In I<Publish> blocks, this option specifies the I<exchange> to send values to.
227 By default, "amq.fanout" will be used.
229 In I<Subscribe> blocks this option is optional. If given, a I<binding> between
230 the given exchange and the I<queue> is created, using the I<routing key> if
231 configured. See the B<Queue> and B<RoutingKey> options below.
233 =item B<ExchangeType> I<Type> (Subscribe only)
235 If given, the plugin will try to create the configured I<exchange> with this
236 I<type> after connecting and bind its I<queue> to it.
238 =item B<Queue> I<Queue> (Subscribe only)
240 Configures the I<queue> name to subscribe to. If no queue name was configures
241 explicitly, a unique queue name will be created by the broker.
243 =item B<RoutingKey> I<Key>
245 In I<Publish> blocks, this configures the routing key to set on all outgoing
246 messages. If not given, the routing key will be computed from the I<identifier>
247 of the value. The host, plugin, type and the two instances are concatenated
248 together using dots as the separator and all containing dots replaced with
249 slashes. For example "collectd.host/example/com.cpu.0.cpu.user". This makes it
250 possible to receive only specific values using a "topic" exchange.
252 In I<Subscribe> blocks, configures the I<routing key> used when creating a
253 I<binding> between an I<exchange> and the I<queue>. The usual wildcards can be
254 used to filter messages when using a "topic" exchange. If you're only
255 interested in CPU statistics, you could use the routing key "collectd.*.cpu.#"
258 =item B<Persistent> B<true>|B<false> (Publish only)
259 Selects the I<delivery method> to use. If set to B<true>, the I<persistent>
260 mode will be used, i.e. delivery is guaranteed. If set to B<false> (the
261 default), the I<transient> delivery mode will be used, i.e. messages may be
262 lost due to high load, overflowing queues or similar issues.
264 =item B<Format> B<Command>|B<JSON> (Publish only)
266 Selects the format in which messages are sent to the broker. If set to
267 B<Command> (the default), values are sent as C<PUTVAL> commands which are
268 identical to the syntax used by the I<Exec> and I<UnixSock plugins>. In this
269 case, the C<Content-Type> header field will be set to C<text/collectd>.
271 If set to B<JSON>, the values are encoded in the I<JavaScript Object Notation>,
272 an easy and straight forward exchange format. The C<Content-Type> header field
273 will be set to C<application/json>.
275 A subscribing client I<should> use the C<Content-Type> header field to
276 determine how to decode the values. Currently, the I<AMQP plugin> itself can
277 only decode the B<Command> format.
279 =item B<StoreRates> B<true>|B<false> (Publish only)
281 Determines whether or not C<COUNTER>, C<DERIVE> and C<ABSOLUTE> data sources
282 are converted to a I<rate> (i.e. a C<GAUGE> value). If set to B<false> (the
283 default), no conversion is performed. Otherwise the conversion is performed
284 using the internal value cache.
286 Please note that currently this option is only used if the B<Format> option has
291 =head2 Plugin C<apache>
293 To configure the C<apache>-plugin you first need to configure the Apache
294 webserver correctly. The Apache-plugin C<mod_status> needs to be loaded and
295 working and the C<ExtendedStatus> directive needs to be B<enabled>. You can use
296 the following snipped to base your Apache config upon:
299 <IfModule mod_status.c>
300 <Location /mod_status>
301 SetHandler server-status
305 Since its C<mod_status> module is very similar to Apache's, B<lighttpd> is
306 also supported. It introduces a new field, called C<BusyServers>, to count the
307 number of currently connected clients. This field is also supported.
309 The following options are accepted by the C<apache>-plugin:
313 =item B<URL> I<http://host/mod_status?auto>
315 Sets the URL of the C<mod_status> output. This needs to be the output generated
316 by C<ExtendedStatus on> and it needs to be the machine readable output
317 generated by appending the C<?auto> argument.
319 =item B<User> I<Username>
321 Optional user name needed for authentication.
323 =item B<Password> I<Password>
325 Optional password needed for authentication.
327 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true|false>
329 Enable or disable peer SSL certificate verification. See
330 L<http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html> for details. Enabled by default.
332 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true|false>
334 Enable or disable peer host name verification. If enabled, the plugin checks
335 if the C<Common Name> or a C<Subject Alternate Name> field of the SSL
336 certificate matches the host name provided by the B<URL> option. If this
337 identity check fails, the connection is aborted. Obviously, only works when
338 connecting to a SSL enabled server. Enabled by default.
340 =item B<CACert> I<File>
342 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
343 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
344 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
348 =head2 Plugin C<apcups>
352 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
354 Hostname of the host running B<apcupsd>. Defaults to B<localhost>. Please note
355 that IPv6 support has been disabled unless someone can confirm or decline that
356 B<apcupsd> can handle it.
358 =item B<Port> I<Port>
360 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<3551>.
364 =head2 Plugin C<ascent>
366 This plugin collects information about an Ascent server, a free server for the
367 "World of Warcraft" game. This plugin gathers the information by fetching the
368 XML status page using C<libcurl> and parses it using C<libxml2>.
370 The configuration options are the same as for the C<apache> plugin above:
374 =item B<URL> I<http://localhost/ascent/status/>
376 Sets the URL of the XML status output.
378 =item B<User> I<Username>
380 Optional user name needed for authentication.
382 =item B<Password> I<Password>
384 Optional password needed for authentication.
386 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true|false>
388 Enable or disable peer SSL certificate verification. See
389 L<http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html> for details. Enabled by default.
391 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true|false>
393 Enable or disable peer host name verification. If enabled, the plugin checks
394 if the C<Common Name> or a C<Subject Alternate Name> field of the SSL
395 certificate matches the host name provided by the B<URL> option. If this
396 identity check fails, the connection is aborted. Obviously, only works when
397 connecting to a SSL enabled server. Enabled by default.
399 =item B<CACert> I<File>
401 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
402 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
403 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
407 =head2 Plugin C<bind>
409 Starting with BIND 9.5.0, the most widely used DNS server software provides
410 extensive statistics about queries, responses and lots of other information.
411 The bind plugin retrieves this information that's encoded in XML and provided
412 via HTTP and submits the values to collectd.
414 To use this plugin, you first need to tell BIND to make this information
415 available. This is done with the C<statistics-channels> configuration option:
417 statistics-channels {
418 inet localhost port 8053;
421 The configuration follows the grouping that can be seen when looking at the
422 data with an XSLT compatible viewer, such as a modern web browser. It's
423 probably a good idea to make yourself familiar with the provided values, so you
424 can understand what the collected statistics actually mean.
429 URL "http://localhost:8053/"
443 Zone "127.in-addr.arpa/IN"
447 The bind plugin accepts the following configuration options:
453 URL from which to retrieve the XML data. If not specified,
454 C<http://localhost:8053/> will be used.
456 =item B<OpCodes> I<true>|I<false>
458 When enabled, statistics about the I<"OpCodes">, for example the number of
459 C<QUERY> packets, are collected.
463 =item B<QTypes> I<true>|I<false>
465 When enabled, the number of I<incoming> queries by query types (for example
466 C<A>, C<MX>, C<AAAA>) is collected.
470 =item B<ServerStats> I<true>|I<false>
472 Collect global server statistics, such as requests received over IPv4 and IPv6,
473 successful queries, and failed updates.
477 =item B<ZoneMaintStats> I<true>|I<false>
479 Collect zone maintenance statistics, mostly information about notifications
480 (zone updates) and zone transfers.
484 =item B<ResolverStats> I<true>|I<false>
486 Collect resolver statistics, i.E<nbsp>e. statistics about outgoing requests
487 (e.E<nbsp>g. queries over IPv4, lame servers). Since the global resolver
488 counters apparently were removed in BIND 9.5.1 and 9.6.0, this is disabled by
489 default. Use the B<ResolverStats> option within a B<View "_default"> block
490 instead for the same functionality.
496 Collect global memory statistics.
500 =item B<View> I<Name>
502 Collect statistics about a specific I<"view">. BIND can behave different,
503 mostly depending on the source IP-address of the request. These different
504 configurations are called "views". If you don't use this feature, you most
505 likely are only interested in the C<_default> view.
507 Within a E<lt>B<View>E<nbsp>I<name>E<gt> block, you can specify which
508 information you want to collect about a view. If no B<View> block is
509 configured, no detailed view statistics will be collected.
513 =item B<QTypes> I<true>|I<false>
515 If enabled, the number of I<outgoing> queries by query type (e.E<nbsp>g. C<A>,
520 =item B<ResolverStats> I<true>|I<false>
522 Collect resolver statistics, i.E<nbsp>e. statistics about outgoing requests
523 (e.E<nbsp>g. queries over IPv4, lame servers).
527 =item B<CacheRRSets> I<true>|I<false>
529 If enabled, the number of entries (I<"RR sets">) in the view's cache by query
530 type is collected. Negative entries (queries which resulted in an error, for
531 example names that do not exist) are reported with a leading exclamation mark,
536 =item B<Zone> I<Name>
538 When given, collect detailed information about the given zone in the view. The
539 information collected if very similar to the global B<ServerStats> information
542 You can repeat this option to collect detailed information about multiple
545 By default no detailed zone information is collected.
551 =head2 Plugin C<cpufreq>
553 This plugin doesn't have any options. It reads
554 F</sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq> (for the first CPU
555 installed) to get the current CPU frequency. If this file does not exist make
556 sure B<cpufreqd> (L<http://cpufreqd.sourceforge.net/>) or a similar tool is
557 installed and an "cpu governor" (that's a kernel module) is loaded.
563 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
565 Set the directory to store CSV-files under. Per default CSV-files are generated
566 beneath the daemon's working directory, i.E<nbsp>e. the B<BaseDir>.
567 The special strings B<stdout> and B<stderr> can be used to write to the standard
568 output and standard error channels, respectively. This, of course, only makes
569 much sense when collectd is running in foreground- or non-daemon-mode.
571 =item B<StoreRates> B<true|false>
573 If set to B<true>, convert counter values to rates. If set to B<false> (the
574 default) counter values are stored as is, i.E<nbsp>e. as an increasing integer
579 =head2 Plugin C<curl>
581 The curl plugin uses the B<libcurl> (L<http://curl.haxx.se/>) to read web pages
582 and the match infrastructure (the same code used by the tail plugin) to use
583 regular expressions with the received data.
585 The following example will read the current value of AMD stock from Google's
586 finance page and dispatch the value to collectd.
589 <Page "stock_quotes">
590 URL "http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AAMD"
594 Regex "<span +class=\"pr\"[^>]*> *([0-9]*\\.[0-9]+) *</span>"
595 DSType "GaugeAverage"
596 # Note: `stock_value' is not a standard type.
603 In the B<Plugin> block, there may be one or more B<Page> blocks, each defining
604 a web page and one or more "matches" to be performed on the returned data. The
605 string argument to the B<Page> block is used as plugin instance.
607 The following options are valid within B<Page> blocks:
613 URL of the web site to retrieve. Since a regular expression will be used to
614 extract information from this data, non-binary data is a big plus here ;)
616 =item B<User> I<Name>
618 Username to use if authorization is required to read the page.
620 =item B<Password> I<Password>
622 Password to use if authorization is required to read the page.
624 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true>|B<false>
626 Enable or disable peer SSL certificate verification. See
627 L<http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html> for details. Enabled by default.
629 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true>|B<false>
631 Enable or disable peer host name verification. If enabled, the plugin checks if
632 the C<Common Name> or a C<Subject Alternate Name> field of the SSL certificate
633 matches the host name provided by the B<URL> option. If this identity check
634 fails, the connection is aborted. Obviously, only works when connecting to a
635 SSL enabled server. Enabled by default.
637 =item B<CACert> I<file>
639 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
640 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
641 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
643 =item B<MeasureResponseTime> B<true>|B<false>
645 Measure response time for the request. If this setting is enabled, B<Match>
646 blocks (see below) are optional. Disabled by default.
648 =item B<E<lt>MatchE<gt>>
650 One or more B<Match> blocks that define how to match information in the data
651 returned by C<libcurl>. The C<curl> plugin uses the same infrastructure that's
652 used by the C<tail> plugin, so please see the documentation of the C<tail>
653 plugin below on how matches are defined. If the B<MeasureResponseTime> option
654 is set to B<true>, B<Match> blocks are optional.
658 =head2 Plugin C<curl_json>
660 The B<curl_json plugin> uses B<libcurl> (L<http://curl.haxx.se/>) and
661 B<libyajl> (L<http://www.lloydforge.org/projects/yajl/>) to retrieve JSON data
662 via cURL. This can be used to collect values from CouchDB documents (which are
663 stored JSON notation), for example.
665 The following example will collect several values from the built-in `_stats'
666 runtime statistics module of CouchDB
667 (L<http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/Runtime_Statistics>).
670 <URL "http://localhost:5984/_stats">
672 <Key "httpd/requests/count">
676 <Key "httpd_request_methods/*/count">
677 Type "http_request_methods"
680 <Key "httpd_status_codes/*/count">
681 Type "http_response_codes"
686 Another CouchDB example:
687 The following example will collect the status values from each database:
689 <URL "http://localhost:5984/_all_dbs">
694 <Key "*/doc_del_count">
702 In the B<Plugin> block, there may be one or more B<URL> blocks, each defining
703 a URL to be fetched via HTTP (using libcurl) and one or more B<Key> blocks.
704 The B<Key> string argument must be in a path format, which is used to collect a
705 value from a JSON map object. If a path element of B<Key> is the
706 I<*>E<nbsp>wildcard, the values for all keys will be collectd.
708 The following options are valid within B<URL> blocks:
712 =item B<Instance> I<Instance>
714 Sets the plugin instance to I<Instance>.
716 =item B<User> I<Name>
718 Username to use if authorization is required to read the page.
720 =item B<Password> I<Password>
722 Password to use if authorization is required to read the page.
724 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true>|B<false>
726 Enable or disable peer SSL certificate verification. See
727 L<http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html> for details. Enabled by default.
729 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true>|B<false>
731 Enable or disable peer host name verification. If enabled, the plugin checks if
732 the C<Common Name> or a C<Subject Alternate Name> field of the SSL certificate
733 matches the host name provided by the B<URL> option. If this identity check
734 fails, the connection is aborted. Obviously, only works when connecting to a
735 SSL enabled server. Enabled by default.
737 =item B<CACert> I<file>
739 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
740 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
741 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
745 The following options are valid within B<Key> blocks:
749 =item B<Type> I<Type>
751 Sets the type used to dispatch the values to the daemon. Detailed information
752 about types and their configuration can be found in L<types.db(5)>. This
755 =item B<Instance> I<Instance>
757 Type-instance to use. Defaults to the current map key or current string array element value.
761 =head2 Plugin C<curl_xml>
763 The B<curl_xml plugin> uses B<libcurl> (L<http://curl.haxx.se/>) and B<libxml2>
764 (L<http://xmlsoft.org/>) to retrieve XML data via cURL.
767 <URL "http://localhost/stats.xml">
769 Instance "some_instance"
774 CACert "/path/to/ca.crt"
776 <XPath "table[@id=\"magic_level\"]/tr">
778 #InstancePrefix "prefix-"
780 ValuesFrom "td[2]/span[@class=\"level\"]"
785 In the B<Plugin> block, there may be one or more B<URL> blocks, each defining a
786 URL to be fetched via HTTP (using libcurl). Within each B<URL> block there are
787 options which specify the connection parameters, for example authentication
788 information, and one or more B<XPath> blocks.
790 Each B<XPath> block specifies how to get one type of information. The
791 string argument must be a valid XPath expression which returns a list
792 of "base elements". One value is dispatched for each "base element". The
793 I<type instance> and values are looked up using further I<XPath> expressions
794 that should be relative to the base element.
796 Within the B<URL> block the following options are accepted:
800 =item B<Host> I<Name>
802 Use I<Name> as the host name when submitting values. Defaults to the global
805 =item B<Instance> I<Instance>
807 Use I<Instance> as the plugin instance when submitting values. Defaults to an
808 empty string (no plugin instance).
810 =item B<User> I<User>
811 =item B<Password> I<Password>
812 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true>|B<false>
813 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true>|B<false>
814 =item B<CACert> I<CA Cert File>
816 These options behave exactly equivalent to the appropriate options of the
817 I<cURL> and I<cURL-JSON> plugins. Please see there for a detailed description.
819 =item E<lt>B<XPath> I<XPath-expression>E<gt>
821 Within each B<URL> block, there must be one or more B<XPath> blocks. Each
822 B<XPath> block specifies how to get one type of information. The string
823 argument must be a valid XPath expression which returns a list of "base
824 elements". One value is dispatched for each "base element".
826 Within the B<XPath> block the following options are accepted:
830 =item B<Type> I<Type>
832 Specifies the I<Type> used for submitting patches. This determines the number
833 of values that are required / expected and whether the strings are parsed as
834 signed or unsigned integer or as double values. See L<types.db(5)> for details.
835 This option is required.
837 =item B<InstancePrefix> I<InstancePrefix>
839 Prefix the I<type instance> with I<InstancePrefix>. The values are simply
840 concatenated together without any separator.
841 This option is optional.
843 =item B<InstanceFrom> I<InstanceFrom>
845 Specifies a XPath expression to use for determining the I<type instance>. The
846 XPath expression must return exactly one element. The element's value is then
847 used as I<type instance>, possibly prefixed with I<InstancePrefix> (see above).
849 This value is required. As a special exception, if the "base XPath expression"
850 (the argument to the B<XPath> block) returns exactly one argument, then this
851 option may be omitted.
853 =item B<ValuesFrom> I<ValuesFrom> [I<ValuesFrom> ...]
855 Specifies one or more XPath expression to use for reading the values. The
856 number of XPath expressions must match the number of data sources in the
857 I<type> specified with B<Type> (see above). Each XPath expression must return
858 exactly one element. The element's value is then parsed as a number and used as
859 value for the appropriate value in the value list dispatched to the daemon.
867 This plugin uses the B<dbi> library (L<http://libdbi.sourceforge.net/>) to
868 connect to various databases, execute I<SQL> statements and read back the
869 results. I<dbi> is an acronym for "database interface" in case you were
870 wondering about the name. You can configure how each column is to be
871 interpreted and the plugin will generate one or more data sets from each row
872 returned according to these rules.
874 Because the plugin is very generic, the configuration is a little more complex
875 than those of other plugins. It usually looks something like this:
878 <Query "out_of_stock">
879 Statement "SELECT category, COUNT(*) AS value FROM products WHERE in_stock = 0 GROUP BY category"
880 # Use with MySQL 5.0.0 or later
884 InstancePrefix "out_of_stock"
885 InstancesFrom "category"
889 <Database "product_information">
891 DriverOption "host" "localhost"
892 DriverOption "username" "collectd"
893 DriverOption "password" "aZo6daiw"
894 DriverOption "dbname" "prod_info"
900 The configuration above defines one query with one result and one database. The
901 query is then linked to the database with the B<Query> option I<within> the
902 B<E<lt>DatabaseE<gt>> block. You can have any number of queries and databases
903 and you can also use the B<Include> statement to split up the configuration
904 file in multiple, smaller files. However, the B<E<lt>QueryE<gt>> block I<must>
905 precede the B<E<lt>DatabaseE<gt>> blocks, because the file is interpreted from
908 The following is a complete list of options:
910 =head3 B<Query> blocks
912 Query blocks define I<SQL> statements and how the returned data should be
913 interpreted. They are identified by the name that is given in the opening line
914 of the block. Thus the name needs to be unique. Other than that, the name is
915 not used in collectd.
917 In each B<Query> block, there is one or more B<Result> blocks. B<Result> blocks
918 define which column holds which value or instance information. You can use
919 multiple B<Result> blocks to create multiple values from one returned row. This
920 is especially useful, when queries take a long time and sending almost the same
921 query again and again is not desirable.
925 <Query "environment">
926 Statement "select station, temperature, humidity from environment"
929 # InstancePrefix "foo"
930 InstancesFrom "station"
931 ValuesFrom "temperature"
935 InstancesFrom "station"
936 ValuesFrom "humidity"
940 The following options are accepted:
944 =item B<Statement> I<SQL>
946 Sets the statement that should be executed on the server. This is B<not>
947 interpreted by collectd, but simply passed to the database server. Therefore,
948 the SQL dialect that's used depends on the server collectd is connected to.
950 The query has to return at least two columns, one for the instance and one
951 value. You cannot omit the instance, even if the statement is guaranteed to
952 always return exactly one line. In that case, you can usually specify something
955 Statement "SELECT \"instance\", COUNT(*) AS value FROM table"
957 (That works with MySQL but may not be valid SQL according to the spec. If you
958 use a more strict database server, you may have to select from a dummy table or
961 Please note that some databases, for example B<Oracle>, will fail if you
962 include a semicolon at the end of the statement.
964 =item B<MinVersion> I<Version>
966 =item B<MaxVersion> I<Value>
968 Only use this query for the specified database version. You can use these
969 options to provide multiple queries with the same name but with a slightly
970 different syntax. The plugin will use only those queries, where the specified
971 minimum and maximum versions fit the version of the database in use.
973 The database version is determined by C<dbi_conn_get_engine_version>, see the
974 L<libdbi documentation|http://libdbi.sourceforge.net/docs/programmers-guide/reference-conn.html#DBI-CONN-GET-ENGINE-VERSION>
975 for details. Basically, each part of the version is assumed to be in the range
976 from B<00> to B<99> and all dots are removed. So version "4.1.2" becomes
977 "40102", version "5.0.42" becomes "50042".
979 B<Warning:> The plugin will use B<all> matching queries, so if you specify
980 multiple queries with the same name and B<overlapping> ranges, weird stuff will
981 happen. Don't to it! A valid example would be something along these lines:
992 In the above example, there are three ranges that don't overlap. The last one
993 goes from version "5.1.0" to infinity, meaning "all later versions". Versions
994 before "4.0.0" are not specified.
996 =item B<Type> I<Type>
998 The B<type> that's used for each line returned. See L<types.db(5)> for more
999 details on how types are defined. In short: A type is a predefined layout of
1000 data and the number of values and type of values has to match the type
1003 If you specify "temperature" here, you need exactly one gauge column. If you
1004 specify "if_octets", you will need two counter columns. See the B<ValuesFrom>
1007 There must be exactly one B<Type> option inside each B<Result> block.
1009 =item B<InstancePrefix> I<prefix>
1011 Prepends I<prefix> to the type instance. If B<InstancesFrom> (see below) is not
1012 given, the string is simply copied. If B<InstancesFrom> is given, I<prefix> and
1013 all strings returned in the appropriate columns are concatenated together,
1014 separated by dashes I<("-")>.
1016 =item B<InstancesFrom> I<column0> [I<column1> ...]
1018 Specifies the columns whose values will be used to create the "type-instance"
1019 for each row. If you specify more than one column, the value of all columns
1020 will be joined together with dashes I<("-")> as separation characters.
1022 The plugin itself does not check whether or not all built instances are
1023 different. It's your responsibility to assure that each is unique. This is
1024 especially true, if you do not specify B<InstancesFrom>: B<You> have to make
1025 sure that only one row is returned in this case.
1027 If neither B<InstancePrefix> nor B<InstancesFrom> is given, the type-instance
1030 =item B<ValuesFrom> I<column0> [I<column1> ...]
1032 Names the columns whose content is used as the actual data for the data sets
1033 that are dispatched to the daemon. How many such columns you need is determined
1034 by the B<Type> setting above. If you specify too many or not enough columns,
1035 the plugin will complain about that and no data will be submitted to the
1038 The actual data type in the columns is not that important. The plugin will
1039 automatically cast the values to the right type if it know how to do that. So
1040 it should be able to handle integer an floating point types, as well as strings
1041 (if they include a number at the beginning).
1043 There must be at least one B<ValuesFrom> option inside each B<Result> block.
1047 =head3 B<Database> blocks
1049 Database blocks define a connection to a database and which queries should be
1050 sent to that database. Since the used "dbi" library can handle a wide variety
1051 of databases, the configuration is very generic. If in doubt, refer to libdbi's
1052 documentationE<nbsp>- we stick as close to the terminology used there.
1054 Each database needs a "name" as string argument in the starting tag of the
1055 block. This name will be used as "PluginInstance" in the values submitted to
1056 the daemon. Other than that, that name is not used.
1060 =item B<Driver> I<Driver>
1062 Specifies the driver to use to connect to the database. In many cases those
1063 drivers are named after the database they can connect to, but this is not a
1064 technical necessity. These drivers are sometimes referred to as "DBD",
1065 B<D>ataB<B>ase B<D>river, and some distributions ship them in separate
1066 packages. Drivers for the "dbi" library are developed by the B<libdbi-drivers>
1067 project at L<http://libdbi-drivers.sourceforge.net/>.
1069 You need to give the driver name as expected by the "dbi" library here. You
1070 should be able to find that in the documentation for each driver. If you
1071 mistype the driver name, the plugin will dump a list of all known driver names
1074 =item B<DriverOption> I<Key> I<Value>
1076 Sets driver-specific options. What option a driver supports can be found in the
1077 documentation for each driver, somewhere at
1078 L<http://libdbi-drivers.sourceforge.net/>. However, the options "host",
1079 "username", "password", and "dbname" seem to be deE<nbsp>facto standards.
1081 Unfortunately, drivers are not too keen to report errors when an unknown option
1082 is passed to them, so invalid settings here may go unnoticed. This is not the
1083 plugin's fault, it will report errors if it gets them from the libraryE<nbsp>/
1084 the driver. If a driver complains about an option, the plugin will dump a
1085 complete list of all options understood by that driver to the log.
1087 =item B<SelectDB> I<Database>
1089 In some cases, the database name you connect with is not the database name you
1090 want to use for querying data. If this option is set, the plugin will "select"
1091 (switch to) that database after the connection is established.
1093 =item B<Query> I<QueryName>
1095 Associates the query named I<QueryName> with this database connection. The
1096 query needs to be defined I<before> this statement, i.E<nbsp>e. all query
1097 blocks you want to refer to must be placed above the database block you want to
1106 =item B<Device> I<Device>
1108 Select partitions based on the devicename.
1110 =item B<MountPoint> I<Directory>
1112 Select partitions based on the mountpoint.
1114 =item B<FSType> I<FSType>
1116 Select partitions based on the filesystem type.
1118 =item B<IgnoreSelected> B<true>|B<false>
1120 Invert the selection: If set to true, all partitions B<except> the ones that
1121 match any one of the criteria are collected. By default only selected
1122 partitions are collected if a selection is made. If no selection is configured
1123 at all, B<all> partitions are selected.
1125 =item B<ReportByDevice> B<true>|B<false>
1127 Report using the device name rather than the mountpoint. i.e. with this I<false>,
1128 (the default), it will report a disk as "root", but with it I<true>, it will be
1129 "sda1" (or whichever).
1131 =item B<ReportInodes> B<true>|B<false>
1133 Enables or disables reporting of free, reserved and used inodes. Defaults to
1134 inode collection being disabled.
1136 Enable this option if inodes are a scarce resource for you, usually because
1137 many small files are stored on the disk. This is a usual scenario for mail
1138 transfer agents and web caches.
1142 =head2 Plugin C<disk>
1144 The C<disk> plugin collects information about the usage of physical disks and
1145 logical disks (partitions). Values collected are the number of octets written
1146 to and read from a disk or partition, the number of read/write operations
1147 issued to the disk and a rather complex "time" it took for these commands to be
1150 Using the following two options you can ignore some disks or configure the
1151 collection only of specific disks.
1155 =item B<Disk> I<Name>
1157 Select the disk I<Name>. Whether it is collected or ignored depends on the
1158 B<IgnoreSelected> setting, see below. As with other plugins that use the
1159 daemon's ignorelist functionality, a string that starts and ends with a slash
1160 is interpreted as a regular expression. Examples:
1165 =item B<IgnoreSelected> B<true>|B<false>
1167 Sets whether selected disks, i.E<nbsp>e. the ones matches by any of the B<Disk>
1168 statements, are ignored or if all other disks are ignored. The behavior
1169 (hopefully) is intuitive: If no B<Disk> option is configured, all disks are
1170 collected. If at least one B<Disk> option is given and no B<IgnoreSelected> or
1171 set to B<false>, B<only> matching disks will be collected. If B<IgnoreSelected>
1172 is set to B<true>, all disks are collected B<except> the ones matched.
1176 =head2 Plugin C<dns>
1180 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
1182 The dns plugin uses B<libpcap> to capture dns traffic and analyzes it. This
1183 option sets the interface that should be used. If this option is not set, or
1184 set to "any", the plugin will try to get packets from B<all> interfaces. This
1185 may not work on certain platforms, such as MacE<nbsp>OSE<nbsp>X.
1187 =item B<IgnoreSource> I<IP-address>
1189 Ignore packets that originate from this address.
1191 =item B<SelectNumericQueryTypes> B<true>|B<false>
1193 Enabled by default, collects unknown (and thus presented as numeric only) query types.
1197 =head2 Plugin C<email>
1201 =item B<SocketFile> I<Path>
1203 Sets the socket-file which is to be created.
1205 =item B<SocketGroup> I<Group>
1207 If running as root change the group of the UNIX-socket after it has been
1208 created. Defaults to B<collectd>.
1210 =item B<SocketPerms> I<Permissions>
1212 Change the file permissions of the UNIX-socket after it has been created. The
1213 permissions must be given as a numeric, octal value as you would pass to
1214 L<chmod(1)>. Defaults to B<0770>.
1216 =item B<MaxConns> I<Number>
1218 Sets the maximum number of connections that can be handled in parallel. Since
1219 this many threads will be started immediately setting this to a very high
1220 value will waste valuable resources. Defaults to B<5> and will be forced to be
1221 at most B<16384> to prevent typos and dumb mistakes.
1225 =head2 Plugin C<exec>
1227 Please make sure to read L<collectd-exec(5)> before using this plugin. It
1228 contains valuable information on when the executable is executed and the
1229 output that is expected from it.
1233 =item B<Exec> I<User>[:[I<Group>]] I<Executable> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> ...]]
1235 =item B<NotificationExec> I<User>[:[I<Group>]] I<Executable> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> ...]]
1237 Execute the executable I<Executable> as user I<User>. If the user name is
1238 followed by a colon and a group name, the effective group is set to that group.
1239 The real group and saved-set group will be set to the default group of that
1240 user. If no group is given the effective group ID will be the same as the real
1243 Please note that in order to change the user and/or group the daemon needs
1244 superuser privileges. If the daemon is run as an unprivileged user you must
1245 specify the same user/group here. If the daemon is run with superuser
1246 privileges, you must supply a non-root user here.
1248 The executable may be followed by optional arguments that are passed to the
1249 program. Please note that due to the configuration parsing numbers and boolean
1250 values may be changed. If you want to be absolutely sure that something is
1251 passed as-is please enclose it in quotes.
1253 The B<Exec> and B<NotificationExec> statements change the semantics of the
1254 programs executed, i.E<nbsp>e. the data passed to them and the response
1255 expected from them. This is documented in great detail in L<collectd-exec(5)>.
1259 =head2 Plugin C<filecount>
1261 The C<filecount> plugin counts the number of files in a certain directory (and
1262 its subdirectories) and their combined size. The configuration is very straight
1265 <Plugin "filecount">
1266 <Directory "/var/qmail/queue/mess">
1267 Instance "qmail-message"
1269 <Directory "/var/qmail/queue/todo">
1270 Instance "qmail-todo"
1272 <Directory "/var/lib/php5">
1273 Instance "php5-sessions"
1278 The example above counts the number of files in QMail's queue directories and
1279 the number of PHP5 sessions. Jfiy: The "todo" queue holds the messages that
1280 QMail has not yet looked at, the "message" queue holds the messages that were
1281 classified into "local" and "remote".
1283 As you can see, the configuration consists of one or more C<Directory> blocks,
1284 each of which specifies a directory in which to count the files. Within those
1285 blocks, the following options are recognized:
1289 =item B<Instance> I<Instance>
1291 Sets the plugin instance to I<Instance>. That instance name must be unique, but
1292 it's your responsibility, the plugin doesn't check for that. If not given, the
1293 instance is set to the directory name with all slashes replaced by underscores
1294 and all leading underscores removed.
1296 =item B<Name> I<Pattern>
1298 Only count files that match I<Pattern>, where I<Pattern> is a shell-like
1299 wildcard as understood by L<fnmatch(3)>. Only the B<filename> is checked
1300 against the pattern, not the entire path. In case this makes it easier for you:
1301 This option has been named after the B<-name> parameter to L<find(1)>.
1303 =item B<MTime> I<Age>
1305 Count only files of a specific age: If I<Age> is greater than zero, only files
1306 that haven't been touched in the last I<Age> seconds are counted. If I<Age> is
1307 a negative number, this is inversed. For example, if B<-60> is specified, only
1308 files that have been modified in the last minute will be counted.
1310 The number can also be followed by a "multiplier" to easily specify a larger
1311 timespan. When given in this notation, the argument must in quoted, i.E<nbsp>e.
1312 must be passed as string. So the B<-60> could also be written as B<"-1m"> (one
1313 minute). Valid multipliers are C<s> (second), C<m> (minute), C<h> (hour), C<d>
1314 (day), C<w> (week), and C<y> (year). There is no "month" multiplier. You can
1315 also specify fractional numbers, e.E<nbsp>g. B<"0.5d"> is identical to
1318 =item B<Size> I<Size>
1320 Count only files of a specific size. When I<Size> is a positive number, only
1321 files that are at least this big are counted. If I<Size> is a negative number,
1322 this is inversed, i.E<nbsp>e. only files smaller than the absolute value of
1323 I<Size> are counted.
1325 As with the B<MTime> option, a "multiplier" may be added. For a detailed
1326 description see above. Valid multipliers here are C<b> (byte), C<k> (kilobyte),
1327 C<m> (megabyte), C<g> (gigabyte), C<t> (terabyte), and C<p> (petabyte). Please
1328 note that there are 1000 bytes in a kilobyte, not 1024.
1330 =item B<Recursive> I<true>|I<false>
1332 Controls whether or not to recurse into subdirectories. Enabled by default.
1334 =item B<IncludeHidden> I<true>|I<false>
1336 Controls whether or not to include "hidden" files and directories in the count.
1337 "Hidden" files and directories are those, whose name begins with a dot.
1338 Defaults to I<false>, i.e. by default hidden files and directories are ignored.
1342 =head2 Plugin C<GenericJMX>
1344 The I<GenericJMX plugin> is written in I<Java> and therefore documented in
1345 L<collectd-java(5)>.
1347 =head2 Plugin C<gmond>
1349 The I<gmond> plugin received the multicast traffic sent by B<gmond>, the
1350 statistics collection daemon of Ganglia. Mappings for the standard "metrics"
1351 are built-in, custom mappings may be added via B<Metric> blocks, see below.
1356 MCReceiveFrom "239.2.11.71" "8649"
1357 <Metric "swap_total">
1359 TypeInstance "total"
1362 <Metric "swap_free">
1369 The following metrics are built-in:
1375 load_one, load_five, load_fifteen
1379 cpu_user, cpu_system, cpu_idle, cpu_nice, cpu_wio
1383 mem_free, mem_shared, mem_buffers, mem_cached, mem_total
1395 Available configuration options:
1399 =item B<MCReceiveFrom> I<MCGroup> [I<Port>]
1401 Sets sets the multicast group and UDP port to which to subscribe.
1403 Default: B<239.2.11.71>E<nbsp>/E<nbsp>B<8649>
1405 =item E<lt>B<Metric> I<Name>E<gt>
1407 These blocks add a new metric conversion to the internal table. I<Name>, the
1408 string argument to the B<Metric> block, is the metric name as used by Ganglia.
1412 =item B<Type> I<Type>
1414 Type to map this metric to. Required.
1416 =item B<TypeInstance> I<Instance>
1418 Type-instance to use. Optional.
1420 =item B<DataSource> I<Name>
1422 Data source to map this metric to. If the configured type has exactly one data
1423 source, this is optional. Otherwise the option is required.
1429 =head2 Plugin C<hddtemp>
1431 To get values from B<hddtemp> collectd connects to B<localhost> (127.0.0.1),
1432 port B<7634/tcp>. The B<Host> and B<Port> options can be used to change these
1433 default values, see below. C<hddtemp> has to be running to work correctly. If
1434 C<hddtemp> is not running timeouts may appear which may interfere with other
1437 The B<hddtemp> homepage can be found at
1438 L<http://www.guzu.net/linux/hddtemp.php>.
1442 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
1444 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
1446 =item B<Port> I<Port>
1448 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<7634>.
1452 =head2 Plugin C<interface>
1456 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
1458 Select this interface. By default these interfaces will then be collected. For
1459 a more detailed description see B<IgnoreSelected> below.
1461 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
1463 If no configuration if given, the B<traffic>-plugin will collect data from
1464 all interfaces. This may not be practical, especially for loopback- and
1465 similar interfaces. Thus, you can use the B<Interface>-option to pick the
1466 interfaces you're interested in. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred
1467 to collect all interfaces I<except> a few ones. This option enables you to
1468 do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to I<true> the effect of
1469 B<Interface> is inverted: All selected interfaces are ignored and all
1470 other interfaces are collected.
1474 =head2 Plugin C<ipmi>
1478 =item B<Sensor> I<Sensor>
1480 Selects sensors to collect or to ignore, depending on B<IgnoreSelected>.
1482 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
1484 If no configuration if given, the B<ipmi> plugin will collect data from all
1485 sensors found of type "temperature", "voltage", "current" and "fanspeed".
1486 This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to I<true>
1487 the effect of B<Sensor> is inverted: All selected sensors are ignored and
1488 all other sensors are collected.
1490 =item B<NotifySensorAdd> I<true>|I<false>
1492 If a sensor appears after initialization time of a minute a notification
1495 =item B<NotifySensorRemove> I<true>|I<false>
1497 If a sensor disappears a notification is sent.
1499 =item B<NotifySensorNotPresent> I<true>|I<false>
1501 If you have for example dual power supply and one of them is (un)plugged then
1502 a notification is sent.
1506 =head2 Plugin C<iptables>
1510 =item B<Chain> I<Table> I<Chain> [I<Comment|Number> [I<Name>]]
1512 Select the rules to count. If only I<Table> and I<Chain> are given, this plugin
1513 will collect the counters of all rules which have a comment-match. The comment
1514 is then used as type-instance.
1516 If I<Comment> or I<Number> is given, only the rule with the matching comment or
1517 the I<n>th rule will be collected. Again, the comment (or the number) will be
1518 used as the type-instance.
1520 If I<Name> is supplied, it will be used as the type-instance instead of the
1521 comment or the number.
1525 =head2 Plugin C<irq>
1531 Select this irq. By default these irqs will then be collected. For a more
1532 detailed description see B<IgnoreSelected> below.
1534 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
1536 If no configuration if given, the B<irq>-plugin will collect data from all
1537 irqs. This may not be practical, especially if no interrupts happen. Thus, you
1538 can use the B<Irq>-option to pick the interrupt you're interested in.
1539 Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect all interrupts I<except> a
1540 few ones. This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to
1541 I<true> the effect of B<Irq> is inverted: All selected interrupts are ignored
1542 and all other interrupts are collected.
1546 =head2 Plugin C<java>
1548 The I<Java> plugin makes it possible to write extensions for collectd in Java.
1549 This section only discusses the syntax and semantic of the configuration
1550 options. For more in-depth information on the I<Java> plugin, please read
1551 L<collectd-java(5)>.
1556 JVMArg "-verbose:jni"
1557 JVMArg "-Djava.class.path=/opt/collectd/lib/collectd/bindings/java"
1558 LoadPlugin "org.collectd.java.Foobar"
1559 <Plugin "org.collectd.java.Foobar">
1560 # To be parsed by the plugin
1564 Available configuration options:
1568 =item B<JVMArg> I<Argument>
1570 Argument that is to be passed to the I<Java Virtual Machine> (JVM). This works
1571 exactly the way the arguments to the I<java> binary on the command line work.
1572 Execute C<javaE<nbsp>--help> for details.
1574 Please note that B<all> these options must appear B<before> (i.E<nbsp>e. above)
1575 any other options! When another option is found, the JVM will be started and
1576 later options will have to be ignored!
1578 =item B<LoadPlugin> I<JavaClass>
1580 Instantiates a new I<JavaClass> object. The constructor of this object very
1581 likely then registers one or more callback methods with the server.
1583 See L<collectd-java(5)> for details.
1585 When the first such option is found, the virtual machine (JVM) is created. This
1586 means that all B<JVMArg> options must appear before (i.E<nbsp>e. above) all
1587 B<LoadPlugin> options!
1589 =item B<Plugin> I<Name>
1591 The entire block is passed to the Java plugin as an
1592 I<org.collectd.api.OConfigItem> object.
1594 For this to work, the plugin has to register a configuration callback first,
1595 see L<collectd-java(5)/"config callback">. This means, that the B<Plugin> block
1596 must appear after the appropriate B<LoadPlugin> block. Also note, that I<Name>
1597 depends on the (Java) plugin registering the callback and is completely
1598 independent from the I<JavaClass> argument passed to B<LoadPlugin>.
1602 =head2 Plugin C<libvirt>
1604 This plugin allows CPU, disk and network load to be collected for virtualized
1605 guests on the machine. This means that these characteristics can be collected
1606 for guest systems without installing any software on them - collectd only runs
1607 on the hosting system. The statistics are collected through libvirt
1608 (L<http://libvirt.org/>).
1610 Only I<Connection> is required.
1614 =item B<Connection> I<uri>
1616 Connect to the hypervisor given by I<uri>. For example if using Xen use:
1618 Connection "xen:///"
1620 Details which URIs allowed are given at L<http://libvirt.org/uri.html>.
1622 =item B<RefreshInterval> I<seconds>
1624 Refresh the list of domains and devices every I<seconds>. The default is 60
1625 seconds. Setting this to be the same or smaller than the I<Interval> will cause
1626 the list of domains and devices to be refreshed on every iteration.
1628 Refreshing the devices in particular is quite a costly operation, so if your
1629 virtualization setup is static you might consider increasing this. If this
1630 option is set to 0, refreshing is disabled completely.
1632 =item B<Domain> I<name>
1634 =item B<BlockDevice> I<name:dev>
1636 =item B<InterfaceDevice> I<name:dev>
1638 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
1640 Select which domains and devices are collected.
1642 If I<IgnoreSelected> is not given or I<false> then only the listed domains and
1643 disk/network devices are collected.
1645 If I<IgnoreSelected> is I<true> then the test is reversed and the listed
1646 domains and disk/network devices are ignored, while the rest are collected.
1648 The domain name and device names may use a regular expression, if the name is
1649 surrounded by I</.../> and collectd was compiled with support for regexps.
1651 The default is to collect statistics for all domains and all their devices.
1655 BlockDevice "/:hdb/"
1656 IgnoreSelected "true"
1658 Ignore all I<hdb> devices on any domain, but other block devices (eg. I<hda>)
1661 =item B<HostnameFormat> B<name|uuid|hostname|...>
1663 When the libvirt plugin logs data, it sets the hostname of the collected data
1664 according to this setting. The default is to use the guest name as provided by
1665 the hypervisor, which is equal to setting B<name>.
1667 B<uuid> means use the guest's UUID. This is useful if you want to track the
1668 same guest across migrations.
1670 B<hostname> means to use the global B<Hostname> setting, which is probably not
1671 useful on its own because all guests will appear to have the same name.
1673 You can also specify combinations of these fields. For example B<name uuid>
1674 means to concatenate the guest name and UUID (with a literal colon character
1675 between, thus I<"foo:1234-1234-1234-1234">).
1677 =item B<InterfaceFormat> B<name>|B<address>
1679 When the libvirt plugin logs interface data, it sets the name of the collected
1680 data according to this setting. The default is to use the path as provided by
1681 the hypervisor (the "dev" property of the target node), which is equal to
1684 B<address> means use the interface's mac address. This is useful since the
1685 interface path might change between reboots of a guest or across migrations.
1689 =head2 Plugin C<logfile>
1693 =item B<LogLevel> B<debug|info|notice|warning|err>
1695 Sets the log-level. If, for example, set to B<notice>, then all events with
1696 severity B<notice>, B<warning>, or B<err> will be written to the logfile.
1698 Please note that B<debug> is only available if collectd has been compiled with
1701 =item B<File> I<File>
1703 Sets the file to write log messages to. The special strings B<stdout> and
1704 B<stderr> can be used to write to the standard output and standard error
1705 channels, respectively. This, of course, only makes much sense when collectd is
1706 running in foreground- or non-daemon-mode.
1708 =item B<Timestamp> B<true>|B<false>
1710 Prefix all lines printed by the current time. Defaults to B<true>.
1712 =item B<PrintSeverity> B<true>|B<false>
1714 When enabled, all lines are prefixed by the severity of the log message, for
1715 example "warning". Defaults to B<false>.
1719 B<Note>: There is no need to notify the daemon after moving or removing the
1720 log file (e.E<nbsp>g. when rotating the logs). The plugin reopens the file
1721 for each line it writes.
1723 =head2 Plugin C<mbmon>
1725 The C<mbmon plugin> uses mbmon to retrieve temperature, voltage, etc.
1727 Be default collectd connects to B<localhost> (127.0.0.1), port B<411/tcp>. The
1728 B<Host> and B<Port> options can be used to change these values, see below.
1729 C<mbmon> has to be running to work correctly. If C<mbmon> is not running
1730 timeouts may appear which may interfere with other statistics..
1732 C<mbmon> must be run with the -r option ("print TAG and Value format");
1733 Debian's F</etc/init.d/mbmon> script already does this, other people
1734 will need to ensure that this is the case.
1738 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
1740 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
1742 =item B<Port> I<Port>
1744 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<411>.
1748 =head2 Plugin C<memcachec>
1750 The C<memcachec plugin> connects to a memcached server, queries one or more
1751 given I<pages> and parses the returned data according to user specification.
1752 The I<matches> used are the same as the matches used in the C<curl> and C<tail>
1755 In order to talk to the memcached server, this plugin uses the I<libmemcached>
1756 library. Please note that there is another library with a very similar name,
1757 libmemcache (notice the missing `d'), which is not applicable.
1759 Synopsis of the configuration:
1761 <Plugin "memcachec">
1762 <Page "plugin_instance">
1766 Regex "(\\d+) bytes sent"
1769 Instance "type_instance"
1774 The configuration options are:
1778 =item E<lt>B<Page> I<Name>E<gt>
1780 Each B<Page> block defines one I<page> to be queried from the memcached server.
1781 The block requires one string argument which is used as I<plugin instance>.
1783 =item B<Server> I<Address>
1785 Sets the server address to connect to when querying the page. Must be inside a
1790 When connected to the memcached server, asks for the page I<Key>.
1792 =item E<lt>B<Match>E<gt>
1794 Match blocks define which strings to look for and how matches substrings are
1795 interpreted. For a description of match blocks, please see L<"Plugin tail">.
1799 =head2 Plugin C<memcached>
1801 The C<memcached plugin> connects to a memcached server and queries statistics
1802 about cache utilization, memory and bandwidth used.
1803 L<http://www.danga.com/memcached/>
1807 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
1809 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
1811 =item B<Port> I<Port>
1813 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<11211>.
1817 =head2 Plugin C<modbus>
1819 The B<modbus plugin> connects to a Modbus "slave" via Modbus/TCP and reads
1820 register values. It supports reading single registers (unsigned 16E<nbsp>bit
1821 values), large integer values (unsigned 32E<nbsp>bit values) and floating point
1822 values (two registers interpreted as IEEE floats in big endian notation).
1826 <Data "voltage-input-1">
1833 <Data "voltage-input-2">
1840 <Host "modbus.example.com">
1841 Address "192.168.0.42"
1846 Instance "power-supply"
1847 Collect "voltage-input-1"
1848 Collect "voltage-input-2"
1854 =item E<lt>B<Data> I<Name>E<gt> blocks
1856 Data blocks define a mapping between register numbers and the "types" used by
1859 Within E<lt>DataE<nbsp>/E<gt> blocks, the following options are allowed:
1863 =item B<RegisterBase> I<Number>
1865 Configures the base register to read from the device. If the option
1866 B<RegisterType> has been set to B<Uint32> or B<Float>, this and the next
1867 register will be read (the register number is increased by one).
1869 =item B<RegisterType> B<Uint16>|B<Uint32>|B<Float>
1871 Specifies what kind of data is returned by the device. If the type is B<Uint32>
1872 or B<Float>, two 16E<nbsp>bit registers will be read and the data is combined
1873 into one value. Defaults to B<Uint16>.
1875 =item B<Type> I<Type>
1877 Specifies the "type" (data set) to use when dispatching the value to
1878 I<collectd>. Currently, only data sets with exactly one data source are
1881 =item B<Instance> I<Instance>
1883 Sets the type instance to use when dispatching the value to I<collectd>. If
1884 unset, an empty string (no type instance) is used.
1888 =item E<lt>B<Host> I<Name>E<gt> blocks
1890 Host blocks are used to specify to which hosts to connect and what data to read
1891 from their "slaves". The string argument I<Name> is used as hostname when
1892 dispatching the values to I<collectd>.
1894 Within E<lt>HostE<nbsp>/E<gt> blocks, the following options are allowed:
1898 =item B<Address> I<Hostname>
1900 Specifies the node name (the actual network address) used to connect to the
1901 host. This may be an IP address or a hostname. Please note that the used
1902 I<libmodbus> library only supports IPv4 at the moment.
1904 =item B<Port> I<Service>
1906 Specifies the port used to connect to the host. The port can either be given as
1907 a number or as a service name. Please note that the I<Service> argument must be
1908 a string, even if ports are given in their numerical form. Defaults to "502".
1910 =item B<Interval> I<Interval>
1912 Sets the interval (in seconds) in which the values will be collected from this
1913 host. By default the global B<Interval> setting will be used.
1915 =item E<lt>B<Slave> I<ID>E<gt>
1917 Over each TCP connection, multiple Modbus devices may be reached. The slave ID
1918 is used to specify which device should be addressed. For each device you want
1919 to query, one B<Slave> block must be given.
1921 Within E<lt>SlaveE<nbsp>/E<gt> blocks, the following options are allowed:
1925 =item B<Instance> I<Instance>
1927 Specify the plugin instance to use when dispatching the values to I<collectd>.
1928 By default "slave_I<ID>" is used.
1930 =item B<Collect> I<DataName>
1932 Specifies which data to retrieve from the device. I<DataName> must be the same
1933 string as the I<Name> argument passed to a B<Data> block. You can specify this
1934 option multiple times to collect more than one value from a slave. At least one
1935 B<Collect> option is mandatory.
1943 =head2 Plugin C<mysql>
1945 The C<mysql plugin> requires B<mysqlclient> to be installed. It connects to
1946 one or more databases when started and keeps the connection up as long as
1947 possible. When the connection is interrupted for whatever reason it will try
1948 to re-connect. The plugin will complain loudly in case anything goes wrong.
1950 This plugin issues the MySQL C<SHOW STATUS> / C<SHOW GLOBAL STATUS> command
1951 and collects information about MySQL network traffic, executed statements,
1952 requests, the query cache and threads by evaluating the
1953 C<Bytes_{received,sent}>, C<Com_*>, C<Handler_*>, C<Qcache_*> and C<Threads_*>
1954 return values. Please refer to the B<MySQL reference manual>, I<5.1.6. Server
1955 Status Variables> for an explanation of these values.
1957 Optionally, master and slave statistics may be collected in a MySQL
1958 replication setup. In that case, information about the synchronization state
1959 of the nodes are collected by evaluating the C<Position> return value of the
1960 C<SHOW MASTER STATUS> command and the C<Seconds_Behind_Master>,
1961 C<Read_Master_Log_Pos> and C<Exec_Master_Log_Pos> return values of the
1962 C<SHOW SLAVE STATUS> command. See the B<MySQL reference manual>,
1963 I<12.5.5.21 SHOW MASTER STATUS Syntax> and
1964 I<12.5.5.31 SHOW SLAVE STATUS Syntax> for details.
1979 Socket "/var/run/mysql/mysqld.sock"
1981 SlaveNotifications true
1985 A B<Database> block defines one connection to a MySQL database. It accepts a
1986 single argument which specifies the name of the database. None of the other
1987 options are required. MySQL will use default values as documented in the
1988 section "mysql_real_connect()" in the B<MySQL reference manual>.
1992 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
1994 Hostname of the database server. Defaults to B<localhost>.
1996 =item B<User> I<Username>
1998 Username to use when connecting to the database. The user does not have to be
1999 granted any privileges (which is synonym to granting the C<USAGE> privilege).
2000 Any existing MySQL user will do.
2002 =item B<Password> I<Password>
2004 Password needed to log into the database.
2006 =item B<Database> I<Database>
2008 Select this database. Defaults to I<no database> which is a perfectly reasonable
2009 option for what this plugin does.
2011 =item B<Port> I<Port>
2013 TCP-port to connect to. The port must be specified in its numeric form, but it
2014 must be passed as a string nonetheless. For example:
2018 If B<Host> is set to B<localhost> (the default), this setting has no effect.
2019 See the documentation for the C<mysql_real_connect> function for details.
2021 =item B<Socket> I<Socket>
2023 Specifies the path to the UNIX domain socket of the MySQL server. This option
2024 only has any effect, if B<Host> is set to B<localhost> (the default).
2025 Otherwise, use the B<Port> option above. See the documentation for the
2026 C<mysql_real_connect> function for details.
2028 =item B<MasterStats> I<true|false>
2030 =item B<SlaveStats> I<true|false>
2032 Enable the collection of master / slave statistics in a replication setup.
2034 =item B<SlaveNotifications> I<true|false>
2036 If enabled, the plugin sends a notification if the replication slave I/O and /
2037 or SQL threads are not running.
2041 =head2 Plugin C<netapp>
2043 The netapp plugin can collect various performance and capacity information
2044 from a NetApp filer using the NetApp API.
2046 Please note that NetApp has a wide line of products and a lot of different
2047 software versions for each of these products. This plugin was developed for a
2048 NetApp FAS3040 running OnTap 7.2.3P8 and tested on FAS2050 7.3.1.1L1,
2049 FAS3140 7.2.5.1 and FAS3020 7.2.4P9. It I<should> work for most combinations of
2050 model and software version but it is very hard to test this.
2051 If you have used this plugin with other models and/or software version, feel
2052 free to send us a mail to tell us about the results, even if it's just a short
2055 To collect these data collectd will log in to the NetApp via HTTP(S) and HTTP
2056 basic authentication.
2058 B<Do not use a regular user for this!> Create a special collectd user with just
2059 the minimum of capabilities needed. The user only needs the "login-http-admin"
2060 capability as well as a few more depending on which data will be collected.
2061 Required capabilities are documented below.
2066 <Host "netapp1.example.com">
2090 IgnoreSelectedIO false
2092 IgnoreSelectedOps false
2093 GetLatency "volume0"
2094 IgnoreSelectedLatency false
2101 IgnoreSelectedCapacity false
2104 IgnoreSelectedSnapshot false
2117 The netapp plugin accepts the following configuration options:
2121 =item B<Host> I<Name>
2123 A host block defines one NetApp filer. It will appear in collectd with the name
2124 you specify here which does not have to be its real name nor its hostname.
2126 =item B<Protocol> B<httpd>|B<http>
2128 The protocol collectd will use to query this host.
2136 Valid options: http, https
2138 =item B<Address> I<Address>
2140 The hostname or IP address of the host.
2146 Default: The "host" block's name.
2148 =item B<Port> I<Port>
2150 The TCP port to connect to on the host.
2156 Default: 80 for protocol "http", 443 for protocol "https"
2158 =item B<User> I<User>
2160 =item B<Password> I<Password>
2162 The username and password to use to login to the NetApp.
2168 =item B<Interval> I<Interval>
2174 The following options decide what kind of data will be collected. You can
2175 either use them as a block and fine tune various parameters inside this block,
2176 use them as a single statement to just accept all default values, or omit it to
2177 not collect any data.
2179 The following options are valid inside all blocks:
2183 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
2185 Collect the respective statistics every I<Seconds> seconds. Defaults to the
2186 host specific setting.
2190 =head3 The System block
2192 This will collect various performance data about the whole system.
2194 B<Note:> To get this data the collectd user needs the
2195 "api-perf-object-get-instances" capability.
2199 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
2201 Collect disk statistics every I<Seconds> seconds.
2203 =item B<GetCPULoad> B<true>|B<false>
2205 If you set this option to true the current CPU usage will be read. This will be
2206 the average usage between all CPUs in your NetApp without any information about
2209 B<Note:> These are the same values that the NetApp CLI command "sysstat"
2210 returns in the "CPU" field.
2218 Result: Two value lists of type "cpu", and type instances "idle" and "system".
2220 =item B<GetInterfaces> B<true>|B<false>
2222 If you set this option to true the current traffic of the network interfaces
2223 will be read. This will be the total traffic over all interfaces of your NetApp
2224 without any information about individual interfaces.
2226 B<Note:> This is the same values that the NetApp CLI command "sysstat" returns
2227 in the "Net kB/s" field.
2237 Result: One value list of type "if_octects".
2239 =item B<GetDiskIO> B<true>|B<false>
2241 If you set this option to true the current IO throughput will be read. This
2242 will be the total IO of your NetApp without any information about individual
2243 disks, volumes or aggregates.
2245 B<Note:> This is the same values that the NetApp CLI command "sysstat" returns
2246 in the "DiskE<nbsp>kB/s" field.
2254 Result: One value list of type "disk_octets".
2256 =item B<GetDiskOps> B<true>|B<false>
2258 If you set this option to true the current number of HTTP, NFS, CIFS, FCP,
2259 iSCSI, etc. operations will be read. This will be the total number of
2260 operations on your NetApp without any information about individual volumes or
2263 B<Note:> These are the same values that the NetApp CLI command "sysstat"
2264 returns in the "NFS", "CIFS", "HTTP", "FCP" and "iSCSI" fields.
2272 Result: A variable number of value lists of type "disk_ops_complex". Each type
2273 of operation will result in one value list with the name of the operation as
2278 =head3 The WAFL block
2280 This will collect various performance data about the WAFL file system. At the
2281 moment this just means cache performance.
2283 B<Note:> To get this data the collectd user needs the
2284 "api-perf-object-get-instances" capability.
2286 B<Note:> The interface to get these values is classified as "Diagnostics" by
2287 NetApp. This means that it is not guaranteed to be stable even between minor
2292 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
2294 Collect disk statistics every I<Seconds> seconds.
2296 =item B<GetNameCache> B<true>|B<false>
2304 Result: One value list of type "cache_ratio" and type instance
2307 =item B<GetDirCache> B<true>|B<false>
2315 Result: One value list of type "cache_ratio" and type instance "find_dir_hit".
2317 =item B<GetInodeCache> B<true>|B<false>
2325 Result: One value list of type "cache_ratio" and type instance
2328 =item B<GetBufferCache> B<true>|B<false>
2330 B<Note:> This is the same value that the NetApp CLI command "sysstat" returns
2331 in the "Cache hit" field.
2339 Result: One value list of type "cache_ratio" and type instance "buf_hash_hit".
2343 =head3 The Disks block
2345 This will collect performance data about the individual disks in the NetApp.
2347 B<Note:> To get this data the collectd user needs the
2348 "api-perf-object-get-instances" capability.
2352 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
2354 Collect disk statistics every I<Seconds> seconds.
2356 =item B<GetBusy> B<true>|B<false>
2358 If you set this option to true the busy time of all disks will be calculated
2359 and the value of the busiest disk in the system will be written.
2361 B<Note:> This is the same values that the NetApp CLI command "sysstat" returns
2362 in the "Disk util" field. Probably.
2370 Result: One value list of type "percent" and type instance "disk_busy".
2374 =head3 The VolumePerf block
2376 This will collect various performance data about the individual volumes.
2378 You can select which data to collect about which volume using the following
2379 options. They follow the standard ignorelist semantic.
2381 B<Note:> To get this data the collectd user needs the
2382 I<api-perf-object-get-instances> capability.
2386 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
2388 Collect volume performance data every I<Seconds> seconds.
2390 =item B<GetIO> I<Volume>
2392 =item B<GetOps> I<Volume>
2394 =item B<GetLatency> I<Volume>
2396 Select the given volume for IO, operations or latency statistics collection.
2397 The argument is the name of the volume without the C</vol/> prefix.
2399 Since the standard ignorelist functionality is used here, you can use a string
2400 starting and ending with a slash to specify regular expression matching: To
2401 match the volumes "vol0", "vol2" and "vol7", you can use this regular
2404 GetIO "/^vol[027]$/"
2406 If no regular expression is specified, an exact match is required. Both,
2407 regular and exact matching are case sensitive.
2409 If no volume was specified at all for either of the three options, that data
2410 will be collected for all available volumes.
2412 =item B<IgnoreSelectedIO> B<true>|B<false>
2414 =item B<IgnoreSelectedOps> B<true>|B<false>
2416 =item B<IgnoreSelectedLatency> B<true>|B<false>
2418 When set to B<true>, the volumes selected for IO, operations or latency
2419 statistics collection will be ignored and the data will be collected for all
2422 When set to B<false>, data will only be collected for the specified volumes and
2423 all other volumes will be ignored.
2425 If no volumes have been specified with the above B<Get*> options, all volumes
2426 will be collected regardless of the B<IgnoreSelected*> option.
2428 Defaults to B<false>
2432 =head3 The VolumeUsage block
2434 This will collect capacity data about the individual volumes.
2436 B<Note:> To get this data the collectd user needs the I<api-volume-list-info>
2441 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
2443 Collect volume usage statistics every I<Seconds> seconds.
2445 =item B<GetCapacity> I<VolumeName>
2447 The current capacity of the volume will be collected. This will result in two
2448 to four value lists, depending on the configuration of the volume. All data
2449 sources are of type "df_complex" with the name of the volume as
2452 There will be type_instances "used" and "free" for the number of used and
2453 available bytes on the volume. If the volume has some space reserved for
2454 snapshots, a type_instance "snap_reserved" will be available. If the volume
2455 has SIS enabled, a type_instance "sis_saved" will be available. This is the
2456 number of bytes saved by the SIS feature.
2458 B<Note:> The current NetApp API has a bug that results in this value being
2459 reported as a 32E<nbsp>bit number. This plugin tries to guess the correct
2460 number which works most of the time. If you see strange values here, bug
2461 NetApp support to fix this.
2463 Repeat this option to specify multiple volumes.
2465 =item B<IgnoreSelectedCapacity> B<true>|B<false>
2467 Specify whether to collect only the volumes selected by the B<GetCapacity>
2468 option or to ignore those volumes. B<IgnoreSelectedCapacity> defaults to
2469 B<false>. However, if no B<GetCapacity> option is specified at all, all
2470 capacities will be selected anyway.
2472 =item B<GetSnapshot> I<VolumeName>
2474 Select volumes from which to collect snapshot information.
2476 Usually, the space used for snapshots is included in the space reported as
2477 "used". If snapshot information is collected as well, the space used for
2478 snapshots is subtracted from the used space.
2480 To make things even more interesting, it is possible to reserve space to be
2481 used for snapshots. If the space required for snapshots is less than that
2482 reserved space, there is "reserved free" and "reserved used" space in addition
2483 to "free" and "used". If the space required for snapshots exceeds the reserved
2484 space, that part allocated in the normal space is subtracted from the "used"
2487 Repeat this option to specify multiple volumes.
2489 =item B<IgnoreSelectedSnapshot>
2491 Specify whether to collect only the volumes selected by the B<GetSnapshot>
2492 option or to ignore those volumes. B<IgnoreSelectedSnapshot> defaults to
2493 B<false>. However, if no B<GetSnapshot> option is specified at all, all
2494 capacities will be selected anyway.
2498 =head2 Plugin C<netlink>
2500 The C<netlink> plugin uses a netlink socket to query the Linux kernel about
2501 statistics of various interface and routing aspects.
2505 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
2507 =item B<VerboseInterface> I<Interface>
2509 Instruct the plugin to collect interface statistics. This is basically the same
2510 as the statistics provided by the C<interface> plugin (see above) but
2511 potentially much more detailed.
2513 When configuring with B<Interface> only the basic statistics will be collected,
2514 namely octets, packets, and errors. These statistics are collected by
2515 the C<interface> plugin, too, so using both at the same time is no benefit.
2517 When configured with B<VerboseInterface> all counters B<except> the basic ones,
2518 so that no data needs to be collected twice if you use the C<interface> plugin.
2519 This includes dropped packets, received multicast packets, collisions and a
2520 whole zoo of differentiated RX and TX errors. You can try the following command
2521 to get an idea of what awaits you:
2525 If I<Interface> is B<All>, all interfaces will be selected.
2527 =item B<QDisc> I<Interface> [I<QDisc>]
2529 =item B<Class> I<Interface> [I<Class>]
2531 =item B<Filter> I<Interface> [I<Filter>]
2533 Collect the octets and packets that pass a certain qdisc, class or filter.
2535 QDiscs and classes are identified by their type and handle (or classid).
2536 Filters don't necessarily have a handle, therefore the parent's handle is used.
2537 The notation used in collectd differs from that used in tc(1) in that it
2538 doesn't skip the major or minor number if it's zero and doesn't print special
2539 ids by their name. So, for example, a qdisc may be identified by
2540 C<pfifo_fast-1:0> even though the minor number of B<all> qdiscs is zero and
2541 thus not displayed by tc(1).
2543 If B<QDisc>, B<Class>, or B<Filter> is given without the second argument,
2544 i.E<nbsp>.e. without an identifier, all qdiscs, classes, or filters that are
2545 associated with that interface will be collected.
2547 Since a filter itself doesn't necessarily have a handle, the parent's handle is
2548 used. This may lead to problems when more than one filter is attached to a
2549 qdisc or class. This isn't nice, but we don't know how this could be done any
2550 better. If you have a idea, please don't hesitate to tell us.
2552 As with the B<Interface> option you can specify B<All> as the interface,
2553 meaning all interfaces.
2555 Here are some examples to help you understand the above text more easily:
2558 VerboseInterface "All"
2559 QDisc "eth0" "pfifo_fast-1:0"
2561 Class "ppp0" "htb-1:10"
2562 Filter "ppp0" "u32-1:0"
2565 =item B<IgnoreSelected>
2567 The behavior is the same as with all other similar plugins: If nothing is
2568 selected at all, everything is collected. If some things are selected using the
2569 options described above, only these statistics are collected. If you set
2570 B<IgnoreSelected> to B<true>, this behavior is inverted, i.E<nbsp>e. the
2571 specified statistics will not be collected.
2575 =head2 Plugin C<network>
2577 The Network plugin sends data to a remote instance of collectd, receives data
2578 from a remote instance, or both at the same time. Data which has been received
2579 from the network is usually not transmitted again, but this can be activated, see
2580 the B<Forward> option below.
2582 The default IPv6 multicast group is C<ff18::efc0:4a42>. The default IPv4
2583 multicast group is C<239.192.74.66>. The default I<UDP> port is B<25826>.
2585 Both, B<Server> and B<Listen> can be used as single option or as block. When
2586 used as block, given options are valid for this socket only. For example:
2589 Server "collectd.internal.tld"
2590 <Server "collectd.external.tld">
2591 SecurityLevel "sign"
2592 Username "myhostname"
2599 =item B<E<lt>Server> I<Host> [I<Port>]B<E<gt>>
2601 The B<Server> statement/block sets the server to send datagrams to. The
2602 statement may occur multiple times to send each datagram to multiple
2605 The argument I<Host> may be a hostname, an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address. The
2606 optional second argument specifies a port number or a service name. If not
2607 given, the default, B<25826>, is used.
2609 The following options are recognized within B<Server> blocks:
2613 =item B<SecurityLevel> B<Encrypt>|B<Sign>|B<None>
2615 Set the security you require for network communication. When the security level
2616 has been set to B<Encrypt>, data sent over the network will be encrypted using
2617 I<AES-256>. The integrity of encrypted packets is ensured using I<SHA-1>. When
2618 set to B<Sign>, transmitted data is signed using the I<HMAC-SHA-256> message
2619 authentication code. When set to B<None>, data is sent without any security.
2621 This feature is only available if the I<network> plugin was linked with
2624 =item B<Username> I<Username>
2626 Sets the username to transmit. This is used by the server to lookup the
2627 password. See B<AuthFile> below. All security levels except B<None> require
2630 This feature is only available if the I<network> plugin was linked with
2633 =item B<Password> I<Password>
2635 Sets a password (shared secret) for this socket. All security levels except
2636 B<None> require this setting.
2638 This feature is only available if the I<network> plugin was linked with
2641 =item B<Interface> I<Interface name>
2643 Set the outgoing interface for IP packets. This applies at least
2644 to IPv6 packets and if possible to IPv4. If this option is not applicable,
2645 undefined or a non-existent interface name is specified, the default
2646 behavior is to let the kernel choose the appropriate interface. Be warned
2647 that the manual selection of an interface for unicast traffic is only
2648 necessary in rare cases.
2652 =item B<E<lt>Listen> I<Host> [I<Port>]B<E<gt>>
2654 The B<Listen> statement sets the interfaces to bind to. When multiple
2655 statements are found the daemon will bind to multiple interfaces.
2657 The argument I<Host> may be a hostname, an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address. If
2658 the argument is a multicast address the daemon will join that multicast group.
2659 The optional second argument specifies a port number or a service name. If not
2660 given, the default, B<25826>, is used.
2662 The following options are recognized within C<E<lt>ListenE<gt>> blocks:
2666 =item B<SecurityLevel> B<Encrypt>|B<Sign>|B<None>
2668 Set the security you require for network communication. When the security level
2669 has been set to B<Encrypt>, only encrypted data will be accepted. The integrity
2670 of encrypted packets is ensured using I<SHA-1>. When set to B<Sign>, only
2671 signed and encrypted data is accepted. When set to B<None>, all data will be
2672 accepted. If an B<AuthFile> option was given (see below), encrypted data is
2673 decrypted if possible.
2675 This feature is only available if the I<network> plugin was linked with
2678 =item B<AuthFile> I<Filename>
2680 Sets a file in which usernames are mapped to passwords. These passwords are
2681 used to verify signatures and to decrypt encrypted network packets. If
2682 B<SecurityLevel> is set to B<None>, this is optional. If given, signed data is
2683 verified and encrypted packets are decrypted. Otherwise, signed data is
2684 accepted without checking the signature and encrypted data cannot be decrypted.
2685 For the other security levels this option is mandatory.
2687 The file format is very simple: Each line consists of a username followed by a
2688 colon and any number of spaces followed by the password. To demonstrate, an
2689 example file could look like this:
2694 Each time a packet is received, the modification time of the file is checked
2695 using L<stat(2)>. If the file has been changed, the contents is re-read. While
2696 the file is being read, it is locked using L<fcntl(2)>.
2698 =item B<Interface> I<Interface name>
2700 Set the incoming interface for IP packets explicitly. This applies at least
2701 to IPv6 packets and if possible to IPv4. If this option is not applicable,
2702 undefined or a non-existent interface name is specified, the default
2703 behavior is, to let the kernel choose the appropriate interface. Thus incoming
2704 traffic gets only accepted, if it arrives on the given interface.
2708 =item B<TimeToLive> I<1-255>
2710 Set the time-to-live of sent packets. This applies to all, unicast and
2711 multicast, and IPv4 and IPv6 packets. The default is to not change this value.
2712 That means that multicast packets will be sent with a TTL of C<1> (one) on most
2715 =item B<MaxPacketSize> I<1024-65535>
2717 Set the maximum size for datagrams received over the network. Packets larger
2718 than this will be truncated.
2720 =item B<Forward> I<true|false>
2722 If set to I<true>, write packets that were received via the network plugin to
2723 the sending sockets. This should only be activated when the B<Listen>- and
2724 B<Server>-statements differ. Otherwise packets may be send multiple times to
2725 the same multicast group. While this results in more network traffic than
2726 necessary it's not a huge problem since the plugin has a duplicate detection,
2727 so the values will not loop.
2729 =item B<ReportStats> B<true>|B<false>
2731 The network plugin cannot only receive and send statistics, it can also create
2732 statistics about itself. Collected data included the number of received and
2733 sent octets and packets, the length of the receive queue and the number of
2734 values handled. When set to B<true>, the I<Network plugin> will make these
2735 statistics available. Defaults to B<false>.
2739 =head2 Plugin C<nginx>
2741 This plugin collects the number of connections and requests handled by the
2742 C<nginx daemon> (speak: engineE<nbsp>X), a HTTP and mail server/proxy. It
2743 queries the page provided by the C<ngx_http_stub_status_module> module, which
2744 isn't compiled by default. Please refer to
2745 L<http://wiki.codemongers.com/NginxStubStatusModule> for more information on
2746 how to compile and configure nginx and this module.
2748 The following options are accepted by the C<nginx plugin>:
2752 =item B<URL> I<http://host/nginx_status>
2754 Sets the URL of the C<ngx_http_stub_status_module> output.
2756 =item B<User> I<Username>
2758 Optional user name needed for authentication.
2760 =item B<Password> I<Password>
2762 Optional password needed for authentication.
2764 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true|false>
2766 Enable or disable peer SSL certificate verification. See
2767 L<http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html> for details. Enabled by default.
2769 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true|false>
2771 Enable or disable peer host name verification. If enabled, the plugin checks
2772 if the C<Common Name> or a C<Subject Alternate Name> field of the SSL
2773 certificate matches the host name provided by the B<URL> option. If this
2774 identity check fails, the connection is aborted. Obviously, only works when
2775 connecting to a SSL enabled server. Enabled by default.
2777 =item B<CACert> I<File>
2779 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
2780 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
2781 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
2785 =head2 Plugin C<notify_desktop>
2787 This plugin sends a desktop notification to a notification daemon, as defined
2788 in the Desktop Notification Specification. To actually display the
2789 notifications, B<notification-daemon> is required and B<collectd> has to be
2790 able to access the X server.
2792 The Desktop Notification Specification can be found at
2793 L<http://www.galago-project.org/specs/notification/>.
2797 =item B<OkayTimeout> I<timeout>
2799 =item B<WarningTimeout> I<timeout>
2801 =item B<FailureTimeout> I<timeout>
2803 Set the I<timeout>, in milliseconds, after which to expire the notification
2804 for C<OKAY>, C<WARNING> and C<FAILURE> severities respectively. If zero has
2805 been specified, the displayed notification will not be closed at all - the
2806 user has to do so herself. These options default to 5000. If a negative number
2807 has been specified, the default is used as well.
2811 =head2 Plugin C<notify_email>
2813 The I<notify_email> plugin uses the I<ESMTP> library to send notifications to a
2814 configured email address.
2816 I<libESMTP> is available from L<http://www.stafford.uklinux.net/libesmtp/>.
2818 Available configuration options:
2822 =item B<From> I<Address>
2824 Email address from which the emails should appear to come from.
2826 Default: C<root@localhost>
2828 =item B<Recipient> I<Address>
2830 Configures the email address(es) to which the notifications should be mailed.
2831 May be repeated to send notifications to multiple addresses.
2833 At least one B<Recipient> must be present for the plugin to work correctly.
2835 =item B<SMTPServer> I<Hostname>
2837 Hostname of the SMTP server to connect to.
2839 Default: C<localhost>
2841 =item B<SMTPPort> I<Port>
2843 TCP port to connect to.
2847 =item B<SMTPUser> I<Username>
2849 Username for ASMTP authentication. Optional.
2851 =item B<SMTPPassword> I<Password>
2853 Password for ASMTP authentication. Optional.
2855 =item B<Subject> I<Subject>
2857 Subject-template to use when sending emails. There must be exactly two
2858 string-placeholders in the subject, given in the standard I<printf(3)> syntax,
2859 i.E<nbsp>e. C<%s>. The first will be replaced with the severity, the second
2862 Default: C<Collectd notify: %s@%s>
2866 =head2 Plugin C<ntpd>
2870 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
2872 Hostname of the host running B<ntpd>. Defaults to B<localhost>.
2874 =item B<Port> I<Port>
2876 UDP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<123>.
2878 =item B<ReverseLookups> B<true>|B<false>
2880 Sets whether or not to perform reverse lookups on peers. Since the name or
2881 IP-address may be used in a filename it is recommended to disable reverse
2882 lookups. The default is to do reverse lookups to preserve backwards
2883 compatibility, though.
2887 =head2 Plugin C<nut>
2891 =item B<UPS> I<upsname>B<@>I<hostname>[B<:>I<port>]
2893 Add a UPS to collect data from. The format is identical to the one accepted by
2898 =head2 Plugin C<olsrd>
2900 The I<olsrd> plugin connects to the TCP port opened by the I<txtinfo> plugin of
2901 the Optimized Link State Routing daemon and reads information about the current
2902 state of the meshed network.
2904 The following configuration options are understood:
2908 =item B<Host> I<Host>
2910 Connect to I<Host>. Defaults to B<"localhost">.
2912 =item B<Port> I<Port>
2914 Specifies the port to connect to. This must be a string, even if you give the
2915 port as a number rather than a service name. Defaults to B<"2006">.
2917 =item B<CollectLinks> B<No>|B<Summary>|B<Detail>
2919 Specifies what information to collect about links, i.E<nbsp>e. direct
2920 connections of the daemon queried. If set to B<No>, no information is
2921 collected. If set to B<Summary>, the number of links and the average of all
2922 I<link quality> (LQ) and I<neighbor link quality> (NLQ) values is calculated.
2923 If set to B<Detail> LQ and NLQ are collected per link.
2925 Defaults to B<Detail>.
2927 =item B<CollectRoutes> B<No>|B<Summary>|B<Detail>
2929 Specifies what information to collect about routes of the daemon queried. If
2930 set to B<No>, no information is collected. If set to B<Summary>, the number of
2931 routes and the average I<metric> and I<ETX> is calculated. If set to B<Detail>
2932 metric and ETX are collected per route.
2934 Defaults to B<Summary>.
2936 =item B<CollectTopology> B<No>|B<Summary>|B<Detail>
2938 Specifies what information to collect about the global topology. If set to
2939 B<No>, no information is collected. If set to B<Summary>, the number of links
2940 in the entire topology and the average I<link quality> (LQ) is calculated.
2941 If set to B<Detail> LQ and NLQ are collected for each link in the entire topology.
2943 Defaults to B<Summary>.
2947 =head2 Plugin C<onewire>
2949 B<EXPERIMENTAL!> See notes below.
2951 The C<onewire> plugin uses the B<owcapi> library from the B<owfs> project
2952 L<http://owfs.org/> to read sensors connected via the onewire bus.
2954 Currently only temperature sensors (sensors with the family code C<10>,
2955 e.E<nbsp>g. DS1820, DS18S20, DS1920) can be read. If you have other sensors you
2956 would like to have included, please send a sort request to the mailing list.
2958 Hubs (the DS2409 chips) are working, but read the note, why this plugin is
2959 experimental, below.
2963 =item B<Device> I<Device>
2965 Sets the device to read the values from. This can either be a "real" hardware
2966 device, such as a serial port or an USB port, or the address of the
2967 L<owserver(1)> socket, usually B<localhost:4304>.
2969 Though the documentation claims to automatically recognize the given address
2970 format, with versionE<nbsp>2.7p4 we had to specify the type explicitly. So
2971 with that version, the following configuration worked for us:
2974 Device "-s localhost:4304"
2977 This directive is B<required> and does not have a default value.
2979 =item B<Sensor> I<Sensor>
2981 Selects sensors to collect or to ignore, depending on B<IgnoreSelected>, see
2982 below. Sensors are specified without the family byte at the beginning, to you'd
2983 use C<F10FCA000800>, and B<not> include the leading C<10.> family byte and
2986 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
2988 If no configuration if given, the B<onewire> plugin will collect data from all
2989 sensors found. This may not be practical, especially if sensors are added and
2990 removed regularly. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect only
2991 specific sensors or all sensors I<except> a few specified ones. This option
2992 enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to I<true> the effect of
2993 B<Sensor> is inverted: All selected interfaces are ignored and all other
2994 interfaces are collected.
2996 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
2998 Sets the interval in which all sensors should be read. If not specified, the
2999 global B<Interval> setting is used.
3003 B<EXPERIMENTAL!> The C<onewire> plugin is experimental, because it doesn't yet
3004 work with big setups. It works with one sensor being attached to one
3005 controller, but as soon as you throw in a couple more senors and maybe a hub
3006 or two, reading all values will take more than ten seconds (the default
3007 interval). We will probably add some separate thread for reading the sensors
3008 and some cache or something like that, but it's not done yet. We will try to
3009 maintain backwards compatibility in the future, but we can't promise. So in
3010 short: If it works for you: Great! But keep in mind that the config I<might>
3011 change, though this is unlikely. Oh, and if you want to help improving this
3012 plugin, just send a short notice to the mailing list. ThanksE<nbsp>:)
3014 =head2 Plugin C<openvpn>
3016 The OpenVPN plugin reads a status file maintained by OpenVPN and gathers
3017 traffic statistics about connected clients.
3019 To set up OpenVPN to write to the status file periodically, use the
3020 B<--status> option of OpenVPN. Since OpenVPN can write two different formats,
3021 you need to set the required format, too. This is done by setting
3022 B<--status-version> to B<2>.
3024 So, in a nutshell you need:
3026 openvpn $OTHER_OPTIONS \
3027 --status "/var/run/openvpn-status" 10 \
3034 =item B<StatusFile> I<File>
3036 Specifies the location of the status file.
3038 =item B<ImprovedNamingSchema> B<true>|B<false>
3040 When enabled, the filename of the status file will be used as plugin instance
3041 and the client's "common name" will be used as type instance. This is required
3042 when reading multiple status files. Enabling this option is recommended, but to
3043 maintain backwards compatibility this option is disabled by default.
3045 =item B<CollectCompression> B<true>|B<false>
3047 Sets whether or not statistics about the compression used by OpenVPN should be
3048 collected. This information is only available in I<single> mode. Enabled by
3051 =item B<CollectIndividualUsers> B<true>|B<false>
3053 Sets whether or not traffic information is collected for each connected client
3054 individually. If set to false, currently no traffic data is collected at all
3055 because aggregating this data in a save manner is tricky. Defaults to B<true>.
3057 =item B<CollectUserCount> B<true>|B<false>
3059 When enabled, the number of currently connected clients or users is collected.
3060 This is especially interesting when B<CollectIndividualUsers> is disabled, but
3061 can be configured independently from that option. Defaults to B<false>.
3065 =head2 Plugin C<oracle>
3067 The "oracle" plugin uses the Oracle® Call Interface I<(OCI)> to connect to an
3068 Oracle® Database and lets you execute SQL statements there. It is very similar
3069 to the "dbi" plugin, because it was written around the same time. See the "dbi"
3070 plugin's documentation above for details.
3073 <Query "out_of_stock">
3074 Statement "SELECT category, COUNT(*) AS value FROM products WHERE in_stock = 0 GROUP BY category"
3077 # InstancePrefix "foo"
3078 InstancesFrom "category"
3082 <Database "product_information">
3086 Query "out_of_stock"
3090 =head3 B<Query> blocks
3092 The Query blocks are handled identically to the Query blocks of the "dbi"
3093 plugin. Please see its documentation above for details on how to specify
3096 =head3 B<Database> blocks
3098 Database blocks define a connection to a database and which queries should be
3099 sent to that database. Each database needs a "name" as string argument in the
3100 starting tag of the block. This name will be used as "PluginInstance" in the
3101 values submitted to the daemon. Other than that, that name is not used.
3105 =item B<ConnectID> I<ID>
3107 Defines the "database alias" or "service name" to connect to. Usually, these
3108 names are defined in the file named C<$ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/tnsnames.ora>.
3110 =item B<Username> I<Username>
3112 Username used for authentication.
3114 =item B<Password> I<Password>
3116 Password used for authentication.
3118 =item B<Query> I<QueryName>
3120 Associates the query named I<QueryName> with this database connection. The
3121 query needs to be defined I<before> this statement, i.E<nbsp>e. all query
3122 blocks you want to refer to must be placed above the database block you want to
3127 =head2 Plugin C<perl>
3129 This plugin embeds a Perl-interpreter into collectd and provides an interface
3130 to collectd's plugin system. See L<collectd-perl(5)> for its documentation.
3132 =head2 Plugin C<pinba>
3134 The I<Pinba plugin> receives profiling information from I<Pinba>, an extension
3135 for the I<PHP> interpreter. At the end of executing a script, i.e. after a
3136 PHP-based webpage has been delivered, the extension will send a UDP packet
3137 containing timing information, peak memory usage and so on. The plugin will
3138 wait for such packets, parse them and account the provided information, which
3139 is then dispatched to the daemon once per interval.
3146 # Overall statistics for the website.
3148 Server "www.example.com"
3150 # Statistics for www-a only
3152 Host "www-a.example.com"
3153 Server "www.example.com"
3155 # Statistics for www-b only
3157 Host "www-b.example.com"
3158 Server "www.example.com"
3162 The plugin provides the following configuration options:
3166 =item B<Address> I<Node>
3168 Configures the address used to open a listening socket. By default, plugin will
3169 bind to the I<any> address C<::0>.
3171 =item B<Port> I<Service>
3173 Configures the port (service) to bind to. By default the default Pinba port
3174 "30002" will be used. The option accepts service names in addition to port
3175 numbers and thus requires a I<string> argument.
3177 =item E<lt>B<View> I<Name>E<gt> block
3179 The packets sent by the Pinba extension include the hostname of the server, the
3180 server name (the name of the virtual host) and the script that was executed.
3181 Using B<View> blocks it is possible to separate the data into multiple groups
3182 to get more meaningful statistics. Each packet is added to all matching groups,
3183 so that a packet may be accounted for more than once.
3187 =item B<Host> I<Host>
3189 Matches the hostname of the system the webserver / script is running on. This
3190 will contain the result of the L<gethostname(2)> system call. If not
3191 configured, all hostnames will be accepted.
3193 =item B<Server> I<Server>
3195 Matches the name of the I<virtual host>, i.e. the contents of the
3196 C<$_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"]> variable when within PHP. If not configured, all
3197 server names will be accepted.
3199 =item B<Script> I<Script>
3201 Matches the name of the I<script name>, i.e. the contents of the
3202 C<$_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"]> variable when within PHP. If not configured, all
3203 script names will be accepted.
3209 =head2 Plugin C<ping>
3211 The I<Ping> plugin starts a new thread which sends ICMP "ping" packets to the
3212 configured hosts periodically and measures the network latency. Whenever the
3213 C<read> function of the plugin is called, it submits the average latency, the
3214 standard deviation and the drop rate for each host.
3216 Available configuration options:
3220 =item B<Host> I<IP-address>
3222 Host to ping periodically. This option may be repeated several times to ping
3225 =item B<Interval> I<Seconds>
3227 Sets the interval in which to send ICMP echo packets to the configured hosts.
3228 This is B<not> the interval in which statistics are queries from the plugin but
3229 the interval in which the hosts are "pinged". Therefore, the setting here
3230 should be smaller than or equal to the global B<Interval> setting. Fractional
3231 times, such as "1.24" are allowed.
3235 =item B<Timeout> I<Seconds>
3237 Time to wait for a response from the host to which an ICMP packet had been
3238 sent. If a reply was not received after I<Seconds> seconds, the host is assumed
3239 to be down or the packet to be dropped. This setting must be smaller than the
3240 B<Interval> setting above for the plugin to work correctly. Fractional
3241 arguments are accepted.
3245 =item B<TTL> I<0-255>
3247 Sets the Time-To-Live of generated ICMP packets.
3249 =item B<SourceAddress> I<host>
3251 Sets the source address to use. I<host> may either be a numerical network
3252 address or a network hostname.
3254 =item B<Device> I<name>
3256 Sets the outgoing network device to be used. I<name> has to specify an
3257 interface name (e.E<nbsp>g. C<eth0>). This might not be supported by all
3260 =item B<MaxMissed> I<Packets>
3262 Trigger a DNS resolve after the host has not replied to I<Packets> packets. This
3263 enables the use of dynamic DNS services (like dyndns.org) with the ping plugin.
3265 Default: B<-1> (disabled)
3269 =head2 Plugin C<postgresql>
3271 The C<postgresql> plugin queries statistics from PostgreSQL databases. It
3272 keeps a persistent connection to all configured databases and tries to
3273 reconnect if the connection has been interrupted. A database is configured by
3274 specifying a B<Database> block as described below. The default statistics are
3275 collected from PostgreSQL's B<statistics collector> which thus has to be
3276 enabled for this plugin to work correctly. This should usually be the case by
3277 default. See the section "The Statistics Collector" of the B<PostgreSQL
3278 Documentation> for details.
3280 By specifying custom database queries using a B<Query> block as described
3281 below, you may collect any data that is available from some PostgreSQL
3282 database. This way, you are able to access statistics of external daemons
3283 which are available in a PostgreSQL database or use future or special
3284 statistics provided by PostgreSQL without the need to upgrade your collectd
3287 The B<PostgreSQL Documentation> manual can be found at
3288 L<http://www.postgresql.org/docs/manuals/>.
3292 Statement "SELECT magic FROM wizard WHERE host = $1;"
3296 InstancePrefix "magic"
3301 <Query rt36_tickets>
3302 Statement "SELECT COUNT(type) AS count, type \
3304 WHEN resolved = 'epoch' THEN 'open' \
3305 ELSE 'resolved' END AS type \
3306 FROM tickets) type \
3310 InstancePrefix "rt36_tickets"
3311 InstancesFrom "type"
3322 KRBSrvName "kerberos_service_name"
3328 Service "service_name"
3329 Query backend # predefined
3334 The B<Query> block defines one database query which may later be used by a
3335 database definition. It accepts a single mandatory argument which specifies
3336 the name of the query. The names of all queries have to be unique (see the
3337 B<MinVersion> and B<MaxVersion> options below for an exception to this
3338 rule). The following configuration options are available to define the query:
3340 In each B<Query> block, there is one or more B<Result> blocks. B<Result>
3341 blocks define how to handle the values returned from the query. They define
3342 which column holds which value and how to dispatch that value to the daemon.
3343 Multiple B<Result> blocks may be used to extract multiple values from a single
3348 =item B<Statement> I<sql query statement>
3350 Specify the I<sql query statement> which the plugin should execute. The string
3351 may contain the tokens B<$1>, B<$2>, etc. which are used to reference the
3352 first, second, etc. parameter. The value of the parameters is specified by the
3353 B<Param> configuration option - see below for details. To include a literal
3354 B<$> character followed by a number, surround it with single quotes (B<'>).
3356 Any SQL command which may return data (such as C<SELECT> or C<SHOW>) is
3357 allowed. Note, however, that only a single command may be used. Semicolons are
3358 allowed as long as a single non-empty command has been specified only.
3360 The returned lines will be handled separately one after another.
3362 =item B<Query> I<sql query statement>
3364 This is a deprecated synonym for B<Statement>. It will be removed in version 5
3367 =item B<Param> I<hostname>|I<database>|I<username>|I<interval>
3369 Specify the parameters which should be passed to the SQL query. The parameters
3370 are referred to in the SQL query as B<$1>, B<$2>, etc. in the same order as
3371 they appear in the configuration file. The value of the parameter is
3372 determined depending on the value of the B<Param> option as follows:
3378 The configured hostname of the database connection. If a UNIX domain socket is
3379 used, the parameter expands to "localhost".
3383 The name of the database of the current connection.
3387 The username used to connect to the database.
3391 The interval with which this database is queried (as specified by the database
3392 specific or global B<Interval> options).
3396 Please note that parameters are only supported by PostgreSQL's protocol
3397 version 3 and above which was introduced in version 7.4 of PostgreSQL.
3399 =item B<Type> I<type>
3401 The I<type> name to be used when dispatching the values. The type describes
3402 how to handle the data and where to store it. See L<types.db(5)> for more
3403 details on types and their configuration. The number and type of values (as
3404 selected by the B<ValuesFrom> option) has to match the type of the given name.
3406 This option is required inside a B<Result> block.
3408 =item B<InstancePrefix> I<prefix>
3410 =item B<InstancesFrom> I<column0> [I<column1> ...]
3412 Specify how to create the "TypeInstance" for each data set (i.E<nbsp>e. line).
3413 B<InstancePrefix> defines a static prefix that will be prepended to all type
3414 instances. B<InstancesFrom> defines the column names whose values will be used
3415 to create the type instance. Multiple values will be joined together using the
3416 hyphen (C<->) as separation character.
3418 The plugin itself does not check whether or not all built instances are
3419 different. It is your responsibility to assure that each is unique.
3421 Both options are optional. If none is specified, the type instance will be
3424 =item B<ValuesFrom> I<column0> [I<column1> ...]
3426 Names the columns whose content is used as the actual data for the data sets
3427 that are dispatched to the daemon. How many such columns you need is
3428 determined by the B<Type> setting as explained above. If you specify too many
3429 or not enough columns, the plugin will complain about that and no data will be
3430 submitted to the daemon.
3432 The actual data type, as seen by PostgreSQL, is not that important as long as
3433 it represents numbers. The plugin will automatically cast the values to the
3434 right type if it know how to do that. For that, it uses the L<strtoll(3)> and
3435 L<strtod(3)> functions, so anything supported by those functions is supported
3436 by the plugin as well.
3438 This option is required inside a B<Result> block and may be specified multiple
3439 times. If multiple B<ValuesFrom> options are specified, the columns are read
3442 =item B<Column> I<type> [I<type instance>]
3444 This is a deprecated alternative to a B<Result> block. It will be removed in
3445 version 5 of collectd. It is equivalent to the following B<Result> block:
3449 InstancePrefix I<type instance>
3450 ValuesFrom I<name of the x. column>
3453 The order of the B<Column> options defines which columns of the query result
3454 should be used. The first option specifies the data found in the first column,
3455 the second option that of the second column, and so on.
3457 =item B<MinVersion> I<version>
3459 =item B<MaxVersion> I<version>
3461 Specify the minimum or maximum version of PostgreSQL that this query should be
3462 used with. Some statistics might only be available with certain versions of
3463 PostgreSQL. This allows you to specify multiple queries with the same name but
3464 which apply to different versions, thus allowing you to use the same
3465 configuration in a heterogeneous environment.
3467 The I<version> has to be specified as the concatenation of the major, minor
3468 and patch-level versions, each represented as two-decimal-digit numbers. For
3469 example, version 8.2.3 will become 80203.
3471 =item B<MinPGVersion> I<version>
3473 =item B<MaxPGVersion> I<version>
3475 These are deprecated synonyms for B<MinVersion> and B<MaxVersion>
3476 respectively. They will be removed in version 5 of collectd.
3480 The following predefined queries are available (the definitions can be found
3481 in the F<postgresql_default.conf> file which, by default, is available at
3482 C<I<prefix>/share/collectd/>):
3488 This query collects the number of backends, i.E<nbsp>e. the number of
3491 =item B<transactions>
3493 This query collects the numbers of committed and rolled-back transactions of
3498 This query collects the numbers of various table modifications (i.E<nbsp>e.
3499 insertions, updates, deletions) of the user tables.
3501 =item B<query_plans>
3503 This query collects the numbers of various table scans and returned tuples of
3506 =item B<table_states>
3508 This query collects the numbers of live and dead rows in the user tables.
3512 This query collects disk block access counts for user tables.
3516 This query collects the on-disk size of the database in bytes.
3520 The B<Database> block defines one PostgreSQL database for which to collect
3521 statistics. It accepts a single mandatory argument which specifies the
3522 database name. None of the other options are required. PostgreSQL will use
3523 default values as documented in the section "CONNECTING TO A DATABASE" in the
3524 L<psql(1)> manpage. However, be aware that those defaults may be influenced by
3525 the user collectd is run as and special environment variables. See the manpage
3530 =item B<Interval> I<seconds>
3532 Specify the interval with which the database should be queried. The default is
3533 to use the global B<Interval> setting.
3535 =item B<Host> I<hostname>
3537 Specify the hostname or IP of the PostgreSQL server to connect to. If the
3538 value begins with a slash, it is interpreted as the directory name in which to
3539 look for the UNIX domain socket.
3541 This option is also used to determine the hostname that is associated with a
3542 collected data set. If it has been omitted or either begins with with a slash
3543 or equals B<localhost> it will be replaced with the global hostname definition
3544 of collectd. Any other value will be passed literally to collectd when
3545 dispatching values. Also see the global B<Hostname> and B<FQDNLookup> options.
3547 =item B<Port> I<port>
3549 Specify the TCP port or the local UNIX domain socket file extension of the
3552 =item B<User> I<username>
3554 Specify the username to be used when connecting to the server.
3556 =item B<Password> I<password>
3558 Specify the password to be used when connecting to the server.
3560 =item B<SSLMode> I<disable>|I<allow>|I<prefer>|I<require>
3562 Specify whether to use an SSL connection when contacting the server. The
3563 following modes are supported:
3569 Do not use SSL at all.
3573 First, try to connect without using SSL. If that fails, try using SSL.
3575 =item I<prefer> (default)
3577 First, try to connect using SSL. If that fails, try without using SSL.
3585 =item B<KRBSrvName> I<kerberos_service_name>
3587 Specify the Kerberos service name to use when authenticating with Kerberos 5
3588 or GSSAPI. See the sections "Kerberos authentication" and "GSSAPI" of the
3589 B<PostgreSQL Documentation> for details.
3591 =item B<Service> I<service_name>
3593 Specify the PostgreSQL service name to use for additional parameters. That
3594 service has to be defined in F<pg_service.conf> and holds additional
3595 connection parameters. See the section "The Connection Service File" in the
3596 B<PostgreSQL Documentation> for details.
3598 =item B<Query> I<query>
3600 Specify a I<query> which should be executed for the database connection. This
3601 may be any of the predefined or user-defined queries. If no such option is
3602 given, it defaults to "backends", "transactions", "queries", "query_plans",
3603 "table_states", "disk_io" and "disk_usage". Else, the specified queries are
3608 =head2 Plugin C<powerdns>
3610 The C<powerdns> plugin queries statistics from an authoritative PowerDNS
3611 nameserver and/or a PowerDNS recursor. Since both offer a wide variety of
3612 values, many of which are probably meaningless to most users, but may be useful
3613 for some. So you may chose which values to collect, but if you don't, some
3614 reasonable defaults will be collected.
3617 <Server "server_name">
3619 Collect "udp-answers" "udp-queries"
3620 Socket "/var/run/pdns.controlsocket"
3622 <Recursor "recursor_name">
3624 Collect "cache-hits" "cache-misses"
3625 Socket "/var/run/pdns_recursor.controlsocket"
3627 LocalSocket "/opt/collectd/var/run/collectd-powerdns"
3632 =item B<Server> and B<Recursor> block
3634 The B<Server> block defines one authoritative server to query, the B<Recursor>
3635 does the same for an recursing server. The possible options in both blocks are
3636 the same, though. The argument defines a name for the serverE<nbsp>/ recursor
3641 =item B<Collect> I<Field>
3643 Using the B<Collect> statement you can select which values to collect. Here,
3644 you specify the name of the values as used by the PowerDNS servers, e.E<nbsp>g.
3645 C<dlg-only-drops>, C<answers10-100>.
3647 The method of getting the values differs for B<Server> and B<Recursor> blocks:
3648 When querying the server a C<SHOW *> command is issued in any case, because
3649 that's the only way of getting multiple values out of the server at once.
3650 collectd then picks out the values you have selected. When querying the
3651 recursor, a command is generated to query exactly these values. So if you
3652 specify invalid fields when querying the recursor, a syntax error may be
3653 returned by the daemon and collectd may not collect any values at all.
3655 If no B<Collect> statement is given, the following B<Server> values will be
3662 =item packetcache-hit
3664 =item packetcache-miss
3666 =item packetcache-size
3668 =item query-cache-hit
3670 =item query-cache-miss
3672 =item recursing-answers
3674 =item recursing-questions
3686 The following B<Recursor> values will be collected by default:
3690 =item noerror-answers
3692 =item nxdomain-answers
3694 =item servfail-answers
3712 Please note that up to that point collectd doesn't know what values are
3713 available on the server and values that are added do not need a change of the
3714 mechanism so far. However, the values must be mapped to collectd's naming
3715 scheme, which is done using a lookup table that lists all known values. If
3716 values are added in the future and collectd does not know about them, you will
3717 get an error much like this:
3719 powerdns plugin: submit: Not found in lookup table: foobar = 42
3721 In this case please file a bug report with the collectd team.
3723 =item B<Socket> I<Path>
3725 Configures the path to the UNIX domain socket to be used when connecting to the
3726 daemon. By default C<${localstatedir}/run/pdns.controlsocket> will be used for
3727 an authoritative server and C<${localstatedir}/run/pdns_recursor.controlsocket>
3728 will be used for the recursor.
3732 =item B<LocalSocket> I<Path>
3734 Querying the recursor is done using UDP. When using UDP over UNIX domain
3735 sockets, the client socket needs a name in the file system, too. You can set
3736 this local name to I<Path> using the B<LocalSocket> option. The default is
3737 C<I<prefix>/var/run/collectd-powerdns>.
3741 =head2 Plugin C<processes>
3745 =item B<Process> I<Name>
3747 Select more detailed statistics of processes matching this name. The statistics
3748 collected for these selected processes are size of the resident segment size
3749 (RSS), user- and system-time used, number of processes and number of threads,
3750 io data (where available) and minor and major pagefaults.
3752 =item B<ProcessMatch> I<name> I<regex>
3754 Similar to the B<Process> option this allows to select more detailed
3755 statistics of processes matching the specified I<regex> (see L<regex(7)> for
3756 details). The statistics of all matching processes are summed up and
3757 dispatched to the daemon using the specified I<name> as an identifier. This
3758 allows to "group" several processes together. I<name> must not contain
3763 =head2 Plugin C<protocols>
3765 Collects a lot of information about various network protocols, such as I<IP>,
3766 I<TCP>, I<UDP>, etc.
3768 Available configuration options:
3772 =item B<Value> I<Selector>
3774 Selects whether or not to select a specific value. The string being matched is
3775 of the form "I<Protocol>:I<ValueName>", where I<Protocol> will be used as the
3776 plugin instance and I<ValueName> will be used as type instance. An example of
3777 the string being used would be C<Tcp:RetransSegs>.
3779 You can use regular expressions to match a large number of values with just one
3780 configuration option. To select all "extended" I<TCP> values, you could use the
3781 following statement:
3785 Whether only matched values are selected or all matched values are ignored
3786 depends on the B<IgnoreSelected>. By default, only matched values are selected.
3787 If no value is configured at all, all values will be selected.
3789 =item B<IgnoreSelected> B<true>|B<false>
3791 If set to B<true>, inverts the selection made by B<Value>, i.E<nbsp>e. all
3792 matching values will be ignored.
3796 =head2 Plugin C<python>
3798 This plugin embeds a Python-interpreter into collectd and provides an interface
3799 to collectd's plugin system. See L<collectd-python(5)> for its documentation.
3801 =head2 Plugin C<routeros>
3803 The C<routeros> plugin connects to a device running I<RouterOS>, the
3804 Linux-based operating system for routers by I<MikroTik>. The plugin uses
3805 I<librouteros> to connect and reads information about the interfaces and
3806 wireless connections of the device. The configuration supports querying
3811 Host "router0.example.com"
3814 CollectInterface true
3819 Host "router1.example.com"
3822 CollectInterface true
3823 CollectRegistrationTable true
3829 As you can see above, the configuration of the I<routeros> plugin consists of
3830 one or more B<E<lt>RouterE<gt>> blocks. Within each block, the following
3831 options are understood:
3835 =item B<Host> I<Host>
3837 Hostname or IP-address of the router to connect to.
3839 =item B<Port> I<Port>
3841 Port name or port number used when connecting. If left unspecified, the default
3842 will be chosen by I<librouteros>, currently "8728". This option expects a
3843 string argument, even when a numeric port number is given.
3845 =item B<User> I<User>
3847 Use the user name I<User> to authenticate. Defaults to "admin".
3849 =item B<Password> I<Password>
3851 Set the password used to authenticate.
3853 =item B<CollectInterface> B<true>|B<false>
3855 When set to B<true>, interface statistics will be collected for all interfaces
3856 present on the device. Defaults to B<false>.
3858 =item B<CollectRegistrationTable> B<true>|B<false>
3860 When set to B<true>, information about wireless LAN connections will be
3861 collected. Defaults to B<false>.
3863 =item B<CollectCPULoad> B<true>|B<false>
3865 When set to B<true>, information about the CPU usage will be collected. The
3866 number is a dimensionless value where zero indicates no CPU usage at all.
3867 Defaults to B<false>.
3869 =item B<CollectMemory> B<true>|B<false>
3871 When enabled, the amount of used and free memory will be collected. How used
3872 memory is calculated is unknown, for example whether or not caches are counted
3874 Defaults to B<false>.
3876 =item B<CollectDF> B<true>|B<false>
3878 When enabled, the amount of used and free disk space will be collected.
3879 Defaults to B<false>.
3881 =item B<CollectDisk> B<true>|B<false>
3883 When enabled, the number of sectors written and bad blocks will be collected.
3884 Defaults to B<false>.
3888 =head2 Plugin C<rrdcached>
3890 The C<rrdcached> plugin uses the RRDtool accelerator daemon, L<rrdcached(1)>,
3891 to store values to RRD files in an efficient manner. The combination of the
3892 C<rrdcached> B<plugin> and the C<rrdcached> B<daemon> is very similar to the
3893 way the C<rrdtool> plugin works (see below). The added abstraction layer
3894 provides a number of benefits, though: Because the cache is not within
3895 C<collectd> anymore, it does not need to be flushed when C<collectd> is to be
3896 restarted. This results in much shorter (if any) gaps in graphs, especially
3897 under heavy load. Also, the C<rrdtool> command line utility is aware of the
3898 daemon so that it can flush values to disk automatically when needed. This
3899 allows to integrate automated flushing of values into graphing solutions much
3902 There are disadvantages, though: The daemon may reside on a different host, so
3903 it may not be possible for C<collectd> to create the appropriate RRD files
3904 anymore. And even if C<rrdcached> runs on the same host, it may run in a
3905 different base directory, so relative paths may do weird stuff if you're not
3908 So the B<recommended configuration> is to let C<collectd> and C<rrdcached> run
3909 on the same host, communicating via a UNIX domain socket. The B<DataDir>
3910 setting should be set to an absolute path, so that a changed base directory
3911 does not result in RRD files being createdE<nbsp>/ expected in the wrong place.
3915 =item B<DaemonAddress> I<Address>
3917 Address of the daemon as understood by the C<rrdc_connect> function of the RRD
3918 library. See L<rrdcached(1)> for details. Example:
3920 <Plugin "rrdcached">
3921 DaemonAddress "unix:/var/run/rrdcached.sock"
3924 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
3926 Set the base directory in which the RRD files reside. If this is a relative
3927 path, it is relative to the working base directory of the C<rrdcached> daemon!
3928 Use of an absolute path is recommended.
3930 =item B<CreateFiles> B<true>|B<false>
3932 Enables or disables the creation of RRD files. If the daemon is not running
3933 locally, or B<DataDir> is set to a relative path, this will not work as
3934 expected. Default is B<true>.
3938 =head2 Plugin C<rrdtool>
3940 You can use the settings B<StepSize>, B<HeartBeat>, B<RRARows>, and B<XFF> to
3941 fine-tune your RRD-files. Please read L<rrdcreate(1)> if you encounter problems
3942 using these settings. If you don't want to dive into the depths of RRDtool, you
3943 can safely ignore these settings.
3947 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
3949 Set the directory to store RRD-files under. Per default RRD-files are generated
3950 beneath the daemon's working directory, i.E<nbsp>e. the B<BaseDir>.
3952 =item B<StepSize> I<Seconds>
3954 B<Force> the stepsize of newly created RRD-files. Ideally (and per default)
3955 this setting is unset and the stepsize is set to the interval in which the data
3956 is collected. Do not use this option unless you absolutely have to for some
3957 reason. Setting this option may cause problems with the C<snmp plugin>, the
3958 C<exec plugin> or when the daemon is set up to receive data from other hosts.
3960 =item B<HeartBeat> I<Seconds>
3962 B<Force> the heartbeat of newly created RRD-files. This setting should be unset
3963 in which case the heartbeat is set to twice the B<StepSize> which should equal
3964 the interval in which data is collected. Do not set this option unless you have
3965 a very good reason to do so.
3967 =item B<RRARows> I<NumRows>
3969 The C<rrdtool plugin> calculates the number of PDPs per CDP based on the
3970 B<StepSize>, this setting and a timespan. This plugin creates RRD-files with
3971 three times five RRAs, i. e. five RRAs with the CFs B<MIN>, B<AVERAGE>, and
3972 B<MAX>. The five RRAs are optimized for graphs covering one hour, one day, one
3973 week, one month, and one year.
3975 So for each timespan, it calculates how many PDPs need to be consolidated into
3976 one CDP by calculating:
3977 number of PDPs = timespan / (stepsize * rrarows)
3979 Bottom line is, set this no smaller than the width of you graphs in pixels. The
3982 =item B<RRATimespan> I<Seconds>
3984 Adds an RRA-timespan, given in seconds. Use this option multiple times to have
3985 more then one RRA. If this option is never used, the built-in default of (3600,
3986 86400, 604800, 2678400, 31622400) is used.
3988 For more information on how RRA-sizes are calculated see B<RRARows> above.
3990 =item B<XFF> I<Factor>
3992 Set the "XFiles Factor". The default is 0.1. If unsure, don't set this option.
3994 =item B<CacheFlush> I<Seconds>
3996 When the C<rrdtool> plugin uses a cache (by setting B<CacheTimeout>, see below)
3997 it writes all values for a certain RRD-file if the oldest value is older than
3998 (or equal to) the number of seconds specified. If some RRD-file is not updated
3999 anymore for some reason (the computer was shut down, the network is broken,
4000 etc.) some values may still be in the cache. If B<CacheFlush> is set, then the
4001 entire cache is searched for entries older than B<CacheTimeout> seconds and
4002 written to disk every I<Seconds> seconds. Since this is kind of expensive and
4003 does nothing under normal circumstances, this value should not be too small.
4004 900 seconds might be a good value, though setting this to 7200 seconds doesn't
4005 normally do much harm either.
4007 =item B<CacheTimeout> I<Seconds>
4009 If this option is set to a value greater than zero, the C<rrdtool plugin> will
4010 save values in a cache, as described above. Writing multiple values at once
4011 reduces IO-operations and thus lessens the load produced by updating the files.
4012 The trade off is that the graphs kind of "drag behind" and that more memory is
4015 =item B<WritesPerSecond> I<Updates>
4017 When collecting many statistics with collectd and the C<rrdtool> plugin, you
4018 will run serious performance problems. The B<CacheFlush> setting and the
4019 internal update queue assert that collectd continues to work just fine even
4020 under heavy load, but the system may become very unresponsive and slow. This is
4021 a problem especially if you create graphs from the RRD files on the same
4022 machine, for example using the C<graph.cgi> script included in the
4023 C<contrib/collection3/> directory.
4025 This setting is designed for very large setups. Setting this option to a value
4026 between 25 and 80 updates per second, depending on your hardware, will leave
4027 the server responsive enough to draw graphs even while all the cached values
4028 are written to disk. Flushed values, i.E<nbsp>e. values that are forced to disk
4029 by the B<FLUSH> command, are B<not> effected by this limit. They are still
4030 written as fast as possible, so that web frontends have up to date data when
4033 For example: If you have 100,000 RRD files and set B<WritesPerSecond> to 30
4034 updates per second, writing all values to disk will take approximately
4035 56E<nbsp>minutes. Together with the flushing ability that's integrated into
4036 "collection3" you'll end up with a responsive and fast system, up to date
4037 graphs and basically a "backup" of your values every hour.
4039 =item B<RandomTimeout> I<Seconds>
4041 When set, the actual timeout for each value is chosen randomly between
4042 I<CacheTimeout>-I<RandomTimeout> and I<CacheTimeout>+I<RandomTimeout>. The
4043 intention is to avoid high load situations that appear when many values timeout
4044 at the same time. This is especially a problem shortly after the daemon starts,
4045 because all values were added to the internal cache at roughly the same time.
4049 =head2 Plugin C<sensors>
4051 The C<sensors plugin> uses B<lm_sensors> to retrieve sensor-values. This means
4052 that all the needed modules have to be loaded and lm_sensors has to be
4053 configured (most likely by editing F</etc/sensors.conf>. Read
4054 L<sensors.conf(5)> for details.
4056 The B<lm_sensors> homepage can be found at
4057 L<http://secure.netroedge.com/~lm78/>.
4061 =item B<Sensor> I<chip-bus-address/type-feature>
4063 Selects the name of the sensor which you want to collect or ignore, depending
4064 on the B<IgnoreSelected> below. For example, the option "B<Sensor>
4065 I<it8712-isa-0290/voltage-in1>" will cause collectd to gather data for the
4066 voltage sensor I<in1> of the I<it8712> on the isa bus at the address 0290.
4068 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
4070 If no configuration if given, the B<sensors>-plugin will collect data from all
4071 sensors. This may not be practical, especially for uninteresting sensors.
4072 Thus, you can use the B<Sensor>-option to pick the sensors you're interested
4073 in. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect all sensors I<except> a
4074 few ones. This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to
4075 I<true> the effect of B<Sensor> is inverted: All selected sensors are ignored
4076 and all other sensors are collected.
4080 =head2 Plugin C<snmp>
4082 Since the configuration of the C<snmp plugin> is a little more complicated than
4083 other plugins, its documentation has been moved to an own manpage,
4084 L<collectd-snmp(5)>. Please see there for details.
4086 =head2 Plugin C<syslog>
4090 =item B<LogLevel> B<debug|info|notice|warning|err>
4092 Sets the log-level. If, for example, set to B<notice>, then all events with
4093 severity B<notice>, B<warning>, or B<err> will be submitted to the
4096 Please note that B<debug> is only available if collectd has been compiled with
4101 =head2 Plugin C<table>
4103 The C<table plugin> provides generic means to parse tabular data and dispatch
4104 user specified values. Values are selected based on column numbers. For
4105 example, this plugin may be used to get values from the Linux L<proc(5)>
4106 filesystem or CSV (comma separated values) files.
4109 <Table "/proc/slabinfo">
4114 InstancePrefix "active_objs"
4120 InstancePrefix "objperslab"
4127 The configuration consists of one or more B<Table> blocks, each of which
4128 configures one file to parse. Within each B<Table> block, there are one or
4129 more B<Result> blocks, which configure which data to select and how to
4132 The following options are available inside a B<Table> block:
4136 =item B<Instance> I<instance>
4138 If specified, I<instance> is used as the plugin instance. So, in the above
4139 example, the plugin name C<table-slabinfo> would be used. If omitted, the
4140 filename of the table is used instead, with all special characters replaced
4141 with an underscore (C<_>).
4143 =item B<Separator> I<string>
4145 Any character of I<string> is interpreted as a delimiter between the different
4146 columns of the table. A sequence of two or more contiguous delimiters in the
4147 table is considered to be a single delimiter, i.E<nbsp>e. there cannot be any
4148 empty columns. The plugin uses the L<strtok_r(3)> function to parse the lines
4149 of a table - see its documentation for more details. This option is mandatory.
4151 A horizontal tab, newline and carriage return may be specified by C<\\t>,
4152 C<\\n> and C<\\r> respectively. Please note that the double backslashes are
4153 required because of collectd's config parsing.
4157 The following options are available inside a B<Result> block:
4161 =item B<Type> I<type>
4163 Sets the type used to dispatch the values to the daemon. Detailed information
4164 about types and their configuration can be found in L<types.db(5)>. This
4165 option is mandatory.
4167 =item B<InstancePrefix> I<prefix>
4169 If specified, prepend I<prefix> to the type instance. If omitted, only the
4170 B<InstancesFrom> option is considered for the type instance.
4172 =item B<InstancesFrom> I<column0> [I<column1> ...]
4174 If specified, the content of the given columns (identified by the column
4175 number starting at zero) will be used to create the type instance for each
4176 row. Multiple values (and the instance prefix) will be joined together with
4177 dashes (I<->) as separation character. If omitted, only the B<InstancePrefix>
4178 option is considered for the type instance.
4180 The plugin itself does not check whether or not all built instances are
4181 different. It’s your responsibility to assure that each is unique. This is
4182 especially true, if you do not specify B<InstancesFrom>: B<You> have to make
4183 sure that the table only contains one row.
4185 If neither B<InstancePrefix> nor B<InstancesFrom> is given, the type instance
4188 =item B<ValuesFrom> I<column0> [I<column1> ...]
4190 Specifies the columns (identified by the column numbers starting at zero)
4191 whose content is used as the actual data for the data sets that are dispatched
4192 to the daemon. How many such columns you need is determined by the B<Type>
4193 setting above. If you specify too many or not enough columns, the plugin will
4194 complain about that and no data will be submitted to the daemon. The plugin
4195 uses L<strtoll(3)> and L<strtod(3)> to parse counter and gauge values
4196 respectively, so anything supported by those functions is supported by the
4197 plugin as well. This option is mandatory.
4201 =head2 Plugin C<tail>
4203 The C<tail plugin> follows logfiles, just like L<tail(1)> does, parses
4204 each line and dispatches found values. What is matched can be configured by the
4205 user using (extended) regular expressions, as described in L<regex(7)>.
4208 <File "/var/log/exim4/mainlog">
4211 Regex "S=([1-9][0-9]*)"
4217 Regex "\\<R=local_user\\>"
4218 ExcludeRegex "\\<R=local_user\\>.*mail_spool defer"
4221 Instance "local_user"
4226 The config consists of one or more B<File> blocks, each of which configures one
4227 logfile to parse. Within each B<File> block, there are one or more B<Match>
4228 blocks, which configure a regular expression to search for.
4230 The B<Instance> option in the B<File> block may be used to set the plugin
4231 instance. So in the above example the plugin name C<tail-foo> would be used.
4232 This plugin instance is for all B<Match> blocks that B<follow> it, until the
4233 next B<Instance> option. This way you can extract several plugin instances from
4234 one logfile, handy when parsing syslog and the like.
4236 Each B<Match> block has the following options to describe how the match should
4241 =item B<Regex> I<regex>
4243 Sets the regular expression to use for matching against a line. The first
4244 subexpression has to match something that can be turned into a number by
4245 L<strtoll(3)> or L<strtod(3)>, depending on the value of C<CounterAdd>, see
4246 below. Because B<extended> regular expressions are used, you do not need to use
4247 backslashes for subexpressions! If in doubt, please consult L<regex(7)>. Due to
4248 collectd's config parsing you need to escape backslashes, though. So if you
4249 want to match literal parentheses you need to do the following:
4251 Regex "SPAM \\(Score: (-?[0-9]+\\.[0-9]+)\\)"
4253 =item B<ExcludeRegex> I<regex>
4255 Sets an optional regular expression to use for excluding lines from the match.
4256 An example which excludes all connections from localhost from the match:
4258 ExcludeRegex "127\\.0\\.0\\.1"
4260 =item B<DSType> I<Type>
4262 Sets how the values are cumulated. I<Type> is one of:
4266 =item B<GaugeAverage>
4268 Calculate the average.
4272 Use the smallest number only.
4276 Use the greatest number only.
4280 Use the last number found.
4284 The matched number is a counter. Simply sets the internal counter to this
4289 Add the matched value to the internal counter.
4293 Increase the internal counter by one. This B<DSType> is the only one that does
4294 not use the matched subexpression, but simply counts the number of matched
4295 lines. Thus, you may use a regular expression without submatch in this case.
4299 As you'd expect the B<Gauge*> types interpret the submatch as a floating point
4300 number, using L<strtod(3)>. The B<CounterSet> and B<CounterAdd> interpret the
4301 submatch as an integer using L<strtoll(3)>. B<CounterInc> does not use the
4302 submatch at all and it may be omitted in this case.
4304 =item B<Type> I<Type>
4306 Sets the type used to dispatch this value. Detailed information about types and
4307 their configuration can be found in L<types.db(5)>.
4309 =item B<Instance> I<TypeInstance>
4311 This optional setting sets the type instance to use.
4315 =head2 Plugin C<teamspeak2>
4317 The C<teamspeak2 plugin> connects to the query port of a teamspeak2 server and
4318 polls interesting global and virtual server data. The plugin can query only one
4319 physical server but unlimited virtual servers. You can use the following
4320 options to configure it:
4324 =item B<Host> I<hostname/ip>
4326 The hostname or ip which identifies the physical server.
4329 =item B<Port> I<port>
4331 The query port of the physical server. This needs to be a string.
4334 =item B<Server> I<port>
4336 This option has to be added once for every virtual server the plugin should
4337 query. If you want to query the virtual server on port 8767 this is what the
4338 option would look like:
4342 This option, although numeric, needs to be a string, i.E<nbsp>e. you B<must>
4343 use quotes around it! If no such statement is given only global information
4348 =head2 Plugin C<ted>
4350 The I<TED> plugin connects to a device of "The Energy Detective", a device to
4351 measure power consumption. These devices are usually connected to a serial
4352 (RS232) or USB port. The plugin opens a configured device and tries to read the
4353 current energy readings. For more information on TED, visit
4354 L<http://www.theenergydetective.com/>.
4356 Available configuration options:
4360 =item B<Device> I<Path>
4362 Path to the device on which TED is connected. collectd will need read and write
4363 permissions on that file.
4365 Default: B</dev/ttyUSB0>
4367 =item B<Retries> I<Num>
4369 Apparently reading from TED is not that reliable. You can therefore configure a
4370 number of retries here. You only configure the I<retries> here, to if you
4371 specify zero, one reading will be performed (but no retries if that fails); if
4372 you specify three, a maximum of four readings are performed. Negative values
4379 =head2 Plugin C<tcpconns>
4381 The C<tcpconns plugin> counts the number of currently established TCP
4382 connections based on the local port and/or the remote port. Since there may be
4383 a lot of connections the default if to count all connections with a local port,
4384 for which a listening socket is opened. You can use the following options to
4385 fine-tune the ports you are interested in:
4389 =item B<ListeningPorts> I<true>|I<false>
4391 If this option is set to I<true>, statistics for all local ports for which a
4392 listening socket exists are collected. The default depends on B<LocalPort> and
4393 B<RemotePort> (see below): If no port at all is specifically selected, the
4394 default is to collect listening ports. If specific ports (no matter if local or
4395 remote ports) are selected, this option defaults to I<false>, i.E<nbsp>e. only
4396 the selected ports will be collected unless this option is set to I<true>
4399 =item B<LocalPort> I<Port>
4401 Count the connections to a specific local port. This can be used to see how
4402 many connections are handled by a specific daemon, e.E<nbsp>g. the mailserver.
4403 You have to specify the port in numeric form, so for the mailserver example
4404 you'd need to set B<25>.
4406 =item B<RemotePort> I<Port>
4408 Count the connections to a specific remote port. This is useful to see how
4409 much a remote service is used. This is most useful if you want to know how many
4410 connections a local service has opened to remote services, e.E<nbsp>g. how many
4411 connections a mail server or news server has to other mail or news servers, or
4412 how many connections a web proxy holds to web servers. You have to give the
4413 port in numeric form.
4417 =head2 Plugin C<thermal>
4421 =item B<ForceUseProcfs> I<true>|I<false>
4423 By default, the C<thermal> plugin tries to read the statistics from the Linux
4424 C<sysfs> interface. If that is not available, the plugin falls back to the
4425 C<procfs> interface. By setting this option to I<true>, you can force the
4426 plugin to use the latter. This option defaults to I<false>.
4428 =item B<Device> I<Device>
4430 Selects the name of the thermal device that you want to collect or ignore,
4431 depending on the value of the B<IgnoreSelected> option. This option may be
4432 used multiple times to specify a list of devices.
4434 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
4436 Invert the selection: If set to true, all devices B<except> the ones that
4437 match the device names specified by the B<Device> option are collected. By
4438 default only selected devices are collected if a selection is made. If no
4439 selection is configured at all, B<all> devices are selected.
4443 =head2 Plugin C<tokyotyrant>
4445 The C<tokyotyrant plugin> connects to a TokyoTyrant server and collects a
4446 couple metrics: number of records, and database size on disk.
4450 =item B<Host> I<Hostname/IP>
4452 The hostname or ip which identifies the server.
4453 Default: B<127.0.0.1>
4455 =item B<Port> I<Service/Port>
4457 The query port of the server. This needs to be a string, even if the port is
4458 given in its numeric form.
4463 =head2 Plugin C<unixsock>
4467 =item B<SocketFile> I<Path>
4469 Sets the socket-file which is to be created.
4471 =item B<SocketGroup> I<Group>
4473 If running as root change the group of the UNIX-socket after it has been
4474 created. Defaults to B<collectd>.
4476 =item B<SocketPerms> I<Permissions>
4478 Change the file permissions of the UNIX-socket after it has been created. The
4479 permissions must be given as a numeric, octal value as you would pass to
4480 L<chmod(1)>. Defaults to B<0770>.
4484 =head2 Plugin C<uuid>
4486 This plugin, if loaded, causes the Hostname to be taken from the machine's
4487 UUID. The UUID is a universally unique designation for the machine, usually
4488 taken from the machine's BIOS. This is most useful if the machine is running in
4489 a virtual environment such as Xen, in which case the UUID is preserved across
4490 shutdowns and migration.
4492 The following methods are used to find the machine's UUID, in order:
4498 Check I</etc/uuid> (or I<UUIDFile>).
4502 Check for UUID from HAL (L<http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/hal>) if
4507 Check for UUID from C<dmidecode> / SMBIOS.
4511 Check for UUID from Xen hypervisor.
4515 If no UUID can be found then the hostname is not modified.
4519 =item B<UUIDFile> I<Path>
4521 Take the UUID from the given file (default I</etc/uuid>).
4525 =head2 Plugin C<varnish>
4527 The Varnish plugin collects information about Varnish, an HTTP accelerator.
4531 =item B<CollectCache> B<true>|B<false>
4533 Cache hits and misses. True by default.
4535 =item B<CollectConnections> B<true>|B<false>
4537 Number of client connections received, accepted and dropped. True by default.
4539 =item B<CollectBackend> B<true>|B<false>
4541 Back-end connection statistics, such as successful, reused,
4542 and closed connections. True by default.
4544 =item B<CollectSHM> B<true>|B<false>
4546 Statistics about the shared memory log, a memory region to store
4547 log messages which is flushed to disk when full. True by default.
4549 =item B<CollectESI> B<true>|B<false>
4551 Edge Side Includes (ESI) parse statistics. False by default.
4553 =item B<CollectFetch> B<true>|B<false>
4555 Statistics about fetches (HTTP requests sent to the backend). False by default.
4557 =item B<CollectHCB> B<true>|B<false>
4559 Inserts and look-ups in the crit bit tree based hash. Look-ups are
4560 divided into locked and unlocked look-ups. False by default.
4562 =item B<CollectSMA> B<true>|B<false>
4564 malloc or umem (umem_alloc(3MALLOC) based) storage statistics.
4565 The umem storage component is Solaris specific. False by default.
4567 =item B<CollectSMS> B<true>|B<false>
4569 synth (synthetic content) storage statistics. This storage
4570 component is used internally only. False by default.
4572 =item B<CollectSM> B<true>|B<false>
4574 file (memory mapped file) storage statistics. False by default.
4576 =item B<CollectTotals> B<true>|B<false>
4578 Collects overview counters, such as the number of sessions created,
4579 the number of requests and bytes transferred. False by default.
4581 =item B<CollectWorkers> B<true>|B<false>
4583 Collect statistics about worker threads. False by default.
4587 =head2 Plugin C<vmem>
4589 The C<vmem> plugin collects information about the usage of virtual memory.
4590 Since the statistics provided by the Linux kernel are very detailed, they are
4591 collected very detailed. However, to get all the details, you have to switch
4592 them on manually. Most people just want an overview over, such as the number of
4593 pages read from swap space.
4597 =item B<Verbose> B<true>|B<false>
4599 Enables verbose collection of information. This will start collecting page
4600 "actions", e.E<nbsp>g. page allocations, (de)activations, steals and so on.
4601 Part of these statistics are collected on a "per zone" basis.
4605 =head2 Plugin C<vserver>
4607 This plugin doesn't have any options. B<VServer> support is only available for
4608 Linux. It cannot yet be found in a vanilla kernel, though. To make use of this
4609 plugin you need a kernel that has B<VServer> support built in, i.E<nbsp>e. you
4610 need to apply the patches and compile your own kernel, which will then provide
4611 the F</proc/virtual> filesystem that is required by this plugin.
4613 The B<VServer> homepage can be found at L<http://linux-vserver.org/>.
4615 B<Note>: The traffic collected by this plugin accounts for the amount of
4616 traffic passing a socket which might be a lot less than the actual on-wire
4617 traffic (e.E<nbsp>g. due to headers and retransmission). If you want to
4618 collect on-wire traffic you could, for example, use the logging facilities of
4619 iptables to feed data for the guest IPs into the iptables plugin.
4621 =head2 Plugin C<write_http>
4623 This output plugin submits values to an http server by POST them using the
4624 PUTVAL plain-text protocol. Each destination you want to post data to needs to
4625 have one B<URL> block, within which the destination can be configured further,
4626 for example by specifying authentication data.
4630 <Plugin "write_http">
4631 <URL "http://example.com/post-collectd">
4637 B<URL> blocks need one string argument which is used as the URL to which data
4638 is posted. The following options are understood within B<URL> blocks.
4642 =item B<User> I<Username>
4644 Optional user name needed for authentication.
4646 =item B<Password> I<Password>
4648 Optional password needed for authentication.
4650 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true>|B<false>
4652 Enable or disable peer SSL certificate verification. See
4653 L<http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html> for details. Enabled by default.
4655 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true|false>
4657 Enable or disable peer host name verification. If enabled, the plugin checks if
4658 the C<Common Name> or a C<Subject Alternate Name> field of the SSL certificate
4659 matches the host name provided by the B<URL> option. If this identity check
4660 fails, the connection is aborted. Obviously, only works when connecting to a
4661 SSL enabled server. Enabled by default.
4663 =item B<CACert> I<File>
4665 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
4666 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
4667 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
4669 =item B<Format> B<Command>|B<JSON>
4671 Format of the output to generate. If set to B<Command>, will create output that
4672 is understood by the I<Exec> and I<UnixSock> plugins. When set to B<JSON>, will
4673 create output in the I<JavaScript Object Notation> (JSON).
4675 Defaults to B<Command>.
4677 =item B<StoreRates> B<true|false>
4679 If set to B<true>, convert counter values to rates. If set to B<false> (the
4680 default) counter values are stored as is, i.E<nbsp>e. as an increasing integer
4685 =head1 THRESHOLD CONFIGURATION
4687 Starting with version C<4.3.0> collectd has support for B<monitoring>. By that
4688 we mean that the values are not only stored or sent somewhere, but that they
4689 are judged and, if a problem is recognized, acted upon. The only action
4690 collectd takes itself is to generate and dispatch a "notification". Plugins can
4691 register to receive notifications and perform appropriate further actions.
4693 Since systems and what you expect them to do differ a lot, you can configure
4694 B<thresholds> for your values freely. This gives you a lot of flexibility but
4695 also a lot of responsibility.
4697 Every time a value is out of range a notification is dispatched. This means
4698 that the idle percentage of your CPU needs to be less then the configured
4699 threshold only once for a notification to be generated. There's no such thing
4700 as a moving average or similar - at least not now.
4702 Also, all values that match a threshold are considered to be relevant or
4703 "interesting". As a consequence collectd will issue a notification if they are
4704 not received for B<Timeout> iterations. The B<Timeout> configuration option is
4705 explained in section L<"GLOBAL OPTIONS">. If, for example, B<Timeout> is set to
4706 "2" (the default) and some hosts sends it's CPU statistics to the server every
4707 60 seconds, a notification will be dispatched after about 120 seconds. It may
4708 take a little longer because the timeout is checked only once each B<Interval>
4711 When a value comes within range again or is received after it was missing, an
4712 "OKAY-notification" is dispatched.
4714 Here is a configuration example to get you started. Read below for more
4727 <Plugin "interface">
4744 WarningMin 100000000
4749 DataSource "midterm"
4757 There are basically two types of configuration statements: The C<Host>,
4758 C<Plugin>, and C<Type> blocks select the value for which a threshold should be
4759 configured. The C<Plugin> and C<Type> blocks may be specified further using the
4760 C<Instance> option. You can combine the block by nesting the blocks, though
4761 they must be nested in the above order, i.E<nbsp>e. C<Host> may contain either
4762 C<Plugin> and C<Type> blocks, C<Plugin> may only contain C<Type> blocks and
4763 C<Type> may not contain other blocks. If multiple blocks apply to the same
4764 value the most specific block is used.
4766 The other statements specify the threshold to configure. They B<must> be
4767 included in a C<Type> block. Currently the following statements are recognized:
4771 =item B<FailureMax> I<Value>
4773 =item B<WarningMax> I<Value>
4775 Sets the upper bound of acceptable values. If unset defaults to positive
4776 infinity. If a value is greater than B<FailureMax> a B<FAILURE> notification
4777 will be created. If the value is greater than B<WarningMax> but less than (or
4778 equal to) B<FailureMax> a B<WARNING> notification will be created.
4780 =item B<FailureMin> I<Value>
4782 =item B<WarningMin> I<Value>
4784 Sets the lower bound of acceptable values. If unset defaults to negative
4785 infinity. If a value is less than B<FailureMin> a B<FAILURE> notification will
4786 be created. If the value is less than B<WarningMin> but greater than (or equal
4787 to) B<FailureMin> a B<WARNING> notification will be created.
4789 =item B<DataSource> I<DSName>
4791 Some data sets have more than one "data source". Interesting examples are the
4792 C<if_octets> data set, which has received (C<rx>) and sent (C<tx>) bytes and
4793 the C<disk_ops> data set, which holds C<read> and C<write> operations. The
4794 system load data set, C<load>, even has three data sources: C<shortterm>,
4795 C<midterm>, and C<longterm>.
4797 Normally, all data sources are checked against a configured threshold. If this
4798 is undesirable, or if you want to specify different limits for each data
4799 source, you can use the B<DataSource> option to have a threshold apply only to
4802 =item B<Invert> B<true>|B<false>
4804 If set to B<true> the range of acceptable values is inverted, i.E<nbsp>e.
4805 values between B<FailureMin> and B<FailureMax> (B<WarningMin> and
4806 B<WarningMax>) are not okay. Defaults to B<false>.
4808 =item B<Persist> B<true>|B<false>
4810 Sets how often notifications are generated. If set to B<true> one notification
4811 will be generated for each value that is out of the acceptable range. If set to
4812 B<false> (the default) then a notification is only generated if a value is out
4813 of range but the previous value was okay.
4815 This applies to missing values, too: If set to B<true> a notification about a
4816 missing value is generated once every B<Interval> seconds. If set to B<false>
4817 only one such notification is generated until the value appears again.
4819 =item B<Percentage> B<true>|B<false>
4821 If set to B<true>, the minimum and maximum values given are interpreted as
4822 percentage value, relative to the other data sources. This is helpful for
4823 example for the "df" type, where you may want to issue a warning when less than
4824 5E<nbsp>% of the total space is available. Defaults to B<false>.
4826 =item B<Hits> I<Value>
4828 Sets the number of occurrences which the threshold must be arised before to
4829 dispatch any notification or, in other words, the number of B<Interval>s
4830 than the threshold must be match before dispatch any notification.
4832 =item B<Hysteresis> I<Value>
4834 Sets the hysteresis value for threshold. The hysteresis is a method to
4835 prevent flapping between states, until a new received value for
4836 a previously matched threshold down below the threshold condition
4837 (B<WarningMax>, B<FailureMin> or everthing else) minus the hysteresis value,
4838 the failure (respectively warning) state will be keep.
4840 =item B<Interesting> B<true>|B<false>
4842 If set to B<true> (the default), the threshold must be treated as
4843 interesting and, when a number of B<Timeout> values will lost, then
4844 a missing notification will be dispatched. On the other hand, if set to
4845 B<false>, the missing notification will never dispatched for this threshold.
4849 =head1 FILTER CONFIGURATION
4851 Starting with collectd 4.6 there is a powerful filtering infrastructure
4852 implemented in the daemon. The concept has mostly been copied from
4853 I<ip_tables>, the packet filter infrastructure for Linux. We'll use a similar
4854 terminology, so that users that are familiar with iptables feel right at home.
4858 The following are the terms used in the remainder of the filter configuration
4859 documentation. For an ASCII-art schema of the mechanism, see
4860 L<"General structure"> below.
4866 A I<match> is a criteria to select specific values. Examples are, of course, the
4867 name of the value or it's current value.
4869 Matches are implemented in plugins which you have to load prior to using the
4870 match. The name of such plugins starts with the "match_" prefix.
4874 A I<target> is some action that is to be performed with data. Such actions
4875 could, for example, be to change part of the value's identifier or to ignore
4876 the value completely.
4878 Some of these targets are built into the daemon, see L<"Built-in targets">
4879 below. Other targets are implemented in plugins which you have to load prior to
4880 using the target. The name of such plugins starts with the "target_" prefix.
4884 The combination of any number of matches and at least one target is called a
4885 I<rule>. The target actions will be performed for all values for which B<all>
4886 matches apply. If the rule does not have any matches associated with it, the
4887 target action will be performed for all values.
4891 A I<chain> is a list of rules and possibly default targets. The rules are tried
4892 in order and if one matches, the associated target will be called. If a value
4893 is handled by a rule, it depends on the target whether or not any subsequent
4894 rules are considered or if traversal of the chain is aborted, see
4895 L<"Flow control"> below. After all rules have been checked, the default targets
4900 =head2 General structure
4902 The following shows the resulting structure:
4909 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
4910 ! Rule !->! Match !->! Match !->! Target !
4911 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
4914 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
4915 ! Rule !->! Target !->! Target !
4916 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
4923 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
4924 ! Rule !->! Match !->! Target !
4925 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
4935 There are four ways to control which way a value takes through the filter
4942 The built-in B<jump> target can be used to "call" another chain, i.E<nbsp>e.
4943 process the value with another chain. When the called chain finishes, usually
4944 the next target or rule after the jump is executed.
4948 The stop condition, signaled for example by the built-in target B<stop>, causes
4949 all processing of the value to be stopped immediately.
4953 Causes processing in the current chain to be aborted, but processing of the
4954 value generally will continue. This means that if the chain was called via
4955 B<Jump>, the next target or rule after the jump will be executed. If the chain
4956 was not called by another chain, control will be returned to the daemon and it
4957 may pass the value to another chain.
4961 Most targets will signal the B<continue> condition, meaning that processing
4962 should continue normally. There is no special built-in target for this
4969 The configuration reflects this structure directly:
4971 PostCacheChain "PostCache"
4973 <Rule "ignore_mysql_show">
4976 Type "^mysql_command$"
4977 TypeInstance "^show_"
4987 The above configuration example will ignore all values where the plugin field
4988 is "mysql", the type is "mysql_command" and the type instance begins with
4989 "show_". All other values will be sent to the C<rrdtool> write plugin via the
4990 default target of the chain. Since this chain is run after the value has been
4991 added to the cache, the MySQL C<show_*> command statistics will be available
4992 via the C<unixsock> plugin.
4994 =head2 List of configuration options
4998 =item B<PreCacheChain> I<ChainName>
5000 =item B<PostCacheChain> I<ChainName>
5002 Configure the name of the "pre-cache chain" and the "post-cache chain". The
5003 argument is the name of a I<chain> that should be executed before and/or after
5004 the values have been added to the cache.
5006 To understand the implications, it's important you know what is going on inside
5007 I<collectd>. The following diagram shows how values are passed from the
5008 read-plugins to the write-plugins:
5014 + - - - - V - - - - +
5015 : +---------------+ :
5018 : +-------+-------+ :
5021 : +-------+-------+ : +---------------+
5022 : ! Cache !--->! Value Cache !
5023 : ! insert ! : +---+---+-------+
5024 : +-------+-------+ : ! !
5025 : ! ,------------' !
5027 : +-------+---+---+ : +-------+-------+
5028 : ! Post-Cache +--->! Write-Plugins !
5029 : ! Chain ! : +---------------+
5030 : +---------------+ :
5033 + - - - - - - - - - +
5035 After the values are passed from the "read" plugins to the dispatch functions,
5036 the pre-cache chain is run first. The values are added to the internal cache
5037 afterwards. The post-cache chain is run after the values have been added to the
5038 cache. So why is it such a huge deal if chains are run before or after the
5039 values have been added to this cache?
5041 Targets that change the identifier of a value list should be executed before
5042 the values are added to the cache, so that the name in the cache matches the
5043 name that is used in the "write" plugins. The C<unixsock> plugin, too, uses
5044 this cache to receive a list of all available values. If you change the
5045 identifier after the value list has been added to the cache, this may easily
5046 lead to confusion, but it's not forbidden of course.
5048 The cache is also used to convert counter values to rates. These rates are, for
5049 example, used by the C<value> match (see below). If you use the rate stored in
5050 the cache B<before> the new value is added, you will use the old, B<previous>
5051 rate. Write plugins may use this rate, too, see the C<csv> plugin, for example.
5052 The C<unixsock> plugin uses these rates too, to implement the C<GETVAL>
5055 Last but not last, the B<stop> target makes a difference: If the pre-cache
5056 chain returns the stop condition, the value will not be added to the cache and
5057 the post-cache chain will not be run.
5059 =item B<Chain> I<Name>
5061 Adds a new chain with a certain name. This name can be used to refer to a
5062 specific chain, for example to jump to it.
5064 Within the B<Chain> block, there can be B<Rule> blocks and B<Target> blocks.
5066 =item B<Rule> [I<Name>]
5068 Adds a new rule to the current chain. The name of the rule is optional and
5069 currently has no meaning for the daemon.
5071 Within the B<Rule> block, there may be any number of B<Match> blocks and there
5072 must be at least one B<Target> block.
5074 =item B<Match> I<Name>
5076 Adds a match to a B<Rule> block. The name specifies what kind of match should
5077 be performed. Available matches depend on the plugins that have been loaded.
5079 The arguments inside the B<Match> block are passed to the plugin implementing
5080 the match, so which arguments are valid here depends on the plugin being used.
5081 If you do not need any to pass any arguments to a match, you can use the
5086 Which is equivalent to:
5091 =item B<Target> I<Name>
5093 Add a target to a rule or a default target to a chain. The name specifies what
5094 kind of target is to be added. Which targets are available depends on the
5095 plugins being loaded.
5097 The arguments inside the B<Target> block are passed to the plugin implementing
5098 the target, so which arguments are valid here depends on the plugin being used.
5099 If you do not need any to pass any arguments to a target, you can use the
5104 This is the same as writing:
5111 =head2 Built-in targets
5113 The following targets are built into the core daemon and therefore need no
5114 plugins to be loaded:
5120 Signals the "return" condition, see the L<"Flow control"> section above. This
5121 causes the current chain to stop processing the value and returns control to
5122 the calling chain. The calling chain will continue processing targets and rules
5123 just after the B<jump> target (see below). This is very similar to the
5124 B<RETURN> target of iptables, see L<iptables(8)>.
5126 This target does not have any options.
5134 Signals the "stop" condition, see the L<"Flow control"> section above. This
5135 causes processing of the value to be aborted immediately. This is similar to
5136 the B<DROP> target of iptables, see L<iptables(8)>.
5138 This target does not have any options.
5146 Sends the value to "write" plugins.
5152 =item B<Plugin> I<Name>
5154 Name of the write plugin to which the data should be sent. This option may be
5155 given multiple times to send the data to more than one write plugin.
5159 If no plugin is explicitly specified, the values will be sent to all available
5170 Starts processing the rules of another chain, see L<"Flow control"> above. If
5171 the end of that chain is reached, or a stop condition is encountered,
5172 processing will continue right after the B<jump> target, i.E<nbsp>e. with the
5173 next target or the next rule. This is similar to the B<-j> command line option
5174 of iptables, see L<iptables(8)>.
5180 =item B<Chain> I<Name>
5182 Jumps to the chain I<Name>. This argument is required and may appear only once.
5194 =head2 Available matches
5200 Matches a value using regular expressions.
5206 =item B<Host> I<Regex>
5208 =item B<Plugin> I<Regex>
5210 =item B<PluginInstance> I<Regex>
5212 =item B<Type> I<Regex>
5214 =item B<TypeInstance> I<Regex>
5216 Match values where the given regular expressions match the various fields of
5217 the identifier of a value. If multiple regular expressions are given, B<all>
5218 regexen must match for a value to match.
5220 =item B<Invert> B<false>|B<true>
5222 When set to B<true>, the result of the match is inverted, i.e. all value lists
5223 where all regular expressions apply are not matched, all other value lists are
5224 matched. Defaults to B<false>.
5231 Host "customer[0-9]+"
5237 Matches values that have a time which differs from the time on the server.
5239 This match is mainly intended for servers that receive values over the
5240 C<network> plugin and write them to disk using the C<rrdtool> plugin. RRDtool
5241 is very sensitive to the timestamp used when updating the RRD files. In
5242 particular, the time must be ever increasing. If a misbehaving client sends one
5243 packet with a timestamp far in the future, all further packets with a correct
5244 time will be ignored because of that one packet. What's worse, such corrupted
5245 RRD files are hard to fix.
5247 This match lets one match all values B<outside> a specified time range
5248 (relative to the server's time), so you can use the B<stop> target (see below)
5249 to ignore the value, for example.
5255 =item B<Future> I<Seconds>
5257 Matches all values that are I<ahead> of the server's time by I<Seconds> or more
5258 seconds. Set to zero for no limit. Either B<Future> or B<Past> must be
5261 =item B<Past> I<Seconds>
5263 Matches all values that are I<behind> of the server's time by I<Seconds> or
5264 more seconds. Set to zero for no limit. Either B<Future> or B<Past> must be
5276 This example matches all values that are five minutes or more ahead of the
5277 server or one hour (or more) lagging behind.
5281 Matches the actual value of data sources against given minimumE<nbsp>/ maximum
5282 values. If a data-set consists of more than one data-source, all data-sources
5283 must match the specified ranges for a positive match.
5289 =item B<Min> I<Value>
5291 Sets the smallest value which still results in a match. If unset, behaves like
5294 =item B<Max> I<Value>
5296 Sets the largest value which still results in a match. If unset, behaves like
5299 =item B<Invert> B<true>|B<false>
5301 Inverts the selection. If the B<Min> and B<Max> settings result in a match,
5302 no-match is returned and vice versa. Please note that the B<Invert> setting
5303 only effects how B<Min> and B<Max> are applied to a specific value. Especially
5304 the B<DataSource> and B<Satisfy> settings (see below) are not inverted.
5306 =item B<DataSource> I<DSName> [I<DSName> ...]
5308 Select one or more of the data sources. If no data source is configured, all
5309 data sources will be checked. If the type handled by the match does not have a
5310 data source of the specified name(s), this will always result in no match
5311 (independent of the B<Invert> setting).
5313 =item B<Satisfy> B<Any>|B<All>
5315 Specifies how checking with several data sources is performed. If set to
5316 B<Any>, the match succeeds if one of the data sources is in the configured
5317 range. If set to B<All> the match only succeeds if all data sources are within
5318 the configured range. Default is B<All>.
5320 Usually B<All> is used for positive matches, B<Any> is used for negative
5321 matches. This means that with B<All> you usually check that all values are in a
5322 "good" range, while with B<Any> you check if any value is within a "bad" range
5323 (or outside the "good" range).
5327 Either B<Min> or B<Max>, but not both, may be unset.
5331 # Match all values smaller than or equal to 100. Matches only if all data
5332 # sources are below 100.
5338 # Match if the value of any data source is outside the range of 0 - 100.
5346 =item B<empty_counter>
5348 Matches all values with one or more data sources of type B<COUNTER> and where
5349 all counter values are zero. These counters usually I<never> increased since
5350 they started existing (and are therefore uninteresting), or got reset recently
5351 or overflowed and you had really, I<really> bad luck.
5353 Please keep in mind that ignoring such counters can result in confusing
5354 behavior: Counters which hardly ever increase will be zero for long periods of
5355 time. If the counter is reset for some reason (machine or service restarted,
5356 usually), the graph will be empty (NAN) for a long time. People may not
5361 Calculates a hash value of the host name and matches values according to that
5362 hash value. This makes it possible to divide all hosts into groups and match
5363 only values that are in a specific group. The intended use is in load
5364 balancing, where you want to handle only part of all data and leave the rest
5367 The hashing function used tries to distribute the hosts evenly. First, it
5368 calculates a 32E<nbsp>bit hash value using the characters of the hostname:
5371 for (i = 0; host[i] != 0; i++)
5372 hash_value = (hash_value * 251) + host[i];
5374 The constant 251 is a prime number which is supposed to make this hash value
5375 more random. The code then checks the group for this host according to the
5376 I<Total> and I<Match> arguments:
5378 if ((hash_value % Total) == Match)
5383 Please note that when you set I<Total> to two (i.E<nbsp>e. you have only two
5384 groups), then the least significant bit of the hash value will be the XOR of
5385 all least significant bits in the host name. One consequence is that when you
5386 have two hosts, "server0.example.com" and "server1.example.com", where the host
5387 name differs in one digit only and the digits differ by one, those hosts will
5388 never end up in the same group.
5394 =item B<Match> I<Match> I<Total>
5396 Divide the data into I<Total> groups and match all hosts in group I<Match> as
5397 described above. The groups are numbered from zero, i.E<nbsp>e. I<Match> must
5398 be smaller than I<Total>. I<Total> must be at least one, although only values
5399 greater than one really do make any sense.
5401 You can repeat this option to match multiple groups, for example:
5406 The above config will divide the data into seven groups and match groups three
5407 and five. One use would be to keep every value on two hosts so that if one
5408 fails the missing data can later be reconstructed from the second host.
5414 # Operate on the pre-cache chain, so that ignored values are not even in the
5419 # Divide all received hosts in seven groups and accept all hosts in
5423 # If matched: Return and continue.
5426 # If not matched: Return and stop.
5432 =head2 Available targets
5436 =item B<notification>
5438 Creates and dispatches a notification.
5444 =item B<Message> I<String>
5446 This required option sets the message of the notification. The following
5447 placeholders will be replaced by an appropriate value:
5455 =item B<%{plugin_instance}>
5459 =item B<%{type_instance}>
5461 These placeholders are replaced by the identifier field of the same name.
5463 =item B<%{ds:>I<name>B<}>
5465 These placeholders are replaced by a (hopefully) human readable representation
5466 of the current rate of this data source. If you changed the instance name
5467 (using the B<set> or B<replace> targets, see below), it may not be possible to
5468 convert counter values to rates.
5472 Please note that these placeholders are B<case sensitive>!
5474 =item B<Severity> B<"FATAL">|B<"WARNING">|B<"OKAY">
5476 Sets the severity of the message. If omitted, the severity B<"WARNING"> is
5483 <Target "notification">
5484 Message "Oops, the %{type_instance} temperature is currently %{ds:value}!"
5490 Replaces parts of the identifier using regular expressions.
5496 =item B<Host> I<Regex> I<Replacement>
5498 =item B<Plugin> I<Regex> I<Replacement>
5500 =item B<PluginInstance> I<Regex> I<Replacement>
5502 =item B<TypeInstance> I<Regex> I<Replacement>
5504 Match the appropriate field with the given regular expression I<Regex>. If the
5505 regular expression matches, that part that matches is replaced with
5506 I<Replacement>. If multiple places of the input buffer match a given regular
5507 expression, only the first occurrence will be replaced.
5509 You can specify each option multiple times to use multiple regular expressions
5517 # Replace "example.net" with "example.com"
5518 Host "\\<example.net\\>" "example.com"
5520 # Strip "www." from hostnames
5526 Sets part of the identifier of a value to a given string.
5532 =item B<Host> I<String>
5534 =item B<Plugin> I<String>
5536 =item B<PluginInstance> I<String>
5538 =item B<TypeInstance> I<String>
5540 Set the appropriate field to the given string. The strings for plugin instance
5541 and type instance may be empty, the strings for host and plugin may not be
5542 empty. It's currently not possible to set the type of a value this way.
5549 PluginInstance "coretemp"
5550 TypeInstance "core3"
5555 =head2 Backwards compatibility
5557 If you use collectd with an old configuration, i.E<nbsp>e. one without a
5558 B<Chain> block, it will behave as it used to. This is equivalent to the
5559 following configuration:
5565 If you specify a B<PostCacheChain>, the B<write> target will not be added
5566 anywhere and you will have to make sure that it is called where appropriate. We
5567 suggest to add the above snippet as default target to your "PostCache" chain.
5571 Ignore all values, where the hostname does not contain a dot, i.E<nbsp>e. can't
5587 L<collectd-exec(5)>,
5588 L<collectd-perl(5)>,
5589 L<collectd-unixsock(5)>,
5602 Florian Forster E<lt>octo@verplant.orgE<gt>