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<ReadThreads> I<Num>
107 Number of threads to start for reading plugins. The default value is B<5>, but
108 you may want to increase this if you have more than five plugins that take a
109 long time to read. Mostly those are plugin that do network-IO. Setting this to
110 a value higher than the number of plugins you've loaded is totally useless.
112 =item B<Hostname> I<Name>
114 Sets the hostname that identifies a host. If you omit this setting, the
115 hostname will be determinded using the L<gethostname(2)> system call.
117 =item B<FQDNLookup> B<true|false>
119 If B<Hostname> is determined automatically this setting controls whether or not
120 the daemon should try to figure out the "fully qualified domain name", FQDN.
121 This is done using a lookup of the name returned by C<gethostname>.
123 Using this feature (i.E<nbsp>e. setting this option to B<true>) is recommended.
124 However, to preserve backwards compatibility the default is set to B<false>.
125 The sample config file that is installed with C<makeE<nbsp>install> includes a
126 line which sets this option, though, so that default installations will have
127 this setting enabled.
131 =head1 PLUGIN OPTIONS
133 Some plugins may register own options. These options must be enclosed in a
134 C<Plugin>-Section. Which options exist depends on the plugin used. Some plugins
135 require external configuration, too. The C<apache plugin>, for example,
136 required C<mod_status> to be configured in the webserver you're going to
137 collect data from. These plugins are listed below as well, even if they don't
138 require any configuration within collectd's configfile.
140 A list of all plugins and a short summary for each plugin can be found in the
141 F<README> file shipped with the sourcecode and hopefully binary packets as
144 =head2 Plugin C<apache>
146 To configure the C<apache>-plugin you first need to configure the Apache
147 webserver correctly. The Apache-plugin C<mod_status> needs to be loaded and
148 working and the C<ExtendedStatus> directive needs to be B<enabled>. You can use
149 the following snipped to base your Apache config upon:
152 <IfModule mod_status.c>
153 <Location /mod_status>
154 SetHandler server-status
158 Since its C<mod_status> module is very similar to Apache's, B<lighttpd> is
159 also supported. It introduces a new field, called C<BusyServers>, to count the
160 number of currently connected clients. This field is also supported.
162 The following options are accepted by the C<apache>-plugin:
166 =item B<URL> I<http://host/mod_status?auto>
168 Sets the URL of the C<mod_status> output. This needs to be the output generated
169 by C<ExtendedStatus on> and it needs to be the machine readable output
170 generated by appending the C<?auto> argument.
172 =item B<User> I<Username>
174 Optional user name needed for authentication.
176 =item B<Password> I<Password>
178 Optional password needed for authentication.
180 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true|false>
182 Enable or disable peer SSL certificate verification. See
183 L<http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html> for details. Enabled by default.
185 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true|false>
187 Enable or disable peer host name verification. If enabled, the plugin checks
188 if the C<Common Name> or a C<Subject Alternate Name> field of the SSL
189 certificate matches the host name provided by the B<URL> option. If this
190 identity check fails, the connection is aborted. Obviously, only works when
191 connecting to a SSL enabled server. Enabled by default.
193 =item B<CACert> I<File>
195 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
196 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
197 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
201 =head2 Plugin C<apcups>
205 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
207 Hostname of the host running B<apcupsd>. Defaults to B<localhost>. Please note
208 that IPv6 support has been disabled unless someone can confirm or decline that
209 B<apcupsd> can handle it.
211 =item B<Port> I<Port>
213 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<3551>.
217 =head2 Plugin C<ascent>
219 This plugin collects information about an Ascent server, a free server for the
220 "World of Warcraft" game. This plugin gathers the information by fetching the
221 XML status page using C<libcurl> and parses it using C<libxml2>.
223 The configuration options are the same as for the C<apache> plugin above:
227 =item B<URL> I<http://localhost/ascent/status/>
229 Sets the URL of the XML status output.
231 =item B<User> I<Username>
233 Optional user name needed for authentication.
235 =item B<Password> I<Password>
237 Optional password needed for authentication.
239 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true|false>
241 Enable or disable peer SSL certificate verification. See
242 L<http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html> for details. Enabled by default.
244 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true|false>
246 Enable or disable peer host name verification. If enabled, the plugin checks
247 if the C<Common Name> or a C<Subject Alternate Name> field of the SSL
248 certificate matches the host name provided by the B<URL> option. If this
249 identity check fails, the connection is aborted. Obviously, only works when
250 connecting to a SSL enabled server. Enabled by default.
252 =item B<CACert> I<File>
254 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
255 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
256 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
260 =head2 Plugin C<bind>
262 Starting with BIND 9.5.0, the most widely used DNS server software provides
263 extensive statistics about queries, responses and lots of other information.
264 The bind plugin retrieves this information that's encoded in XML and provided
265 via HTTP and submits the values to collectd.
267 To use this plugin, you first need to tell BIND to make this information
268 available. This is done with the C<statistics-channels> configuration option:
270 statistics-channels {
271 inet localhost port 8053;
274 The bind plugin accepts the following configuration options:
280 URL from which to retrieve the XML data. If not specified,
281 C<http://localhost:8053/> will be used.
283 =item B<DNSSEC> I<true>|I<false>
285 =item B<OpCodes> I<true>|I<false>
287 =item B<Queries> I<true>|I<false>
289 =item B<QueryResults> I<true>|I<false>
291 =item B<RCode> I<true>|I<false>
293 =item B<Rejects> I<true>|I<false>
295 =item B<Requests> I<true>|I<false>
297 =item B<Resolver> I<true>|I<false>
299 =item B<Responses> I<true>|I<false>
301 =item B<RRQueriesIn> I<true>|I<false>
303 =item B<Updates> I<true>|I<false>
305 =item B<ZoneMaintenance> I<true>|I<false>
307 =item B<ZoneStats> I<true>|I<false>
309 Enables or disables collection of specific counters.
310 TODO: Options must be described in detail!
314 =head2 Plugin C<cpufreq>
316 This plugin doesn't have any options. It reads
317 F</sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq> (for the first CPU
318 installed) to get the current CPU frequency. If this file does not exist make
319 sure B<cpufreqd> (L<http://cpufreqd.sourceforge.net/>) or a similar tool is
320 installed and an "cpu governor" (that's a kernel module) is loaded.
326 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
328 Set the directory to store CSV-files under. Per default CSV-files are generated
329 beneath the daemon's working directory, i.E<nbsp>e. the B<BaseDir>.
330 The special strings B<stdout> and B<stderr> can be used to write to the standard
331 output and standard error channels, respectively. This, of course, only makes
332 much sense when collectd is running in foreground- or non-daemon-mode.
334 =item B<StoreRates> B<true|false>
336 If set to B<true>, convert counter values to rates. If set to B<false> (the
337 default) counter values are stored as is, i.E<nbsp>e. as an increasing integer
344 This plugin uses the B<dbi> library (L<http://libdbi.sourceforge.net/>) to
345 connect to various databases, execute I<SQL> statements and read back the
346 results. I<dbi> is an acronym for "database interface" in case you were
347 wondering about the name. You can configure how each column is to be
348 interpreted and the plugin will generate one or more data sets from each row
349 returned according to these rules.
351 Because the plugin is very generic, the configuration is a little more complex
352 than those of other plugins. It usually looks something like this:
355 <Query "out_of_stock">
356 Statement "SELECT category, COUNT(*) AS value FROM products WHERE in_stock = 0 GROUP BY category"
359 InstancesFrom "category"
363 <Database "product_information">
365 DriverOption "host" "localhost"
366 DriverOption "username" "collectd"
367 DriverOption "password" "aZo6daiw"
368 DriverOption "dbname" "prod_info"
374 The configuration above defines one query with one result and one database. The
375 query is then linked to the database with the B<Query> option I<within> the
376 B<E<lt>DatabaseE<gt>> block. You can have any number of queries and databases
377 and you can also use the B<Include> statement to split up the configuration
378 file in multiple, smaller files. However, the B<E<lt>QueryE<gt>> block I<must>
379 precede the B<E<lt>DatabaseE<gt>> blocks, because the file is interpreted from
382 The following is a complete list of options:
384 =head3 B<Query> blocks
386 Query blocks define I<SQL> statements and how the returned data should be
387 interpreted. They are identified by the name that is given in the opening line
388 of the block. Thus the name needs to be unique. Other than that, the name is
389 not used in collectd.
391 In each B<Query> block, there is one or more B<Result> blocks. B<Result> blocks
392 define which column holds which value or instance information. You can use
393 multiple B<Result> blocks to create multiple values from one returned row. This
394 is especially useful, when queries take a long time and sending almost the same
395 query again and again is not desirable.
399 <Query "environment">
400 Statement "select station, temperature, humidity from environment"
403 InstancesFrom "station"
404 ValuesFrom "temperature"
408 InstancesFrom "station"
409 ValuesFrom "humidity"
413 The following options are accepted:
417 =item B<Statement> I<SQL>
419 Sets the statement that should be executed on the server. This is B<not>
420 interpreted by collectd, but simply passed to the database server. Therefore,
421 the SQL dialect that's used depends on the server collectd is connected to.
423 The query has to return at least two columns, one for the instance and one
424 value. You cannot omit the instance, even if the statement is guaranteed to
425 always return exactly one line. In that case, you can usually specify something
428 Statement "SELECT \"instance\", COUNT(*) AS value FROM table"
430 (That works with MySQL but may not be valid SQL according to the spec. If you
431 use a more strict database server, you may have to select from a dummy table or
434 =item B<Type> I<Type>
436 The B<type> that's used for each line returned. See L<types.db(5)> for more
437 details on how types are defined. In short: A type is a predefined layout of
438 data and the number of values and type of values has to match the type
441 If you specify "temperature" here, you need exactly one gauge column. If you
442 specify "if_octets", you will need two counter columns. See the B<ValuesFrom>
445 There must be exactly one B<Type> option inside each B<Result> block.
447 =item B<InstancesFrom> I<column0> [I<column1> ...]
449 Specifies the columns whose values will be used to create the "TypeInstance"
450 for each row. You need to specify at least one column for each query. If you
451 specify more than one column, the value of all columns will be join together
452 with the hyphen as separation character.
454 The plugin itself does not check whether or not all built instances are
455 different. It's your responsibility to assure that each is unique.
457 There must be at least one B<InstancesFrom> option inside each B<Result> block.
459 =item B<ValuesFrom> I<column0> [I<column1> ...]
461 Names the columns whose content is used as the actual data for the data sets
462 that are dispatched to the daemon. How many such columns you need is determined
463 by the B<Type> setting above. If you specify too many or not enough columns,
464 the plugin will complain about that and no data will be submitted to the
467 The actual data type in the columns is not that important. The plugin will
468 automatically cast the values to the right type if it know how to do that. So
469 it should be able to handle integer an floating point types, as well as strings
470 (if they include a number at the beginning).
472 There must be at least one B<ValuesFrom> option inside each B<Result> block.
476 =head3 B<Database> blocks
478 Database blocks define a connection to a database and which queries should be
479 sent to that database. Since the used "dbi" library can handle a wide variety
480 of databases, the configuration is very generic. If in doubt, refer to libdbi's
481 documentationE<nbsp>- we stick as close to the terminology used there.
483 Each database needs a "name" as string argument in the starting tag of the
484 block. This name will be used as "PluginInstance" in the values submitted to
485 the daemon. Other than that, that name is not used.
489 =item B<Driver> I<Driver>
491 Specifies the driver to use to connect to the database. In many cases those
492 drivers are named after the database they can connect to, but this is not a
493 technical necessity. These drivers are sometimes referred to as "DBD",
494 B<D>ataB<B>ase B<D>river, and some distributions ship them in separate
495 packages. Drivers for the "dbi" library are developed by the B<libdbi-drivers>
496 project at L<http://libdbi-drivers.sourceforge.net/>.
498 You need to give the driver name as expected by the "dbi" library here. You
499 should be able to find that in the documentation for each driver. If you
500 mistype the driver name, the plugin will dump a list of all known driver names
503 =item B<DriverOption> I<Key> I<Value>
505 Sets driver-specific options. What option a driver supports can be found in the
506 documentation for each driver, somewhere at
507 L<http://libdbi-drivers.sourceforge.net/>. However, the options "host",
508 "username", "password", and "dbname" seem to be deE<nbsp>facto standards.
510 Unfortunately, drivers are not too keen to report errors when an unknown option
511 is passed to them, so invalid settings here may go unnoticed. This is not the
512 plugin's fault, it will report errors if it gets them from the libraryE<nbsp>/
513 the driver. If a driver complains about an option, the plugin will dump a
514 complete list of all options understood by that driver to the log.
516 =item B<SelectDB> I<Database>
518 In some cases, the database name you connect with is not the database name you
519 want to use for querying data. If this option is set, the plugin will "select"
520 (switch to) that database after the connection is established.
522 =item B<Query> I<QueryName>
524 Associates the query named I<QueryName> with this database connection. The
525 query needs to be defined I<before> this statement, i.E<nbsp>e. all query
526 blocks you want to refer to must be placed above the database block you want to
535 =item B<Device> I<Device>
537 Select partitions based on the devicename.
539 =item B<MountPoint> I<Directory>
541 Select partitions based on the mountpoint.
543 =item B<FSType> I<FSType>
545 Select partitions based on the filesystem type.
547 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
549 Invert the selection: If set to true, all partitions B<except> the ones that
550 match any one of the criteria are collected. By default only selected
551 partitions are collected if a selection is made. If no selection is configured
552 at all, B<all> partitions are selected.
556 =head2 Plugin C<disk>
558 The C<disk> plugin collects information about the usage of physical disks and
559 logical disks (partitions). Values collected are the number of octets written
560 to and read from a disk or partition, the number of read/write operations
561 issued to the disk and a rather complex "time" it took for these commands to be
564 Using the following two options you can ignore some disks or configure the
565 collection only of specific disks.
569 =item B<Disk> I<Name>
571 Select the disk I<Name>. Whether it is collected or ignored depends on the
572 B<IgnoreSelected> setting, see below. As with other plugins that use the
573 daemon's ignorelist functionality, a string that starts and ends with a slash
574 is interpreted as a regular expression. Examples:
579 =item B<IgnoreSelected> B<true>|B<false>
581 Sets whether selected disks, i.E<nbsp>e. the ones matches by any of the B<Disk>
582 statements, are ignored or if all other disks are ignored. The behavior
583 (hopefully) is intuitive: If no B<Disk> option is configured, all disks are
584 collected. If at least one B<Disk> option is given and no B<IgnoreSelected> or
585 set to B<false>, B<only> matching disks will be collected. If B<IgnoreSelected>
586 is set to B<true>, all disks are collected B<except> the ones matched.
594 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
596 The dns plugin uses B<libpcap> to capture dns traffic and analyses it. This
597 option sets the interface that should be used. If this option is not set, or
598 set to "any", the plugin will try to get packets from B<all> interfaces. This
599 may not work on certain platforms, such as MacE<nbsp>OSE<nbsp>X.
601 =item B<IgnoreSource> I<IP-address>
603 Ignore packets that originate from this address.
607 =head2 Plugin C<email>
611 =item B<SocketFile> I<Path>
613 Sets the socket-file which is to be created.
615 =item B<SocketGroup> I<Group>
617 If running as root change the group of the UNIX-socket after it has been
618 created. Defaults to B<collectd>.
620 =item B<SocketPerms> I<Permissions>
622 Change the file permissions of the UNIX-socket after it has been created. The
623 permissions must be given as a numeric, octal value as you would pass to
624 L<chmod(1)>. Defaults to B<0770>.
626 =item B<MaxConns> I<Number>
628 Sets the maximum number of connections that can be handled in parallel. Since
629 this many threads will be started immediately setting this to a very high
630 value will waste valuable resources. Defaults to B<5> and will be forced to be
631 at most B<16384> to prevent typos and dumb mistakes.
635 =head2 Plugin C<exec>
637 Please make sure to read L<collectd-exec(5)> before using this plugin. It
638 contains valuable information on when the executable is executed and the
639 output that is expected from it.
643 =item B<Exec> I<User>[:[I<Group>]] I<Executable> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> ...]]
645 =item B<NotificationExec> I<User>[:[I<Group>]] I<Executable> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> [I<E<lt>argE<gt>> ...]]
647 Execute the executable I<Executable> as user I<User>. If the user name is
648 followed by a colon and a group name, the effective group is set to that group.
649 The real group and saved-set group will be set to the default group of that
650 user. If no group is given the effective group ID will be the same as the real
653 Please note that in order to change the user and/or group the daemon needs
654 superuser privileges. If the daemon is run as an unprivileged user you must
655 specify the same user/group here. If the daemon is run with superuser
656 privileges, you must supply a non-root user here.
658 The executable may be followed by optional arguments that are passed to the
659 program. Please note that due to the configuration parsing numbers and boolean
660 values may be changed. If you want to be absolutely sure that something is
661 passed as-is please enclose it in quotes.
663 The B<Exec> and B<NotificationExec> statements change the semantics of the
664 programs executed, i.E<nbsp>e. the data passed to them and the response
665 expected from them. This is documented in great detail in L<collectd-exec(5)>.
669 =head2 Plugin C<filecount>
671 The C<filecount> plugin counts the number of files in a certain directory (and
672 its subdirectories) and their combined size. The configuration is very straight
676 <Directory "/var/qmail/queue/mess">
677 Instance "qmail-message"
679 <Directory "/var/qmail/queue/todo">
680 Instance "qmail-todo"
682 <Directory "/var/lib/php5">
683 Instance "php5-sessions"
688 The example above counts the number of files in QMail's queue directories and
689 the number of PHP5 sessions. Jfiy: The "todo" queue holds the messages that
690 QMail has not yet looked at, the "message" queue holds the messages that were
691 classified into "local" and "remote".
693 As you can see, the configuration consists of one or more C<Directory> blocks,
694 each of which specifies a directory in which to count the files. Within those
695 blocks, the following options are recognized:
699 =item B<Instance> I<Instance>
701 Sets the plugin instance to I<Instance>. That instance name must be unique, but
702 it's your responsibility, the plugin doesn't check for that. If not given, the
703 instance is set to the directory name with all slashes replaced by underscores
704 and all leading underscores removed.
706 =item B<Name> I<Pattern>
708 Only count files that match I<Pattern>, where I<Pattern> is a shell-like
709 wildcard as understood by L<fnmatch(3)>. Only the B<filename> is checked
710 against the pattern, not the entire path. In case this makes it easier for you:
711 This option has been named after the B<-name> parameter to L<find(1)>.
713 =item B<MTime> I<Age>
715 Count only files of a specific age: If I<Age> is greater than zero, only files
716 that haven't been touched in the last I<Age> seconds are counted. If I<Age> is
717 a negative number, this is inversed. For example, if B<-60> is specified, only
718 files that have been modified in the last minute will be counted.
720 The number can also be followed by a "multiplier" to easily specify a larger
721 timespan. When given in this notation, the argument must in quoted, i.E<nbsp>e.
722 must be passed as string. So the B<-60> could also be written as B<"-1m"> (one
723 minute). Valid multipliers are C<s> (second), C<m> (minute), C<h> (hour), C<d>
724 (day), C<w> (week), and C<y> (year). There is no "month" multiplier. You can
725 also specify fractional numbers, e.E<nbsp>g. B<"0.5d"> is identical to
728 =item B<Size> I<Size>
730 Count only files of a specific size. When I<Size> is a positive number, only
731 files that are at least this big are counted. If I<Size> is a negative number,
732 this is inversed, i.E<nbsp>e. only files smaller than the absolute value of
735 As with the B<MTime> option, a "multiplier" may be added. For a detailed
736 description see above. Valid multipliers here are C<b> (byte), C<k> (kilobyte),
737 C<m> (megabyte), C<g> (gigabyte), C<t> (terabyte), and C<p> (petabyte). Please
738 note that there are 1000 bytes in a kilobyte, not 1024.
740 =item B<Recursive> I<true>|I<false>
742 Controls whether or not to recurse into subdirectories. Enabled by default.
746 =head2 Plugin C<filter_pcre>
748 This plugin allows you to filter and rewrite value lists based on
749 Perl-compatible regular expressions whose syntax and semantics are as close as
750 possible to those of the Perl 5 language. See L<pcre(3)> for details.
763 PluginInstance "^Some Weird Sensor Chip Name Prefix"
765 SubstitutePluginInstance "foo"
769 The configuration consists of one or more C<RegEx> blocks, each of which
770 specifies a regular expression identifying a set of value lists and how to
771 handle successful matches. A value list keeps the values of a single data-set
772 and is identified by the tuple (host, plugin, plugin instance, type, type
773 instance). The plugin and type instances are optional components. If they are
774 missing they are treated as empty strings. Within those blocks, the following
775 options are recognized:
779 =item B<Host> I<regex>
781 =item B<Plugin> I<regex>
783 =item B<PluginInstance> I<regex>
785 =item B<Type> I<regex>
787 =item B<TypeInstance> I<regex>
789 Specifies the regular expression for each component of the identifier. If any
790 of these options is missing it is interpreted as a pattern which matches any
791 string. All five components of a value list have to match the appropriate
792 regular expression to trigger the specified action.
794 =item B<Action> I<NoWrite>|I<NoThresholdCheck>|I<Ignore>
796 Specify how to handle successful matches:
802 Do not send the value list to any output (a.k.a. write) plugins.
804 =item B<NoThresholdCheck>
806 Skip threshold checking for this value list.
810 Completely ignore this value list.
814 Two or more actions may be combined by specifying multiple B<Action> options.
816 =item B<SubstituteHost> I<replacement>
818 =item B<SubstitutePlugin> I<replacement>
820 =item B<SubstitutePluginInstance> I<replacement>
822 =item B<SubstituteType> I<replacement>
824 =item B<SubstituteTypeInstance> I<replacement>
826 Upon a successful match, the matching substring will be replaced by the
827 specified I<replacement> text. These options require that an appropriate regex
828 has been specified before, e.E<nbsp>g. B<SubstituteHost> requires that the
829 B<Host> option has been specified before.
831 B<Note>: It is not recommended to modify the type unless you really know what
832 you are doing. The type is used to identify the data-set definition of the
837 =head2 Plugin C<hddtemp>
839 To get values from B<hddtemp> collectd connects to B<localhost> (127.0.0.1),
840 port B<7634/tcp>. The B<Host> and B<Port> options can be used to change these
841 default values, see below. C<hddtemp> has to be running to work correctly. If
842 C<hddtemp> is not running timeouts may appear which may interfere with other
845 The B<hddtemp> homepage can be found at
846 L<http://www.guzu.net/linux/hddtemp.php>.
850 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
852 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
854 =item B<Port> I<Port>
856 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<7634>.
858 =item B<TranslateDevicename> I<true>|I<false>
860 If enabled, translate the disk names to major/minor device numbers
861 (e.E<nbsp>g. "8-0" for /dev/sda). For backwards compatibility this defaults to
862 I<true> but it's recommended to disable it as it will probably be removed in
863 the next major version.
867 =head2 Plugin C<interface>
871 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
873 Select this interface. By default these interfaces will then be collected. For
874 a more detailed description see B<IgnoreSelected> below.
876 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
878 If no configuration if given, the B<traffic>-plugin will collect data from
879 all interfaces. This may not be practical, especially for loopback- and
880 similar interfaces. Thus, you can use the B<Interface>-option to pick the
881 interfaces you're interested in. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred
882 to collect all interfaces I<except> a few ones. This option enables you to
883 do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to I<true> the effect of
884 B<Interface> is inverted: All selected interfaces are ignored and all
885 other interfaces are collected.
889 =head2 Plugin C<ipmi>
893 =item B<Sensor> I<Sensor>
895 Selects sensors to collect or to ignore, depending on B<IgnoreSelected>.
897 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
899 If no configuration if given, the B<ipmi> plugin will collect data from all
900 sensors found of type "temperature", "voltage", "current" and "fanspeed".
901 This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to I<true>
902 the effect of B<Sensor> is inverted: All selected sensors are ignored and
903 all other sensors are collected.
905 =item B<NotifySensorAdd> I<true>|I<false>
907 If a sensor appears after initialization time of a minute a notification
910 =item B<NotifySensorRemove> I<true>|I<false>
912 If a sensor disappears a notification is sent.
914 =item B<NotifySensorNotPresent> I<true>|I<false>
916 If you have for example dual power supply and one of them is (un)plugged then
917 a notification is sent.
921 =head2 Plugin C<iptables>
925 =item B<Chain> I<Table> I<Chain> [I<Comment|Number> [I<Name>]]
927 Select the rules to count. If only I<Table> and I<Chain> are given, this plugin
928 will collect the counters of all rules which have a comment-match. The comment
929 is then used as type-instance.
931 If I<Comment> or I<Number> is given, only the rule with the matching comment or
932 the I<n>th rule will be collected. Again, the comment (or the number) will be
933 used as the type-instance.
935 If I<Name> is supplied, it will be used as the type-instance instead of the
936 comment or the number.
946 Select this irq. By default these irqs will then be collected. For a more
947 detailed description see B<IgnoreSelected> below.
949 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
951 If no configuration if given, the B<irq>-plugin will collect data from all
952 irqs. This may not be practical, especially if no interrupts happen. Thus, you
953 can use the B<Irq>-option to pick the interrupt you're interested in.
954 Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect all interrupts I<except> a
955 few ones. This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to
956 I<true> the effect of B<Irq> is inverted: All selected interrupts are ignored
957 and all other interrupts are collected.
961 =head2 Plugin C<libvirt>
963 This plugin allows CPU, disk and network load to be collected for virtualized
964 guests on the machine. This means that these characteristics can be collected
965 for guest systems without installing any software on them - collectd only runs
966 on the hosting system. The statistics are collected through libvirt
967 (L<http://libvirt.org/>).
969 Only I<Connection> is required.
973 =item B<Connection> I<uri>
975 Connect to the hypervisor given by I<uri>. For example if using Xen use:
979 Details which URIs allowed are given at L<http://libvirt.org/uri.html>.
981 =item B<RefreshInterval> I<seconds>
983 Refresh the list of domains and devices every I<seconds>. The default is 60
984 seconds. Setting this to be the same or smaller than the I<Interval> will cause
985 the list of domains and devices to be refreshed on every iteration.
987 Refreshing the devices in particular is quite a costly operation, so if your
988 virtualization setup is static you might consider increasing this. If this
989 option is set to 0, refreshing is disabled completely.
991 =item B<Domain> I<name>
993 =item B<BlockDevice> I<name:dev>
995 =item B<InterfaceDevice> I<name:dev>
997 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
999 Select which domains and devices are collected.
1001 If I<IgnoreSelected> is not given or I<false> then only the listed domains and
1002 disk/network devices are collected.
1004 If I<IgnoreSelected> is I<true> then the test is reversed and the listed
1005 domains and disk/network devices are ignored, while the rest are collected.
1007 The domain name and device names may use a regular expression, if the name is
1008 surrounded by I</.../> and collectd was compiled with support for regexps.
1010 The default is to collect statistics for all domains and all their devices.
1014 BlockDevice "/:hdb/"
1015 IgnoreSelected "true"
1017 Ignore all I<hdb> devices on any domain, but other block devices (eg. I<hda>)
1020 =item B<HostnameFormat> B<name|uuid|hostname|...>
1022 When the libvirt plugin logs data, it sets the hostname of the collected data
1023 according to this setting. The default is to use the guest name as provided by
1024 the hypervisor, which is equal to setting B<name>.
1026 B<uuid> means use the guest's UUID. This is useful if you want to track the
1027 same guest across migrations.
1029 B<hostname> means to use the global B<Hostname> setting, which is probably not
1030 useful on its own because all guests will appear to have the same name.
1032 You can also specify combinations of these fields. For example B<name uuid>
1033 means to concatenate the guest name and UUID (with a literal colon character
1034 between, thus I<"foo:1234-1234-1234-1234">).
1038 =head2 Plugin C<logfile>
1042 =item B<LogLevel> B<debug|info|notice|warning|err>
1044 Sets the log-level. If, for example, set to B<notice>, then all events with
1045 severity B<notice>, B<warning>, or B<err> will be written to the logfile.
1047 Please note that B<debug> is only available if collectd has been compiled with
1050 =item B<File> I<File>
1052 Sets the file to write log messages to. The special strings B<stdout> and
1053 B<stderr> can be used to write to the standard output and standard error
1054 channels, respectively. This, of course, only makes much sense when collectd is
1055 running in foreground- or non-daemon-mode.
1057 =item B<Timestamp> B<true>|B<false>
1059 Prefix all lines printed by the current time. Defaults to B<true>.
1063 =head2 Plugin C<mbmon>
1065 The C<mbmon plugin> uses mbmon to retrieve temperature, voltage, etc.
1067 Be default collectd connects to B<localhost> (127.0.0.1), port B<411/tcp>. The
1068 B<Host> and B<Port> options can be used to change these values, see below.
1069 C<mbmon> has to be running to work correctly. If C<mbmon> is not running
1070 timeouts may appear which may interfere with other statistics..
1072 C<mbmon> must be run with the -r option ("print TAG and Value format");
1073 Debian's F</etc/init.d/mbmon> script already does this, other people
1074 will need to ensure that this is the case.
1078 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
1080 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
1082 =item B<Port> I<Port>
1084 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<411>.
1088 =head2 Plugin C<memcached>
1090 The C<memcached plugin> connects to a memcached server and queries statistics
1091 about cache utilization, memory and bandwidth used.
1092 L<http://www.danga.com/memcached/>
1096 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
1098 Hostname to connect to. Defaults to B<127.0.0.1>.
1100 =item B<Port> I<Port>
1102 TCP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<11211>.
1106 =head2 Plugin C<mysql>
1108 The C<mysql plugin> requires B<mysqlclient> to be installed. It connects to the
1109 database when started and keeps the connection up as long as possible. When the
1110 connection is interrupted for whatever reason it will try to re-connect. The
1111 plugin will complaint loudly in case anything goes wrong.
1113 This plugin issues the MySQL C<SHOW STATUS> command and collects information
1114 about MySQL network traffic, executed statements, requests, the query cache
1115 and threads by evaluating the C<Bytes_{received,sent}>, C<Com_*>,
1116 C<Handler_*>, C<Qcache_*> and C<Threads_*> return values. Please refer to the
1117 B<MySQL reference manual>, I<5.1.6. Server Status Variables> for an
1118 explanation of these values.
1120 Use the following options to configure the plugin:
1124 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
1126 Hostname of the database server. Defaults to B<localhost>.
1128 =item B<User> I<Username>
1130 Username to use when connecting to the database. The user does not have to be
1131 granted any privileges (which is synonym to granting the C<USAGE> privilege).
1132 Any existing MySQL user will do.
1134 =item B<Password> I<Password>
1136 Password needed to log into the database.
1138 =item B<Database> I<Database>
1140 Select this database. Defaults to I<no database> which is a perfectly reasonable
1141 option for what this plugin does.
1143 =item B<Port> I<Port>
1145 TCP-port to connect to. The port must be specified in its numeric form, but it
1146 must be passed as a string nonetheless. For example:
1150 If B<Host> is set to B<localhost> (the default), this setting has no effect.
1151 See the documentation for the C<mysql_real_connect> function for details.
1153 =item B<Socket> I<Socket>
1155 Specifies the path to the UNIX domain socket of the MySQL server. This option
1156 only has any effect, if B<Host> is set to B<localhost> (the default).
1157 Otherwise, use the B<Port> option above. See the documentation for the
1158 C<mysql_real_connect> function for details.
1162 =head2 Plugin C<netlink>
1164 The C<netlink> plugin uses a netlink socket to query the Linux kernel about
1165 statistics of various interface and routing aspects.
1169 =item B<Interface> I<Interface>
1171 =item B<VerboseInterface> I<Interface>
1173 Instruct the plugin to collect interface statistics. This is basically the same
1174 as the statistics provided by the C<interface> plugin (see above) but
1175 potentially much more detailed.
1177 When configuring with B<Interface> only the basic statistics will be collected,
1178 namely octets, packets, and errors. These statistics are collected by
1179 the C<interface> plugin, too, so using both at the same time is no benefit.
1181 When configured with B<VerboseInterface> all counters B<except> the basic ones,
1182 so that no data needs to be collected twice if you use the C<interface> plugin.
1183 This includes dropped packets, received multicast packets, collisions and a
1184 whole zoo of differentiated RX and TX errors. You can try the following command
1185 to get an idea of what awaits you:
1189 If I<Interface> is B<All>, all interfaces will be selected.
1191 =item B<QDisc> I<Interface> [I<QDisc>]
1193 =item B<Class> I<Interface> [I<Class>]
1195 =item B<Filter> I<Interface> [I<Filter>]
1197 Collect the octets and packets that pass a certain qdisc, class or filter.
1199 QDiscs and classes are identified by their type and handle (or classid).
1200 Filters don't necessarily have a handle, therefore the parent's handle is used.
1201 The notation used in collectd differs from that used in tc(1) in that it
1202 doesn't skip the major or minor number if it's zero and doesn't print special
1203 ids by their name. So, for example, a qdisc may be identified by
1204 C<pfifo_fast-1:0> even though the minor number of B<all> qdiscs is zero and
1205 thus not displayed by tc(1).
1207 If B<QDisc>, B<Class>, or B<Filter> is given without the second argument,
1208 i.E<nbsp>.e. without an identifier, all qdiscs, classes, or filters that are
1209 associated with that interface will be collected.
1211 Since a filter itself doesn't necessarily have a handle, the parent's handle is
1212 used. This may lead to problems when more than one filter is attached to a
1213 qdisc or class. This isn't nice, but we don't know how this could be done any
1214 better. If you have a idea, please don't hesitate to tell us.
1216 As with the B<Interface> option you can specify B<All> as the interface,
1217 meaning all interfaces.
1219 Here are some examples to help you understand the above text more easily:
1222 VerboseInterface "All"
1223 QDisc "eth0" "pfifo_fast-1:0"
1225 Class "ppp0" "htb-1:10"
1226 Filter "ppp0" "u32-1:0"
1229 =item B<IgnoreSelected>
1231 The behaviour is the same as with all other similar plugins: If nothing is
1232 selected at all, everything is collected. If some things are selected using the
1233 options described above, only these statistics are collected. If you set
1234 B<IgnoreSelected> to B<true>, this behavior is inverted, i.E<nbsp>e. the
1235 specified statistics will not be collected.
1239 =head2 Plugin C<network>
1243 =item B<Listen> I<Host> [I<Port>]
1245 =item B<Server> I<Host> [I<Port>]
1247 The B<Server> statement sets the server to send datagrams B<to>. The statement
1248 may occur multiple times to send each datagram to multiple destinations.
1250 The B<Listen> statement sets the interfaces to bind to. When multiple
1251 statements are found the daemon will bind to multiple interfaces.
1253 The argument I<Host> may be a hostname, an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address. If
1254 the argument is a multicast address the daemon will join that multicast group.
1256 If no B<Listen> statement is found the server tries join both, the default IPv6
1257 multicast group and the default IPv4 multicast group. If no B<Server> statement
1258 is found the client will try to send data to the IPv6 multicast group first. If
1259 that fails the client will try the IPv4 multicast group.
1261 The default IPv6 multicast group is C<ff18::efc0:4a42>. The default IPv4
1262 multicast group is C<239.192.74.66>.
1264 The optional I<Port> argument sets the port to use. It can either be given
1265 using a numeric port number or a service name. If the argument is omitted the
1266 default port B<25826> is assumed.
1268 =item B<TimeToLive> I<1-255>
1270 Set the time-to-live of sent packets. This applies to all, unicast and
1271 multicast, and IPv4 and IPv6 packets. The default is to not change this value.
1272 That means that multicast packets will be sent with a TTL of C<1> (one) on most
1275 =item B<Forward> I<true|false>
1277 If set to I<true>, write packets that were received via the network plugin to
1278 the sending sockets. This should only be activated when the B<Listen>- and
1279 B<Server>-statements differ. Otherwise packets may be send multiple times to
1280 the same multicast group. While this results in more network traffic than
1281 necessary it's not a huge problem since the plugin has a duplicate detection,
1282 so the values will not loop.
1284 =item B<CacheFlush> I<Seconds>
1286 For each host/plugin/type combination the C<network plugin> caches the time of
1287 the last value being sent or received. Every I<Seconds> seconds the plugin
1288 searches and removes all entries that are older than I<Seconds> seconds, thus
1289 freeing the unused memory again. Since this process is somewhat expensive and
1290 normally doesn't do much, this value should not be too small. The default is
1291 1800 seconds, but setting this to 86400 seconds (one day) will not do much harm
1296 =head2 Plugin C<nginx>
1298 This plugin collects the number of connections and requests handled by the
1299 C<nginx daemon> (speak: engineE<nbsp>X), a HTTP and mail server/proxy. It
1300 queries the page provided by the C<ngx_http_stub_status_module> module, which
1301 isn't compiled by default. Please refer to
1302 L<http://wiki.codemongers.com/NginxStubStatusModule> for more information on
1303 how to compile and configure nginx and this module.
1305 The following options are accepted by the C<nginx plugin>:
1309 =item B<URL> I<http://host/nginx_status>
1311 Sets the URL of the C<ngx_http_stub_status_module> output.
1313 =item B<User> I<Username>
1315 Optional user name needed for authentication.
1317 =item B<Password> I<Password>
1319 Optional password needed for authentication.
1321 =item B<VerifyPeer> B<true|false>
1323 Enable or disable peer SSL certificate verification. See
1324 L<http://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html> for details. Enabled by default.
1326 =item B<VerifyHost> B<true|false>
1328 Enable or disable peer host name verification. If enabled, the plugin checks
1329 if the C<Common Name> or a C<Subject Alternate Name> field of the SSL
1330 certificate matches the host name provided by the B<URL> option. If this
1331 identity check fails, the connection is aborted. Obviously, only works when
1332 connecting to a SSL enabled server. Enabled by default.
1334 =item B<CACert> I<File>
1336 File that holds one or more SSL certificates. If you want to use HTTPS you will
1337 possibly need this option. What CA certificates come bundled with C<libcurl>
1338 and are checked by default depends on the distribution you use.
1342 =head2 Plugin C<notify_desktop>
1344 This plugin sends a desktop notification to a notification daemon, as defined
1345 in the Desktop Notification Specification. To actually display the
1346 notifications, B<notification-daemon> is required and B<collectd> has to be
1347 able to access the X server.
1349 The Desktop Notification Specification can be found at
1350 L<http://www.galago-project.org/specs/notification/>.
1354 =item B<OkayTimeout> I<timeout>
1356 =item B<WarningTimeout> I<timeout>
1358 =item B<FailureTimeout> I<timeout>
1360 Set the I<timeout>, in milliseconds, after which to expire the notification
1361 for C<OKAY>, C<WARNING> and C<FAILURE> severities respectively. If zero has
1362 been specified, the displayed notification will not be closed at all - the
1363 user has to do so herself. These options default to 5000. If a negative number
1364 has been specified, the default is used as well.
1368 =head2 Plugin C<ntpd>
1372 =item B<Host> I<Hostname>
1374 Hostname of the host running B<ntpd>. Defaults to B<localhost>.
1376 =item B<Port> I<Port>
1378 UDP-Port to connect to. Defaults to B<123>.
1380 =item B<ReverseLookups> B<true>|B<false>
1382 Sets wether or not to perform reverse lookups on peers. Since the name or
1383 IP-address may be used in a filename it is recommended to disable reverse
1384 lookups. The default is to do reverse lookups to preserve backwards
1385 compatibility, though.
1389 =head2 Plugin C<nut>
1393 =item B<UPS> I<upsname>B<@>I<hostname>[B<:>I<port>]
1395 Add a UPS to collect data from. The format is identical to the one accepted by
1400 =head2 Plugin C<onewire>
1402 B<EXPERIMENTAL!> See notes below.
1404 The C<onewire> plugin uses the B<owcapi> library from the B<owfs> project
1405 L<http://owfs.org/> to read sensors connected via the onewire bus.
1407 Currently only temperature sensors (sensors with the family code C<10>,
1408 e.E<nbsp>g. DS1820, DS18S20, DS1920) can be read. If you have other sensors you
1409 would like to have included, please send a sort request to the mailing list.
1411 Hubs (the DS2409 chips) are working, but read the note, why this plugin is
1412 experimental, below.
1416 =item B<Device> I<Device>
1418 Sets the device to read the values from. This can either be a "real" hardware
1419 device, such as a serial port or an USB port, or the address of the
1420 L<owserver(1)> socket, usually B<localhost:4304>.
1422 Though the documentation claims to automatically recognize the given address
1423 format, with versionE<nbsp>2.7p4 we had to specify the type explicitly. So
1424 with that version, the following configuration worked for us:
1427 Device "-s localhost:4304"
1430 This directive is B<required> and does not have a default value.
1432 =item B<Sensor> I<Sensor>
1434 Selects sensors to collect or to ignore, depending on B<IgnoreSelected>, see
1435 below. Sensors are specified without the family byte at the beginning, to you'd
1436 use C<F10FCA000800>, and B<not> include the leading C<10.> family byte and
1439 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
1441 If no configuration if given, the B<onewire> plugin will collect data from all
1442 sensors found. This may not be practical, especially if sensors are added and
1443 removed regularly. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect only
1444 specific sensors or all sensors I<except> a few specified ones. This option
1445 enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to I<true> the effect of
1446 B<Sensor> is inverted: All selected interfaces are ignored and all other
1447 interfaces are collected.
1451 B<EXPERIMENTAL!> The C<onewire> plugin is experimental, because it doesn't yet
1452 work with big setups. It works with one sensor being attached to one
1453 controller, but as soon as you throw in a couple more senors and maybe a hub
1454 or two, reading all values will take more than ten seconds (the default
1455 interval). We will probably add some separate thread for reading the sensors
1456 and some cache or something like that, but it's not done yet. We will try to
1457 maintain backwards compatibility in the future, but we can't promise. So in
1458 short: If it works for you: Great! But keep in mind that the config I<might>
1459 change, though this is unlikely. Oh, and if you want to help improving this
1460 plugin, just send a short notice to the mailing list. ThanksE<nbsp>:)
1462 =head2 Plugin C<openvpn>
1464 The OpenVPN plugin reads a status file maintained by OpenVPN and gathers
1465 traffic statistics about connected clients.
1467 To set up OpenVPN to write to the status file periodically, use the
1468 B<--status> option of OpenVPN. Since OpenVPN can write two different formats,
1469 you need to set the required format, too. This is done by setting
1470 B<--status-version> to B<2>.
1472 So, in a nutshell you need:
1474 openvpn $OTHER_OPTIONS \
1475 --status "/var/run/openvpn-status" 10 \
1482 =item B<StatusFile> I<File>
1484 Specifies the location of the status file.
1488 =head2 Plugin C<oracle>
1490 The "oracle" plugin uses the Oracle® Call Interface (OCI) to connect to an
1491 Oracle® Database and lets you execute SQL statements there. It is very similar
1492 to the "dbi" plugin, because it was written around the same time. See the "dbi"
1493 plugin's documentation above for details.
1496 <Query "out_of_stock">
1497 Statement "SELECT category, COUNT(*) AS value FROM products WHERE in_stock = 0 GROUP BY category"
1499 InstancesFrom "category"
1502 <Database "product_information">
1506 Query "out_of_stock"
1510 =head3 B<Query> blocks
1512 The Query blocks are handled identically to the Query blocks of the "dbi"
1513 plugin. Please see its documentation above for details on how to specify
1516 =head3 B<Database> blocks
1518 Database blocks define a connection to a database and which queries should be
1519 sent to that database. Each database needs a "name" as string argument in the
1520 starting tag of the block. This name will be used as "PluginInstance" in the
1521 values submitted to the daemon. Other than that, that name is not used.
1525 =item B<ConnectID> I<ID>
1527 Defines the "database alias" or "service name" to connect to. Usually, these
1528 names are defined in the file named C<$ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/tnsnames.ora>.
1530 =item B<Username> I<Username>
1532 Username used for authentication.
1534 =item B<Password> I<Password>
1536 Password used for authentication.
1538 =item B<Query> I<QueryName>
1540 Associates the query named I<QueryName> with this database connection. The
1541 query needs to be defined I<before> this statement, i.E<nbsp>e. all query
1542 blocks you want to refer to must be placed above the database block you want to
1547 =head2 Plugin C<perl>
1549 This plugin embeds a Perl-interpreter into collectd and provides an interface
1550 to collectd's plugin system. See L<collectd-perl(5)> for its documentation.
1552 =head2 Plugin C<ping>
1556 =item B<Host> I<IP-address>
1558 Host to ping periodically. This option may be repeated several times to ping
1561 =item B<TTL> I<0-255>
1563 Sets the Time-To-Live of generated ICMP packets.
1567 =head2 Plugin C<postgresql>
1569 The C<postgresql> plugin queries statistics from PostgreSQL databases. It
1570 keeps a persistent connection to all configured databases and tries to
1571 reconnect if the connection has been interrupted. A database is configured by
1572 specifying a B<Database> block as described below. The default statistics are
1573 collected from PostgreSQL's B<statistics collector> which thus has to be
1574 enabled for this plugin to work correctly. This should usually be the case by
1575 default. See the section "The Statistics Collector" of the B<PostgreSQL
1576 Documentation> for details.
1578 By specifying custom database queries using a B<Query> block as described
1579 below, you may collect any data that is available from some PostgreSQL
1580 database. This way, you are able to access statistics of external daemons
1581 which are available in a PostgreSQL database or use future or special
1582 statistics provided by PostgreSQL without the need to upgrade your collectd
1585 The B<PostgreSQL Documentation> manual can be found at
1586 L<http://www.postgresql.org/docs/manuals/>.
1590 Statement "SELECT magic, spells FROM wizard WHERE host = $1;"
1593 Column counter spells
1602 KRBSrvName "kerberos_service_name"
1606 Service "service_name"
1610 The B<Query> block defines one database query which may later be used by a
1611 database definition. It accepts a single mandatory argument which specifies
1612 the name of the query. The names of all queries have to be unique. The
1613 following configuration options are available to define the query:
1617 =item B<Statement> I<sql query statement>
1619 Specify the I<sql query statement> which the plugin should execute. The string
1620 may contain the tokens B<$1>, B<$2>, etc. which are used to reference the
1621 first, second, etc. parameter. The value of the parameters is specified by the
1622 B<Param> configuration option - see below for details. To include a literal
1623 B<$> character followed by a number, surround it with single quotes (B<'>).
1625 Any SQL command which may return data (such as C<SELECT> or C<SHOW>) is
1626 allowed. Note, however, that only a single command may be used. Semicolons are
1627 allowed as long as a single non-empty command has been specified only.
1629 =item B<Query> I<sql query statement>
1631 This is a deprecated synonym for B<Statement>. It will be removed in version 5
1634 =item B<Param> I<hostname>|I<database>|I<username>
1636 Specify the parameters which should be passed to the SQL query. The parameters
1637 are referred to in the SQL query as B<$1>, B<$2>, etc. in the same order as
1638 they appear in the configuration file. The value of the parameter is
1639 determined depending on the value of the B<Param> option as follows:
1645 The configured hostname of the database connection. If a UNIX domain socket is
1646 used, the parameter expands to "localhost".
1650 The name of the database of the current connection.
1654 The username used to connect to the database.
1658 Please note that parameters are only supported by PostgreSQL's protocol
1659 version 3 and above which was introduced in version 7.4 of PostgreSQL.
1661 =item B<Column> I<type> [I<type instance>]
1663 Specify the I<type> and optional I<type instance> used to dispatch the value
1664 of each result column. Detailed information about types and their
1665 configuration can be found in L<types.db(5)>. The number and order of the
1666 B<Column> options has to match the columns of the query result.
1668 =item B<MinPGVersion> I<version>
1670 =item B<MaxPGVersion> I<version>
1672 Specify the minimum or maximum version of PostgreSQL that this query should be
1673 used with. Some statistics might only be available with certain versions of
1674 PostgreSQL. This allows you to specify multiple queries with the same name but
1675 which apply to different versions, thus allowing you to use the same
1676 configuration in a heterogeneous environment.
1678 The I<version> has to be specified as the concatenation of the major, minor
1679 and patch-level versions, each represented as two-decimal-digit numbers. For
1680 example, version 8.2.3 will become 80203.
1684 The following predefined queries are available (the definitions can be found
1685 in the F<postgresql_default.conf> file which, by default, is available at
1686 C<I<prefix>/share/collectd/>):
1692 This query collects the number of backends, i.E<nbsp>e. the number of
1695 =item B<transactions>
1697 This query collects the numbers of committed and rolled-back transactions of
1702 This query collects the numbers of various table modifications (i.E<nbsp>e.
1703 insertions, updates, deletions) of the user tables.
1705 =item B<query_plans>
1707 This query collects the numbers of various table scans and returned tuples of
1710 =item B<table_states>
1712 This query collects the numbers of live and dead rows in the user tables.
1716 This query collects disk block access counts for user tables.
1720 This query collects the on-disk size of the database in bytes.
1724 The B<Database> block defines one PostgreSQL database for which to collect
1725 statistics. It accepts a single mandatory argument which specifies the
1726 database name. None of the other options are required. PostgreSQL will use
1727 default values as documented in the section "CONNECTING TO A DATABASE" in the
1728 L<psql(1)> manpage. However, be aware that those defaults may be influenced by
1729 the user collectd is run as and special environment variables. See the manpage
1734 =item B<Host> I<hostname>
1736 Specify the hostname or IP of the PostgreSQL server to connect to. If the
1737 value begins with a slash, it is interpreted as the directory name in which to
1738 look for the UNIX domain socket.
1740 This option is also used to determine the hostname that is associated with a
1741 collected data set. If it has been omitted or either begins with with a slash
1742 or equals B<localhost> it will be replaced with the global hostname definition
1743 of collectd. Any other value will be passed literally to collectd when
1744 dispatching values. Also see the global B<Hostname> and B<FQDNLookup> options.
1746 =item B<Port> I<port>
1748 Specify the TCP port or the local UNIX domain socket file extension of the
1751 =item B<User> I<username>
1753 Specify the username to be used when connecting to the server.
1755 =item B<Password> I<password>
1757 Specify the password to be used when connecting to the server.
1759 =item B<SSLMode> I<disable>|I<allow>|I<prefer>|I<require>
1761 Specify whether to use an SSL connection when contacting the server. The
1762 following modes are supported:
1768 Do not use SSL at all.
1772 First, try to connect without using SSL. If that fails, try using SSL.
1774 =item I<prefer> (default)
1776 First, try to connect using SSL. If that fails, try without using SSL.
1784 =item B<KRBSrvName> I<kerberos_service_name>
1786 Specify the Kerberos service name to use when authenticating with Kerberos 5
1787 or GSSAPI. See the sections "Kerberos authentication" and "GSSAPI" of the
1788 B<PostgreSQL Documentation> for details.
1790 =item B<Service> I<service_name>
1792 Specify the PostgreSQL service name to use for additional parameters. That
1793 service has to be defined in F<pg_service.conf> and holds additional
1794 connection parameters. See the section "The Connection Service File" in the
1795 B<PostgreSQL Documentation> for details.
1797 =item B<Query> I<query>
1799 Specify a I<query> which should be executed for the database connection. This
1800 may be any of the predefined or user-defined queries. If no such option is
1801 given, it defaults to "backends", "transactions", "queries", "query_plans",
1802 "table_states", "disk_io" and "disk_usage". Else, the specified queries are
1807 =head2 Plugin C<powerdns>
1809 The C<powerdns> plugin queries statistics from an authoritative PowerDNS
1810 nameserver and/or a PowerDNS recursor. Since both offer a wide variety of
1811 values, many of which are probably meaningless to most users, but may be useful
1812 for some. So you may chose which values to collect, but if you don't, some
1813 reasonable defaults will be collected.
1816 <Server "server_name">
1818 Collect "udp-answers" "udp-queries"
1819 Socket "/var/run/pdns.controlsocket"
1821 <Recursor "recursor_name">
1823 Collect "cache-hits" "cache-misses"
1824 Socket "/var/run/pdns_recursor.controlsocket"
1826 LocalSocket "/opt/collectd/var/run/collectd-powerdns"
1831 =item B<Server> and B<Recursor> block
1833 The B<Server> block defines one authoritative server to query, the B<Recursor>
1834 does the same for an recursing server. The possible options in both blocks are
1835 the same, though. The argument defines a name for the serverE<nbsp>/ recursor
1840 =item B<Collect> I<Field>
1842 Using the B<Collect> statement you can select which values to collect. Here,
1843 you specify the name of the values as used by the PowerDNS servers, e.E<nbsp>g.
1844 C<dlg-only-drops>, C<answers10-100>.
1846 The method of getting the values differs for B<Server> and B<Recursor> blocks:
1847 When querying the server a C<SHOW *> command is issued in any case, because
1848 that's the only way of getting multiple values out of the server at once.
1849 collectd then picks out the values you have selected. When querying the
1850 recursor, a command is generated to query exactly these values. So if you
1851 specify invalid fields when querying the recursor, a syntax error may be
1852 returned by the daemon and collectd may not collect any values at all.
1854 If no B<Collect> statement is given, the following B<Server> values will be
1861 =item packetcache-hit
1863 =item packetcache-miss
1865 =item packetcache-size
1867 =item query-cache-hit
1869 =item query-cache-miss
1871 =item recursing-answers
1873 =item recursing-questions
1885 The following B<Recursor> values will be collected by default:
1889 =item noerror-answers
1891 =item nxdomain-answers
1893 =item servfail-answers
1911 Please note that up to that point collectd doesn't know what values are
1912 available on the server and values that are added do not need a change of the
1913 mechanism so far. However, the values must be mapped to collectd's naming
1914 scheme, which is done using a lookup table that lists all known values. If
1915 values are added in the future and collectd does not know about them, you will
1916 get an error much like this:
1918 powerdns plugin: submit: Not found in lookup table: foobar = 42
1920 In this case please file a bug report with the collectd team.
1922 =item B<Socket> I<Path>
1924 Configures the path to the UNIX domain socket to be used when connecting to the
1925 daemon. By default C<${localstatedir}/run/pdns.controlsocket> will be used for
1926 an authoritative server and C<${localstatedir}/run/pdns_recursor.controlsocket>
1927 will be used for the recursor.
1931 =item B<LocalSocket> I<Path>
1933 Querying the recursor is done using UDP. When using UDP over UNIX domain
1934 sockets, the client socket needs a name in the file system, too. You can set
1935 this local name to I<Path> using the B<LocalSocket> option. The default is
1936 C<I<prefix>/var/run/collectd-powerdns>.
1940 =head2 Plugin C<processes>
1944 =item B<Process> I<Name>
1946 Select more detailed statistics of processes matching this name. The statistics
1947 collected for these selected processes are size of the resident segment size
1948 (RSS), user- and system-time used, number of processes and number of threads,
1949 and minor and major pagefaults.
1951 =item B<ProcessMatch> I<name> I<regex>
1953 Similar to the B<Process> option this allows to select more detailed
1954 statistics of processes matching the specified I<regex> (see L<regex(7)> for
1955 details). The statistics of all matching processes are summed up and
1956 dispatched to the daemon using the specified I<name> as an identifier. This
1957 allows to "group" several processes together. I<name> must not contain
1962 =head2 Plugin C<rrdcached>
1964 The C<rrdcached> plugin uses the RRDTool accelerator daemon, L<rrdcached(1)>,
1965 to store values to RRD files in an efficient manner. The combination of the
1966 C<rrdcached> B<plugin> and the C<rrdcached> B<daemon> is very similar to the
1967 way the C<rrdtool> plugin works (see below). The added abstraction layer
1968 provides a number of benefits, though: Because the cache is not within
1969 C<collectd> anymore, it does not need to be flushed when C<collectd> is to be
1970 restarted. This results in much shorter (if any) gaps in graphs, especially
1971 under heavy load. Also, the C<rrdtool> command line utility is aware of the
1972 daemon so that it can flush values to disk automatically when needed. This
1973 allows to integrate automated flushing of values into graphing solutions much
1976 There are disadvantages, though: The daemon may reside on a different host, so
1977 it may not be possible for C<collectd> to create the appropriate RRD files
1978 anymore. And even if C<rrdcached> runs on the same host, it may run in a
1979 different base directory, so relative paths may do weird stuff if you're not
1982 So the B<recommended configuration> is to let C<collectd> and C<rrdcached> run
1983 on the same host, communicating via a UNIX domain socket. The B<DataDir>
1984 setting should be set to an absolute path, so that a changed base directory
1985 does not result in RRD files being createdE<nbsp>/ expected in the wrong place.
1989 =item B<DaemonAddress> I<Address>
1991 Address of the daemon as understood by the C<rrdc_connect> function of the RRD
1992 library. See L<rrdcached(1)> for details. Example:
1994 <Plugin "rrdcached">
1995 DaemonAddress "unix:/var/run/rrdcached.sock"
1998 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
2000 Set the base directory in which the RRD files reside. If this is a relative
2001 path, it is relative to the working base directory of the C<rrdcached> daemon!
2002 Use of an absolute path is recommended.
2004 =item B<CreateFiles> B<true>|B<false>
2006 Enables or disables the creation of RRD files. If the daemon is not running
2007 locally, or B<DataDir> is set to a relative path, this will not work as
2008 expected. Default is B<true>.
2012 =head2 Plugin C<rrdtool>
2014 You can use the settings B<StepSize>, B<HeartBeat>, B<RRARows>, and B<XFF> to
2015 fine-tune your RRD-files. Please read L<rrdcreate(1)> if you encounter problems
2016 using these settings. If you don't want to dive into the depths of RRDTool, you
2017 can safely ignore these settings.
2021 =item B<DataDir> I<Directory>
2023 Set the directory to store RRD-files under. Per default RRD-files are generated
2024 beneath the daemon's working directory, i.E<nbsp>e. the B<BaseDir>.
2026 =item B<StepSize> I<Seconds>
2028 B<Force> the stepsize of newly created RRD-files. Ideally (and per default)
2029 this setting is unset and the stepsize is set to the interval in which the data
2030 is collected. Do not use this option unless you absolutely have to for some
2031 reason. Setting this option may cause problems with the C<snmp plugin>, the
2032 C<exec plugin> or when the daemon is set up to receive data from other hosts.
2034 =item B<HeartBeat> I<Seconds>
2036 B<Force> the heartbeat of newly created RRD-files. This setting should be unset
2037 in which case the heartbeat is set to twice the B<StepSize> which should equal
2038 the interval in which data is collected. Do not set this option unless you have
2039 a very good reason to do so.
2041 =item B<RRARows> I<NumRows>
2043 The C<rrdtool plugin> calculates the number of PDPs per CDP based on the
2044 B<StepSize>, this setting and a timespan. This plugin creates RRD-files with
2045 three times five RRAs, i. e. five RRAs with the CFs B<MIN>, B<AVERAGE>, and
2046 B<MAX>. The five RRAs are optimized for graphs covering one hour, one day, one
2047 week, one month, and one year.
2049 So for each timespan, it calculates how many PDPs need to be consolidated into
2050 one CDP by calculating:
2051 number of PDPs = timespan / (stepsize * rrarows)
2053 Bottom line is, set this no smaller than the width of you graphs in pixels. The
2056 =item B<RRATimespan> I<Seconds>
2058 Adds an RRA-timespan, given in seconds. Use this option multiple times to have
2059 more then one RRA. If this option is never used, the built-in default of (3600,
2060 86400, 604800, 2678400, 31622400) is used.
2062 For more information on how RRA-sizes are calculated see B<RRARows> above.
2064 =item B<XFF> I<Factor>
2066 Set the "XFiles Factor". The default is 0.1. If unsure, don't set this option.
2068 =item B<CacheFlush> I<Seconds>
2070 When the C<rrdtool> plugin uses a cache (by setting B<CacheTimeout>, see below)
2071 it writes all values for a certain RRD-file if the oldest value is older than
2072 (or equal to) the number of seconds specified. If some RRD-file is not updated
2073 anymore for some reason (the computer was shut down, the network is broken,
2074 etc.) some values may still be in the cache. If B<CacheFlush> is set, then the
2075 entire cache is searched for entries older than B<CacheTimeout> seconds and
2076 written to disk every I<Seconds> seconds. Since this is kind of expensive and
2077 does nothing under normal circumstances, this value should not be too small.
2078 900 seconds might be a good value, though setting this to 7200 seconds doesn't
2079 normally do much harm either.
2081 =item B<CacheTimeout> I<Seconds>
2083 If this option is set to a value greater than zero, the C<rrdtool plugin> will
2084 save values in a cache, as described above. Writing multiple values at once
2085 reduces IO-operations and thus lessens the load produced by updating the files.
2086 The trade off is that the graphs kind of "drag behind" and that more memory is
2089 =item B<WritesPerSecond> B<Updates>
2091 When collecting many statistics with collectd and the C<rrdtool> plugin, you
2092 will run serious performance problems. The B<CacheFlush> setting and the
2093 internal update queue assert that collectd continues to work just fine even
2094 under heavy load, but the system may become very unresponsive and slow. This is
2095 a problem especially if you create graphs from the RRD files on the same
2096 machine, for example using the C<graph.cgi> script included in the
2097 C<contrib/collection3/> directory.
2099 This setting is designed for very large setups. Setting this option to a value
2100 between 25 and 80 updates per second, depending on your hardware, will leave
2101 the server responsive enough to draw graphs even while all the cached values
2102 are written to disk. Flushed values, i.E<nbsp>e. values that are forced to disk
2103 by the B<FLUSH> command, are B<not> effected by this limit. They are still
2104 written as fast as possible, so that web frontends have up to date data when
2107 For example: If you have 100,000 RRD files and set B<WritesPerSecond> to 30
2108 updates per second, writing all values to disk will take approximately
2109 56E<nbsp>minutes. Together with the flushing ability that's integrated into
2110 "collection3" you'll end up with a responsive and fast system, up to date
2111 graphs and basically a "backup" of your values every hour.
2115 =head2 Plugin C<sensors>
2117 The C<sensors plugin> uses B<lm_sensors> to retrieve sensor-values. This means
2118 that all the needed modules have to be loaded and lm_sensors has to be
2119 configured (most likely by editing F</etc/sensors.conf>. Read
2120 L<sensors.conf(5)> for details.
2122 The B<lm_sensors> homepage can be found at
2123 L<http://secure.netroedge.com/~lm78/>.
2127 =item B<Sensor> I<chip-bus-address/type-feature>
2129 Selects the name of the sensor which you want to collect or ignore, depending
2130 on the B<IgnoreSelected> below. For example, the option "B<Sensor>
2131 I<it8712-isa-0290/voltage-in1>" will cause collectd to gather data for the
2132 voltage sensor I<in1> of the I<it8712> on the isa bus at the address 0290.
2134 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
2136 If no configuration if given, the B<sensors>-plugin will collect data from all
2137 sensors. This may not be practical, especially for uninteresting sensors.
2138 Thus, you can use the B<Sensor>-option to pick the sensors you're interested
2139 in. Sometimes, however, it's easier/preferred to collect all sensors I<except> a
2140 few ones. This option enables you to do that: By setting B<IgnoreSelected> to
2141 I<true> the effect of B<Sensor> is inverted: All selected sensors are ignored
2142 and all other sensors are collected.
2146 =head2 Plugin C<snmp>
2148 Since the configuration of the C<snmp plugin> is a little more complicated than
2149 other plugins, its documentation has been moved to an own manpage,
2150 L<collectd-snmp(5)>. Please see there for details.
2152 =head2 Plugin C<syslog>
2156 =item B<LogLevel> B<debug|info|notice|warning|err>
2158 Sets the log-level. If, for example, set to B<notice>, then all events with
2159 severity B<notice>, B<warning>, or B<err> will be submitted to the
2162 Please note that B<debug> is only available if collectd has been compiled with
2167 =head2 Plugin C<tail>
2169 The C<tail plugin> plugins follows logfiles, just like L<tail(1)> does, parses
2170 each line and dispatches found values. What is matched can be configured by the
2171 user using (extended) regular expressions, as described in L<regex(7)>.
2174 <File "/var/log/exim4/mainlog">
2177 Regex "S=([1-9][0-9]*)"
2183 Regex "\\<R=local_user\\>"
2186 Instance "local_user"
2191 The config consists of one or more B<File> blocks, each of which configures one
2192 logfile to parse. Within each B<File> block, there are one or more B<Match>
2193 blocks, which configure a regular expression to search for.
2195 The B<Instance> option in the B<File> block may be used to set the plugin
2196 instance. So in the above example the plugin name C<tail-foo> would be used.
2197 This plugin instance is for all B<Match> blocks that B<follow> it, until the
2198 next B<Instance> option. This way you can extract several plugin instances from
2199 one logfile, handy when parsing syslog and the like.
2201 Each B<Match> block has the following options to describe how the match should
2206 =item B<Regex> I<regex>
2208 Sets the regular expression to use for matching against a line. The first
2209 subexpression has to match something that can be turned into a number by
2210 L<strtoll(3)> or L<strtod(3)>, depending on the value of C<CounterAdd>, see
2211 below. Because B<extended> regular expressions are used, you do not need to use
2212 backslashes for subexpressions! If in doubt, please consult L<regex(7)>. Due to
2213 collectd's config parsing you need to escape backslashes, though. So if you
2214 want to match literal parentheses you need to do the following:
2216 Regex "SPAM \\(Score: (-?[0-9]+\\.[0-9]+)\\)"
2218 =item B<DSType> I<Type>
2220 Sets how the values are cumulated. I<Type> is one of:
2224 =item B<GaugeAverage>
2226 Calculate the average.
2230 Use the smallest number only.
2234 Use the greatest number only.
2238 Use the last number found.
2242 The matched number is a counter. Simply sets the internal counter to this
2247 Add the matched value to the internal counter.
2251 Increase the internal counter by one. This B<DSType> is the only one that does
2252 not use the matched subexpression, but simply counts the number of matched
2253 lines. Thus, you may use a regular expression without submatch in this case.
2257 As you'd expect the B<Gauge*> types interpret the submatch as a floating point
2258 number, using L<strtod(3)>. The B<CounterSet> and B<CounterAdd> interpret the
2259 submatch as an integer using L<strtoll(3)>. B<CounterInc> does not use the
2260 submatch at all and it may be omitted in this case.
2262 =item B<Type> I<Type>
2264 Sets the type used to dispatch this value. Detailed information about types and
2265 their configuration can be found in L<types.db(5)>.
2267 =item B<Instance> I<TypeInstance>
2269 This optional setting sets the type instance to use.
2273 =head2 Plugin C<teamspeak2>
2275 The C<teamspeak2 plugin> connects to the query port of a teamspeak2 server and
2276 polls interesting global and virtual server data. The plugin can query only one
2277 physical server but unlimited virtual servers. You can use the following
2278 options to configure it:
2282 =item B<Host> I<hostname/ip>
2284 The hostname or ip which identifies the physical server.
2287 =item B<Port> I<port>
2289 The query port of the physical server. This needs to be a string.
2292 =item B<Server> I<port>
2294 This option has to be added once for every virtual server the plugin should
2295 query. If you want to query the virtual server on port 8767 this is what the
2296 option would look like:
2300 This option, although numeric, needs to be a string, i.E<nbsp>e. you B<must>
2301 use quotes around it! If no such statement is given only global information
2306 =head2 Plugin C<tcpconns>
2308 The C<tcpconns plugin> counts the number of currently established TCP
2309 connections based on the local port and/or the remote port. Since there may be
2310 a lot of connections the default if to count all connections with a local port,
2311 for which a listening socket is opened. You can use the following options to
2312 fine-tune the ports you are interested in:
2316 =item B<ListeningPorts> I<true>|I<false>
2318 If this option is set to I<true>, statistics for all local ports for which a
2319 listening socket exists are collected. The default depends on B<LocalPort> and
2320 B<RemotePort> (see below): If no port at all is specifically selected, the
2321 default is to collect listening ports. If specific ports (no matter if local or
2322 remote ports) are selected, this option defaults to I<false>, i.E<nbsp>e. only
2323 the selected ports will be collected unless this option is set to I<true>
2326 =item B<LocalPort> I<Port>
2328 Count the connections to a specific local port. This can be used to see how
2329 many connections are handled by a specific daemon, e.E<nbsp>g. the mailserver.
2330 You have to specify the port in numeric form, so for the mailserver example
2331 you'd need to set B<25>.
2333 =item B<RemotePort> I<Port>
2335 Count the connections to a specific remote port. This is useful to see how
2336 much a remote service is used. This is most useful if you want to know how many
2337 connections a local service has opened to remote services, e.E<nbsp>g. how many
2338 connections a mail server or news server has to other mail or news servers, or
2339 how many connections a web proxy holds to web servers. You have to give the
2340 port in numeric form.
2344 =head2 Plugin C<thermal>
2348 =item B<ForceUseProcfs> I<true>|I<false>
2350 By default, the C<thermal> plugin tries to read the statistics from the Linux
2351 C<sysfs> interface. If that is not available, the plugin falls back to the
2352 C<procfs> interface. By setting this option to I<true>, you can force the
2353 plugin to use the latter. This option defaults to I<false>.
2355 =item B<Device> I<Device>
2357 Selects the name of the thermal device that you want to collect or ignore,
2358 depending on the value of the B<IgnoreSelected> option. This option may be
2359 used multiple times to specify a list of devices.
2361 =item B<IgnoreSelected> I<true>|I<false>
2363 Invert the selection: If set to true, all devices B<except> the ones that
2364 match the device names specified by the B<Device> option are collected. By
2365 default only selected devices are collected if a selection is made. If no
2366 selection is configured at all, B<all> devices are selected.
2370 =head2 Plugin C<unixsock>
2374 =item B<SocketFile> I<Path>
2376 Sets the socket-file which is to be created.
2378 =item B<SocketGroup> I<Group>
2380 If running as root change the group of the UNIX-socket after it has been
2381 created. Defaults to B<collectd>.
2383 =item B<SocketPerms> I<Permissions>
2385 Change the file permissions of the UNIX-socket after it has been created. The
2386 permissions must be given as a numeric, octal value as you would pass to
2387 L<chmod(1)>. Defaults to B<0770>.
2391 =head2 Plugin C<uuid>
2393 This plugin, if loaded, causes the Hostname to be taken from the machine's
2394 UUID. The UUID is a universally unique designation for the machine, usually
2395 taken from the machine's BIOS. This is most useful if the machine is running in
2396 a virtual environment such as Xen, in which case the UUID is preserved across
2397 shutdowns and migration.
2399 The following methods are used to find the machine's UUID, in order:
2405 Check I</etc/uuid> (or I<UUIDFile>).
2409 Check for UUID from HAL (L<http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/hal>) if
2414 Check for UUID from C<dmidecode> / SMBIOS.
2418 Check for UUID from Xen hypervisor.
2422 If no UUID can be found then the hostname is not modified.
2426 =item B<UUIDFile> I<Path>
2428 Take the UUID from the given file (default I</etc/uuid>).
2432 =head2 Plugin C<vmem>
2434 The C<vmem> plugin collects information about the usage of virtual memory.
2435 Since the statistics provided by the Linux kernel are very detailed, they are
2436 collected very detailed. However, to get all the details, you have to switch
2437 them on manually. Most people just want an overview over, such as the number of
2438 pages read from swap space.
2442 =item B<Verbose> B<true>|B<false>
2444 Enables verbose collection of information. This will start collecting page
2445 "actions", e.E<nbsp>g. page allocations, (de)activations, steals and so on.
2446 Part of these statistics are collected on a "per zone" basis.
2450 =head2 Plugin C<vserver>
2452 This plugin doesn't have any options. B<VServer> support is only available for
2453 Linux. It cannot yet be found in a vanilla kernel, though. To make use of this
2454 plugin you need a kernel that has B<VServer> support built in, i.E<nbsp>e. you
2455 need to apply the patches and compile your own kernel, which will then provide
2456 the F</proc/virtual> filesystem that is required by this plugin.
2458 The B<VServer> homepage can be found at L<http://linux-vserver.org/>.
2460 =head1 THRESHOLD CONFIGURATION
2462 Starting with version C<4.3.0> collectd has support for B<monitoring>. By that
2463 we mean that the values are not only stored or sent somewhere, but that they
2464 are judged and, if a problem is recognized, acted upon. The only action
2465 collectd takes itself is to generate and dispatch a "notification". Plugins can
2466 register to receive notifications and perform appropriate further actions.
2468 Since systems and what you expect them to do differ a lot, you can configure
2469 B<thresholds> for your values freely. This gives you a lot of flexibility but
2470 also a lot of responsibility.
2472 Every time a value is out of range a notification is dispatched. This means
2473 that the idle percentage of your CPU needs to be less then the configured
2474 threshold only once for a notification to be generated. There's no such thing
2475 as a moving average or similar - at least not now.
2477 Also, all values that match a threshold are considered to be relevant or
2478 "interesting". As a consequence collectd will issue a notification if they are
2479 not received for twice the last timeout of the values. If, for example, some
2480 hosts sends it's CPU statistics to the server every 60 seconds, a notification
2481 will be dispatched after about 120 seconds. It may take a little longer because
2482 the timeout is checked only once each B<Interval> on the server.
2484 When a value comes within range again or is received after it was missing, an
2485 "OKAY-notification" is dispatched.
2487 Here is a configuration example to get you started. Read below for more
2500 <Plugin "interface">
2517 WarningMin 100000000
2523 There are basically two types of configuration statements: The C<Host>,
2524 C<Plugin>, and C<Type> blocks select the value for which a threshold should be
2525 configured. The C<Plugin> and C<Type> blocks may be specified further using the
2526 C<Instance> option. You can combine the block by nesting the blocks, though
2527 they must be nested in the above order, i.E<nbsp>e. C<Host> may contain either
2528 C<Plugin> and C<Type> blocks, C<Plugin> may only contain C<Type> blocks and
2529 C<Type> may not contain other blocks. If multiple blocks apply to the same
2530 value the most specific block is used.
2532 The other statements specify the threshold to configure. They B<must> be
2533 included in a C<Type> block. Currently the following statements are recognized:
2537 =item B<FailureMax> I<Value>
2539 =item B<WarningMax> I<Value>
2541 Sets the upper bound of acceptable values. If unset defaults to positive
2542 infinity. If a value is greater than B<FailureMax> a B<FAILURE> notification
2543 will be created. If the value is greater than B<WarningMax> but less than (or
2544 equal to) B<FailureMax> a B<WARNING> notification will be created.
2546 =item B<FailureMin> I<Value>
2548 =item B<WarningMin> I<Value>
2550 Sets the lower bound of acceptable values. If unset defaults to negative
2551 infinity. If a value is less than B<FailureMin> a B<FAILURE> notification will
2552 be created. If the value is less than B<WarningMin> but greater than (or equal
2553 to) B<FailureMin> a B<WARNING> notification will be created.
2555 =item B<DataSource> I<DSName>
2557 Some data sets have more than one "data source". Interesting examples are the
2558 C<if_octets> data set, which has received (C<rx>) and sent (C<tx>) bytes and
2559 the C<disk_ops> data set, which holds C<read> and C<write> operations. The
2560 system load data set, C<load>, even has three data sources: C<shortterm>,
2561 C<midterm>, and C<longterm>.
2563 Normally, all data sources are checked against a configured threshold. If this
2564 is undesirable, or if you want to specify different limits for each data
2565 source, you can use the B<DataSource> option to have a threshold apply only to
2568 =item B<Invert> B<true>|B<false>
2570 If set to B<true> the range of acceptable values is inverted, i.E<nbsp>e.
2571 values between B<FailureMin> and B<FailureMax> (B<WarningMin> and
2572 B<WarningMax>) are not okay. Defaults to B<false>.
2574 =item B<Persist> B<true>|B<false>
2576 Sets how often notifications are generated. If set to B<true> one notification
2577 will be generated for each value that is out of the acceptable range. If set to
2578 B<false> (the default) then a notification is only generated if a value is out
2579 of range but the previous value was okay.
2581 This applies to missing values, too: If set to B<true> a notification about a
2582 missing value is generated once every B<Interval> seconds. If set to B<false>
2583 only one such notification is generated until the value appears again.
2587 =head1 FILTER CONFIGURATION
2589 TODO: Update this entire section once development is done.
2591 Starting with collectd 4.6 there is a powerful filtering infrastructure
2592 implemented in the daemon. The concept has mostly been copied from I<iptables>,
2593 the packet filter infrastructure for Linux. We'll use a similar terminology, so
2594 that users that are familiar with iptables feel right at home.
2598 The most important terms are:
2604 A I<match> is a criteria to select specific values. Examples are, of course, the
2605 name of the value or it's current value.
2609 A I<target> is some action that is to be performed with data. Such actions
2610 could, for example, be to change part of the value's identifier or to ignore
2611 the value completely. Built-in functions are B<write> and B<stop>, see below.
2613 Some targets, for example the built-in B<stop> target, signal that processing
2614 of a value should be stopped. In that case processing of the current chain will
2619 The combination of any number of matches and at least one target is called a
2620 I<rule>. The target actions will be performed for all values for which B<all>
2621 matches apply. If the rule does not have any matches associated with it, the
2622 target action will be performed for all values.
2624 If any target returns the stop condition, the processing will stop right away.
2625 This means that any targets following the current one will not be called after
2626 the stop condition has been returned.
2630 A I<chain> is a list of rules and possibly default targets. The rules are tried
2631 in order and if one matches, the associated target will be called. If a value
2632 is handled by a rule, it depends on the target whether or not any subsequent
2633 rules are considered or if traversal of the chain is aborted. After all rules
2634 have been checked and no target returned the stop condition, the default
2635 targets will be executed.
2639 =head2 General structure
2641 The following shows the resulting structure:
2648 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
2649 ! Rule !->! Match !->! Match !->! Target !
2650 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
2653 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
2654 ! Rule !->! Target !->! Target !
2655 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
2662 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
2663 ! Rule !->! Match !->! Target !
2664 +---------+ +---------+ +---------+
2674 The configuration reflects this structure directly:
2677 <Rule "ignore_mysql_show">
2680 Type "^mysql_command$"
2681 TypeInstance "^show_"
2691 The above configuration example will ignore all values where the plugin field
2692 is "mysql", the type is "mysql_command" and the type instance begins with
2693 "show_". All other values will be sent to the "rrdtool" write plugin via the
2694 default target of the chain.
2696 =head2 List of configuration options
2700 =item B<Chain> I<Name>
2702 Adds a new chain with a certain name. This name can be used to refer to a
2703 specific chain, for example to jump to it.
2705 Within the B<Chain> block, there can be B<Rule> blocks and B<Target> blocks.
2707 =item B<Rule> [I<Name>]
2709 Adds a new rule to the current chain. The name of the rule is optional and
2710 currently has no meaning for the daemon.
2712 Within the B<Rule> block, there may be any number of B<Match> blocks and there
2713 must be at least one B<Target> block.
2715 =item B<Match> I<Name>
2717 Adds a match to a B<Rule> block. The name specifies what kind of match should
2718 be performed. Available matches depend on the plugins that have been loaded.
2720 The arguments inside the B<Match> block are passed to the plugin implementing
2721 the match, so which arguments are valid here depends on the plugin being used.
2722 If you do not need any to pass any arguments to a match, you can use the
2727 Which is equivalent to:
2732 =item B<Target> I<Name>
2734 Add a target to a rule or a default target to a chain. The name specifies what
2735 kind of target is to be added. Which targets are available depends on the
2736 plugins being loaded.
2738 The arguments inside the B<Target> block are passed to the plugin implementing
2739 the target, so which arguments are valid here depends on the plugin being used.
2740 If you do not need any to pass any arguments to a target, you can use the
2745 This is the same as writing:
2752 =head2 Built-in targets
2754 The following targets are built into the core daemon and therefore need no
2755 plugins to be loaded:
2761 Signals the "return" condition. This causes the current chain to stop
2762 processing the value and returns control to the calling chain. The calling
2763 chain will continue processing targets and rules just after the B<jump> target
2764 (see below). This is very similar to the B<RETURN> target of iptables, see
2767 This target does not have any options.
2775 Signals the "stop" condition, causing processing of the value to be aborted
2776 immediately. This is similar to the B<DROP> target of iptables, see
2779 This target does not have any options.
2787 Sends the value to write plugins.
2793 =item B<Plugin> I<Name>
2795 Name of the write plugin to which the data should be sent. This option may be
2796 given multiple times to send the data to more than one write plugin.
2800 If no plugin is explicitly specified, the values will be sent to all available
2811 Starts processing the rules of another chain. If the end of that chain is
2812 reached, or a stop condition is encountered, processing will continue right
2813 after the B<jump> target, i.E<nbsp>e. with the next target or the next rule.
2814 This is similar to the B<-j> command line option of iptables, see
2821 =item B<Chain> I<Name>
2823 Jumps to the chain I<Name>. This argument is required and may appear only once.
2835 =head2 Available matches
2841 Matches a value using regular expressions.
2847 =item B<Host> I<Regex>
2849 =item B<Plugin> I<Regex>
2851 =item B<PluginInstance> I<Regex>
2853 =item B<Type> I<Regex>
2855 =item B<TypeInstance> I<Regex>
2857 Match values where the given regular expressions match the various fields of
2858 the identifier of a value. If multiple regular expressions are given, B<all>
2859 regexen must match for a value to match.
2866 Host "customer[0-9]+"
2872 Matches the actual value of data sources against given minimumE<nbsp>/ maximum
2873 values. If a data-set consists of more than one data-source, all data-sources
2874 must match the specified ranges for a positive match.
2880 =item B<Min> I<Value>
2882 Sets the smallest value which still results in a match. If unset, behaves like
2885 =item B<Max> I<Value>
2887 Sets the largest value which still results in a match. If unset, behaves like
2890 =item B<Invert> B<true>|B<false>
2892 Inverts the selection. If the B<Min> and B<Max> settings result in a match,
2893 no-match is returned and vice versa. Please note that the B<Invert> setting
2894 only effects how B<Min> and B<Max> are applied to a specific value. Especially
2895 the B<DataSource> and B<Satisfy> settings (see below) are not inverted.
2897 =item B<DataSource> I<DSName> [I<DSName> ...]
2899 Select one or more of the data sources. If no data source is configured, all
2900 data sources will be checked. If the type handled by the match does not have a
2901 data source of the specified name(s), this will always result in no match
2902 (independent of the B<Invert> setting).
2904 =item B<Satisfy> B<Any>|B<All>
2906 Specifies how checking with several data sources is performed. If set to
2907 B<Any>, the match succeeds if one of the data sources is in the configured
2908 range. If set to B<All> the match only succeeds if all data sources are within
2909 the configured range. Default is B<All>.
2911 Usually B<All> is used for positive matches, B<Any> is used for negative
2912 matches. This means that with B<All> you usually check that all values are in a
2913 "good" range, while with B<Any> you check if any value is within a "bad" range
2914 (or outside the "good" range).
2918 Either B<Min> or B<Max>, but not both, may be unset.
2922 # Match all values smaller than or equal to 100. Matches only if all data
2923 # sources are below 100.
2929 # Match if the value of any data source is outside the range of 0 - 100.
2939 =head2 Available targets
2943 =item B<notification>
2945 Creates and dispatches a notification.
2951 =item B<Message> I<String>
2953 This required option sets the message of the notification. The following
2954 placeholders will be replaced by an appropriate value:
2962 =item B<%{plugin_instance}>
2966 =item B<%{type_instance}>
2968 These placeholders are replaced by the identifier field of the same name.
2970 =item B<%{ds:>I<name>B<}>
2972 These placeholders are replaced by a (hopefully) human readable representation
2973 of the current rate of this data source. If you changed the instance name
2974 (using the B<set> or B<replace> targets, see below), it may not be possible to
2975 convert counter values to rates.
2979 Please note that these placeholders are B<case sensitive>!
2981 =item B<Severity> B<"FATAL">|B<"WARNING">|B<"OKAY">
2983 Sets the severity of the message. If omitted, the severity B<"WARNING"> is
2990 <Target "notification">
2991 Message "Oops, the %{type_instance} temperature is currently %{ds:value}!"
2997 Replaces parts of the identifier using regular expressions.
3003 =item B<Host> I<Regex> I<Replacement>
3005 =item B<Plugin> I<Regex> I<Replacement>
3007 =item B<PluginInstance> I<Regex> I<Replacement>
3009 =item B<TypeInstance> I<Regex> I<Replacement>
3011 Match the appropriate field with the given regular expression I<Regex>. If the
3012 regular expression matches, that part that matches is replaced with
3013 I<Replacement>. If multiple places of the input buffer match a given regular
3014 expression, only the first occurrence will be replaced.
3016 You can specify each option multiple times to use multiple regular expressions
3024 # Replace "example.net" with "example.com"
3025 Host "\\<example.net\\>" "example.com"
3027 # Strip "www." from hostnames
3033 Sets part of the identifier of a value to a given string.
3039 =item B<Host> I<String>
3041 =item B<Plugin> I<String>
3043 =item B<PluginInstance> I<String>
3045 =item B<TypeInstance> I<String>
3047 Set the appropriate field to the given string. The strings for plugin instance
3048 and type instance may be empty, the strings for host and plugin may not be
3049 empty. It's currently not possible to set the type of a value this way.
3056 PluginInstance "coretemp"
3057 TypeInstance "core3"
3062 =head2 Backwards compatibility
3064 If you use collectd with an old configuration, i.E<nbsp>e. one without a
3065 B<Chain> block, it will behave as it used to. This is equivalent to the
3066 following configuration:
3072 If you specify a B<Chain> block anywhere, the B<write> target will not be added
3073 anywhere and you will have to make sure that it is called where appropriate. We
3074 suggest to add the above snippet as default target to your main chain.
3076 TODO: Notifications will be implemented using chains, too. Describe that here!
3080 Ignore all values, where the hostname does not contain a dot, i.E<nbsp>e. can't
3096 L<collectd-exec(5)>,
3097 L<collectd-perl(5)>,
3098 L<collectd-unixsock(5)>,
3112 Florian Forster E<lt>octo@verplant.orgE<gt>