1 collectd - System information collection daemon
2 =================================================
3 http://collectd.org/
5 About
6 -----
8 collectd is a small daemon which collects system information periodically
9 and provides mechanisms to store and monitor the values in a variety of
10 ways.
13 Features
14 --------
16 * collectd is able to collect the following data:
18 - apache
19 Apache server utilization: Number of bytes transfered, number of
20 requests handled and detailed scoreboard statistics
22 - apcups
23 APC UPS Daemon: UPS charge, load, input/output/battery voltage, etc.
25 - apple_sensors
26 Sensors in Macs running Mac OS X / Darwin: Temperature, fanspeed and
27 voltage sensors.
29 - ascent
30 Statistics about Ascent, a free server for the game `World of Warcraft'.
32 - battery
33 Batterycharge, -current and voltage of ACPI and PMU based laptop
34 batteries.
36 - bind
37 Name server and resolver statistics from the `statistics-channel'
38 interface of BIND 9.5, 9,6 and later.
40 - conntrack
41 Number of nf_conntrack entries.
43 - contextswitch
44 Number of context switches done by the operating system.
46 - cpu
47 CPU utilization: Time spent in the system, user, nice, idle, and related
48 states.
50 - cpufreq
51 CPU frequency (For laptops with speed step or a similar technology)
53 - curl
54 Parse statistics from websites using regular expressions.
56 - curl_json
57 Retrieves JSON data via cURL and parses it according to user
58 configuration.
60 - curl_xml
61 Retrieves XML data via cURL and parses it according to user
62 configuration.
64 - dbi
65 Executes SQL statements on various databases and interprets the returned
66 data.
68 - df
69 Mountpoint usage (Basically the values `df(1)' delivers)
71 - disk
72 Disk utilization: Sectors read/written, number of read/write actions,
73 average time an IO-operation took to complete.
75 - dns
76 DNS traffic: Query types, response codes, opcodes and traffic/octets
77 transfered.
79 - email
80 Email statistics: Count, traffic, spam scores and checks.
81 See collectd-email(5).
83 - entropy
84 Amount of entropy available to the system.
86 - exec
87 Values gathered by a custom program or script.
88 See collectd-exec(5).
90 - filecount
91 Count the number of files in directories.
93 - fscache
94 Linux file-system based caching framework statistics.
96 - gmond
97 Receive multicast traffic from Ganglia instances.
99 - hddtemp
100 Harddisk temperatures using hddtempd.
102 - interface
103 Interface traffic: Number of octets, packets and errors for each
104 interface.
106 - iptables
107 Iptables' counters: Number of bytes that were matched by a certain
108 iptables rule.
110 - ipmi
111 IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) sensors information.
113 - ipvs
114 IPVS connection statistics (number of connections, octets and packets
115 for each service and destination).
116 See http://www.linuxvirtualserver.org/software/index.html.
118 - irq
119 IRQ counters: Frequency in which certain interrupts occur.
121 - java
122 Integrates a `Java Virtual Machine' (JVM) to execute plugins in Java
123 bytecode. See “Configuring with libjvm” below.
125 - load
126 System load average over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes.
128 - libvirt
129 CPU, disk and network I/O statistics from virtual machines.
131 - madwifi
132 Queries very detailed usage statistics from wireless LAN adapters and
133 interfaces that use the Atheros chipset and the MadWifi driver.
135 - mbmon
136 Motherboard sensors: temperature, fanspeed and voltage information,
137 using mbmon(1).
139 - memcachec
140 Query and parse data from a memcache daemon (memcached).
142 - memcached
143 Statistics of the memcached distributed caching system.
144 <http://www.danga.com/memcached/>
146 - memory
147 Memory utilization: Memory occupied by running processes, page cache,
148 buffer cache and free.
150 - modbus
151 Reads values from Modbus/TCP enabled devices. Supports reading values
152 from multiple "slaves" so gateway devices can be used.
154 - multimeter
155 Information provided by serial multimeters, such as the `Metex
156 M-4650CR'.
158 - mysql
159 MySQL server statistics: Commands issued, handlers triggered, thread
160 usage, query cache utilization and traffic/octets sent and received.
162 - netapp
163 Plugin to query performance values from a NetApp storage system using the
164 “Manage ONTAP” SDK provided by NetApp.
166 - netlink
167 Very detailed Linux network interface and routing statistics. You can get
168 (detailed) information on interfaces, qdiscs, classes, and, if you can
169 make use of it, filters.
171 - network
172 Receive values that were collected by other hosts. Large setups will
173 want to collect the data on one dedicated machine, and this is the
174 plugin of choice for that.
176 - nfs
177 NFS Procedures: Which NFS command were called how often. Only NFSv2 and
178 NFSv3 right now.
180 - nginx
181 Collects statistics from `nginx' (speak: engine X), a HTTP and mail
182 server/proxy.
184 - ntpd
185 NTP daemon statistics: Local clock drift, offset to peers, etc.
187 - nut
188 Network UPS tools: UPS current, voltage, power, charge, utilisation,
189 temperature, etc. See upsd(8).
191 - olsrd
192 Queries routing information from the “Optimized Link State Routing”
193 daemon.
195 - onewire (EXPERIMENTAL!)
196 Read onewire sensors using the owcapu library of the owfs project.
197 Please read in collectd.conf(5) why this plugin is experimental.
199 - openvpn
200 RX and TX of each client in openvpn-status.log (status-version 2).
201 <http://openvpn.net/index.php/documentation/howto.html>
203 - oracle
204 Query data from an Oracle database.
206 - perl
207 The perl plugin implements a Perl-interpreter into collectd. You can
208 write your own plugins in Perl and return arbitrary values using this
209 API. See collectd-perl(5).
211 - ping
212 Network latency: Time to reach the default gateway or another given
213 host.
215 - postgresql
216 PostgreSQL database statistics: active server connections, transaction
217 numbers, block IO, table row manipulations.
219 - powerdns
220 PowerDNS name server statistics.
222 - processes
223 Process counts: Number of running, sleeping, zombie, ... processes.
225 - protocols
226 Counts various aspects of network protocols such as IP, TCP, UDP, etc.
228 - python
229 The python plugin implements a Python interpreter into collectd. This
230 makes it possible to write plugins in Python which are executed by
231 collectd without the need to start a heavy interpreter every interval.
232 See collectd-python(5) for details.
234 - routeros
235 Query interface and wireless registration statistics from RouterOS.
237 - rrdcached
238 RRDtool caching daemon (RRDcacheD) statistics.
240 - sensors
241 System sensors, accessed using lm_sensors: Voltages, temperatures and
242 fan rotation speeds.
244 - serial
245 RX and TX of serial interfaces. Linux only; needs root privileges.
247 - snmp
248 Read values from SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) enabled
249 network devices such as switches, routers, thermometers, rack monitoring
250 servers, etc. See collectd-snmp(5).
252 - swap
253 Pages swapped out onto harddisk or whatever is called `swap' by the OS..
255 - table
256 Parse table-like structured files.
258 - tail
259 Follows (tails) logfiles, parses them by lines and submits matched
260 values.
262 - tape
263 Bytes and operations read and written on tape devices. Solaris only.
265 - tcpconns
266 Number of TCP connections to specific local and remote ports.
268 - teamspeak2
269 TeamSpeak2 server statistics.
271 - ted
272 Plugin to read values from `The Energy Detective' (TED).
274 - thermal
275 Linux ACPI thermal zone information.
277 - tokyotyrant
278 Reads the number of records and file size from a running Tokyo Tyrant
279 server.
281 - uptime
282 System uptime statistics.
284 - users
285 Users currently logged in.
287 - vmem
288 Virtual memory statistics, e. g. the number of page-ins/-outs or the
289 number of pagefaults.
291 - vserver
292 System resources used by Linux VServers.
293 See <http://linux-vserver.org/>.
295 - wireless
296 Link quality of wireless cards. Linux only.
298 - xmms
299 Bitrate and frequency of music played with XMMS.
301 - zfs_arc
302 Statistics for ZFS' “Adaptive Replacement Cache” (ARC).
304 * Output can be written or send to various destinations by the following
305 plugins:
307 - csv
308 Write to comma separated values (CSV) files. This needs lots of
309 diskspace but is extremely portable and can be analysed with almost
310 every program that can analyse anything. Even Microsoft's Excel..
312 - network
313 Send the data to a remote host to save the data somehow. This is useful
314 for large setups where the data should be saved by a dedicated machine.
316 - perl
317 Of course the values are propagated to plugins written in Perl, too, so
318 you can easily do weird stuff with the plugins we didn't dare think of
319 ;) See collectd-perl(5).
321 - python
322 It's possible to implement write plugins in Python using the python
323 plugin. See collectd-python(5) for details.
325 - rrdcached
326 Output to round-robin-database (RRD) files using the RRDtool caching
327 daemon (RRDcacheD) - see rrdcached(1). That daemon provides a general
328 implementation of the caching done by the `rrdtool' plugin.
330 - rrdtool
331 Output to round-robin-database (RRD) files using librrd. See rrdtool(1).
332 This is likely the most popular destination for such values. Since
333 updates to RRD-files are somewhat expensive this plugin can cache
334 updates to the files and write a bunch of updates at once, which lessens
335 system load a lot.
337 - unixsock
338 One can query the values from the unixsock plugin whenever they're
339 needed. Please read collectd-unixsock(5) for a description on how that's
340 done.
342 - write_http
343 Sends the values collected by collectd to a web-server using HTTP POST
344 requests. The transmitted data is either in a form understood by the
345 Exec plugin or formatted in JSON.
347 * Logging is, as everything in collectd, provided by plugins. The following
348 plugins keep up informed about what's going on:
350 - logfile
351 Writes logmessages to a file or STDOUT/STDERR.
353 - perl
354 Log messages are propagated to plugins written in Perl as well.
355 See collectd-perl(5).
357 - python
358 It's possible to implement log plugins in Python using the python plugin.
359 See collectd-python(5) for details.
361 - syslog
362 Logs to the standard UNIX logging mechanism, syslog.
364 * Notifications can be handled by the following plugins:
366 - notify_desktop
367 Send a desktop notification to a notification daemon, as defined in
368 the Desktop Notification Specification. To actually display the
369 notifications, notification-daemon is required.
370 See http://www.galago-project.org/specs/notification/.
372 - notify_email
373 Send an E-mail with the notification message to the configured
374 recipients.
376 - exec
377 Execute a program or script to handle the notification.
378 See collectd-exec(5).
380 - logfile
381 Writes the notification message to a file or STDOUT/STDERR.
383 - network
384 Send the notification to a remote host to handle it somehow.
386 - perl
387 Notifications are propagated to plugins written in Perl as well.
388 See collectd-perl(5).
390 - python
391 It's possible to implement notification plugins in Python using the
392 python plugin. See collectd-python(5) for details.
394 * Value processing can be controlled using the "filter chain" infrastructure
395 and "matches" and "targets". The following plugins are available:
397 - match_empty_counter
398 Match counter values which are currently zero.
400 - match_hashed
401 Match values using a hash function of the hostname.
403 - match_regex
404 Match values by their identifier based on regular expressions.
406 - match_timediff
407 Match values with an invalid timestamp.
409 - match_value
410 Select values by their data sources' values.
412 - target_notification
413 Create and dispatch a notification.
415 - target_replace
416 Replace parts of an identifier using regular expressions.
418 - target_scale
419 Scale (multiply) values by an arbitrary value.
421 - target_set
422 Set (overwrite) entire parts of an identifier.
424 * Miscellaneous plugins:
426 - uuid
427 Sets the hostname to an unique identifier. This is meant for setups
428 where each client may migrate to another physical host, possibly going
429 through one or more name changes in the process.
431 * Performance: Since collectd is running as a daemon it doesn't spend much
432 time starting up again and again. With the exception of the exec plugin no
433 processes are forked. Caching in output plugins, such as the rrdtool and
434 network plugins, makes sure your resources are used efficiently. Also,
435 since collectd is programmed multithreaded it benefits from hyperthreading
436 and multicore processors and makes sure that the daemon isn't idle if only
437 one plugins waits for an IO-operation to complete.
439 * Once set up, hardly any maintenance is necessary. Setup is kept as easy
440 as possible and the default values should be okay for most users.
443 Operation
444 ---------
446 * collectd's configuration file can be found at `sysconfdir'/collectd.conf.
447 Run `collectd -h' for a list of builtin defaults. See `collectd.conf(5)'
448 for a list of options and a syntax description.
450 * When the `csv' or `rrdtool' plugins are loaded they'll write the values to
451 files. The usual place for these files is beneath `/var/lib/collectd'.
453 * When using some of the plugins, collectd needs to run as user root, since
454 only root can do certain things, such as craft ICMP packages needed to ping
455 other hosts. collectd should NOT be installed setuid root since it can be
456 used to overwrite valuable files!
458 * Sample scripts to generate graphs reside in `contrib/' in the source
459 package or somewhere near `/usr/share/doc/collectd' in most distributions.
460 Please be aware that those script are meant as a starting point for your
461 own experiments.. Some of them require the `RRDs' Perl module.
462 (`librrds-perl' on Debian) If you have written a more sophisticated
463 solution please share it with us.
465 * The RRAs of the automatically created RRD files depend on the `step'
466 and `heartbeat' settings given. If change these settings you may need to
467 re-create the files, losing all data. Please be aware of that when changing
468 the values and read the rrdtool(1) manpage thoroughly.
471 collectd and chkrootkit
472 -----------------------
474 If you are using the `dns' plugin chkrootkit(1) will report collectd as a
475 packet sniffer ("<iface>: PACKET SNIFFER(/usr/sbin/collectd[<pid>])"). The
476 plugin captures all UDP packets on port 53 to analyze the DNS traffic. In
477 this case, collectd is a legitimate sniffer and the report should be
478 considered to be a false positive. However, you might want to check that
479 this really is collectd and not some other, illegitimate sniffer.
482 Prerequisites
483 -------------
485 To compile collectd from source you will need:
487 * Usual suspects: C compiler, linker, preprocessor, make, ...
489 * A POSIX-threads (pthread) implementation.
490 Since gathering some statistics is slow (network connections, slow devices,
491 etc) the collectd is parallelized. The POSIX threads interface is being
492 used and should be found in various implementations for hopefully all
493 platforms.
495 * CoreFoundation.framework and IOKit.framework (optional)
496 For compiling on Darwin in general and the `apple_sensors' plugin in
497 particular.
498 <http://developer.apple.com/corefoundation/>
500 * libclntsh (optional)
501 Used by the `oracle' plugin.
503 * libcurl (optional)
504 If you want to use the `apache', `ascent', `curl', `nginx', or `write_http'
505 plugin.
506 <http://curl.haxx.se/>
508 * libdbi (optional)
509 Used by the `dbi' plugin to connect to various databases.
510 <http://libdbi.sourceforge.net/>
512 * libesmtp (optional)
513 For the `notify_email' plugin.
514 <http://www.stafford.uklinux.net/libesmtp/>
516 * libganglia (optional)
517 Used by the `gmond' plugin to process data received from Ganglia.
518 <http://ganglia.info/>
520 * libgcrypt (optional)
521 Used by the `network' plugin for encryption and authentication.
522 <http://www.gnupg.org/>
524 * libhal (optional)
525 If present, the uuid plugin will check for UUID from HAL.
526 <http://hal.freedesktop.org/>
528 * libiptc (optional)
529 For querying iptables counters.
530 <http://netfilter.org/>
532 If not found on the system, a version shipped with this distribution can
533 be used. It requires some Linux headers in /usr/include/linux. You can
534 force the build system to use the shipped version by specifying
535 --with-libiptc=shipped
536 when running the configure script.
538 * libjvm (optional)
539 Library that encapsulates the `Java Virtual Machine' (JVM). This library is
540 used by the Java plugin to execute Java bytecode. See “Configuring with
541 libjvm” below.
542 <http://openjdk.java.net/> (and others)
544 * libmemcached (optional)
545 Used by the `memcachec' plugin to connect to a memcache daemon.
546 <http://tangent.org/552/libmemcached.html>
548 * libmodbus (optional)
549 Used by the `modbus' plugin to communicate with Modbus/TCP devices.
550 <https://launchpad.net/libmodbus>
552 * libmysqlclient (optional)
553 Unsurprisingly used by the `mysql' plugin.
554 <http://dev.mysql.com/>
556 * libnatapp (optional)
557 Required for the “netapp” plugin.
558 This library is part of the “Manage ONTAP SDK” published by NetApp.
560 * libnetlink (optional)
561 Used, obviously, for the `netlink' plugin.
562 <http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Net:Iproute2>
564 * libnetsnmp (optional)
565 For the `snmp' plugin.
566 <http://www.net-snmp.org/>
568 * libnotify (optional)
569 For the `notify_desktop' plugin.
570 <http://www.galago-project.org/>
572 * liboping (optional)
573 Used by the `ping' plugin to send and receive ICMP packets.
574 <http://verplant.org/liboping/>
576 * libowcapi (optional)
577 Used by the `onewire' plugin to read values from onewire sensors (or the
578 owserver(1) daemon).
579 <http://www.owfs.org/>
581 * libpcap (optional)
582 Used to capture packets by the `dns' plugin.
583 <http://www.tcpdump.org/>
585 * libperl (optional)
586 Obviously used by the `perl' plugin. The library has to be compiled with
587 ithread support (introduced in Perl 5.6.0).
588 <http://www.perl.org/>
590 * libpq (optional)
591 The PostgreSQL C client library used by the `postgresql' plugin.
592 <http://www.postgresql.org/>
594 * libpython (optional)
595 Used by the `python' plugin. Currently, only 2.3 ≦ Python < 3 is supported.
596 <http://www.python.org/>
598 * librouteros (optional)
599 Used by the `routeros' plugin to connect to a device running `RouterOS'.
600 <http://verplant.org/librouteros/>
602 * librrd (optional)
603 Used by the `rrdtool' and `rrdcached' plugins. The latter requires RRDtool
604 client support which was added after version 1.3 of RRDtool. Versions 1.0,
605 1.2 and 1.3 are known to work with the `rrdtool' plugin.
606 <http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/>
608 * librt, libsocket, libkstat, libdevinfo (optional)
609 Various standard Solaris libraries which provide system functions.
610 <http://developers.sun.com/solaris/>
612 * libsensors (optional)
613 To read from `lm_sensors', see the `sensors' plugin.
614 <http://www.lm-sensors.org/>
616 * libstatgrab (optional)
617 Used by various plugins to collect statistics on systems other than Linux
618 and/or Solaris.
619 <http://www.i-scream.org/libstatgrab/>
621 * libtokyotyrant (optional)
622 Used by the tokyotyrant plugin.
623 <http://1978th.net/tokyotyrant/>
625 * libupsclient/nut (optional)
626 For the `nut' plugin which queries nut's `upsd'.
627 <http://networkupstools.org/>
629 * libvirt (optional)
630 Collect statistics from virtual machines.
631 <http://libvirt.org/>
633 * libxml2 (optional)
634 Parse XML data. This is needed for the `ascent' and `libvirt' plugins.
635 <http://xmlsoft.org/>
637 * libxmms (optional)
638 <http://www.xmms.org/>
640 * libyajl (optional)
641 Parse JSON data. This is needed for the `curl_json' plugin.
642 <http://github.com/lloyd/yajl>
644 Configuring / Compiling / Installing
645 ------------------------------------
647 To configure, build and install collectd with the default settings, run
648 `./configure && make && make install'. For detailed, generic instructions
649 see INSTALL. For a complete list of configure options and their description,
650 run `./configure --help'.
652 By default, the configure script will check for all build dependencies and
653 disable all plugins whose requirements cannot be fulfilled (any other plugin
654 will be enabled). To enable a plugin, install missing dependencies (see
655 section `Prerequisites' above) and rerun `configure'. If you specify the
656 `--enable-<plugin>' configure option, the script will fail if the depen-
657 dencies for the specified plugin are not met. In that case you can force the
658 plugin to be built using the `--enable-<plugin>=force' configure option.
659 This will most likely fail though unless you're working in a very unusual
660 setup and you really know what you're doing. If you specify the
661 `--disable-<plugin>' configure option, the plugin will not be built. If you
662 specify the `--enable-all-plugins' or `--disable-all-plugins' configure
663 options, all plugins will be enabled or disabled respectively by default.
664 Explicitly enabling or disabling a plugin overwrites the default for the
665 specified plugin. These options are meant for package maintainers and should
666 not be used in everyday situations.
668 By default, collectd will be installed into `/opt/collectd'. You can adjust
669 this setting by specifying the `--prefix' configure option - see INSTALL for
670 details. If you pass DESTDIR=<path> to `make install', <path> will be
671 prefixed to all installation directories. This might be useful when creating
672 packages for collectd.
674 Configuring with libjvm
675 -----------------------
677 To determine the location of the required files of a Java installation is not
678 an easy task, because the locations vary with your kernel (Linux, SunOS, …)
679 and with your architecture (x86, SPARC, …) and there is no ‘java-config’
680 script we could use. Configuration of the JVM library is therefore a bit
681 tricky.
683 The easiest way to use the `--with-java=$JAVA_HOME' option, where
684 `$JAVA_HOME' is usually something like:
685 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.14
687 The configure script will then use find(1) to look for the following files:
689 - jni.h
690 - jni_md.h
691 - libjvm.so
693 If found, appropriate CPP-flags and LD-flags are set and the following
694 library checks succeed.
696 If this doesn't work for you, you have the possibility to specify CPP-flags,
697 C-flags and LD-flags for the ‘Java’ plugin by hand, using the following three
698 (environment) variables:
700 - JAVA_CPPFLAGS
701 - JAVA_CFLAGS
702 - JAVA_LDFLAGS
704 For example (shortened for demonstration purposes):
706 ./configure JAVA_CPPFLAGS="-I$JAVA_HOME/include -I$JAVA_HOME/include/linux"
708 Adding "-ljvm" to the JAVA_LDFLAGS is done automatically, you don't have to
709 do that.
711 Crosscompiling
712 --------------
714 To compile correctly collectd needs to be able to initialize static
715 variables to NAN (Not A Number). Some C libraries, especially the GNU
716 libc, have a problem with that.
718 Luckily, with GCC it's possible to work around that problem: One can define
719 NAN as being (0.0 / 0.0) and `isnan' as `f != f'. However, to test this
720 ``implementation'' the configure script needs to compile and run a short
721 test program. Obviously running a test program when doing a cross-
722 compilation is, well, challenging.
724 If you run into this problem, you can use the `--with-nan-emulation'
725 configure option to force the use of this implementation. We can't promise
726 that the compiled binary actually behaves as it should, but since NANs
727 are likely never passed to the libm you have a good chance to be lucky.
729 Likewise, collectd needs to know the layout of doubles in memory, in order
730 to craft uniform network packets over different architectures. For this, it
731 needs to know how to convert doubles into the memory layout used by x86. The
732 configure script tries to figure this out by compiling and running a few
733 small test programs. This is of course not possible when cross-compiling.
734 You can use the `--with-fp-layout' option to tell the configure script which
735 conversion method to assume. Valid arguments are:
737 * `nothing' (12345678 -> 12345678)
738 * `endianflip' (12345678 -> 87654321)
739 * `intswap' (12345678 -> 56781234)
742 Contact
743 -------
745 For questions, bug reports, development information and basically all other
746 concerns please send an email to collectd's mailing list at
747 <collectd at verplant.org>.
749 For live discussion and more personal contact visit us in IRC, we're in
750 channel #collectd on freenode.
753 Author
754 ------
756 Florian octo Forster <octo at verplant.org>,
757 Sebastian tokkee Harl <sh at tokkee.org>,
758 and many contributors (see `AUTHORS').
760 Please send bug reports and patches to the mailing list, see `Contact'
761 above.