From: Florian Forster Date: Sat, 19 May 2007 15:09:18 +0000 (+0200) Subject: README: Cleaned up the description of plugins and added information about new plugins. X-Git-Tag: collectd-4.0.0-rc10~3 X-Git-Url: https://git.tokkee.org/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=ebed90b26c7d5eb6ed0e88cb24da342ae7c65b11;p=collectd.git README: Cleaned up the description of plugins and added information about new plugins. --- diff --git a/README b/README index 8d6c7edb..754bfe48 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -14,117 +14,182 @@ Features * collectd is able to collect the following data: - - Apache server utilization - (Number of bytes transfered, number of requests handled and detailed - scoreboard statistics) + - apache + Apache server utilization: Number of bytes transfered, number of + requests handled and detailed scoreboard statistics - - APC UPS Daemon - (UPS charge, load, input/output/battery voltage, etc) + - apcups + APC UPS Daemon: UPS charge, load, input/output/battery voltage, etc. - - Apple Sensors - (Temperature, fanspeed and voltage sensors of apple computers) + - apple_sensors + Sensors in Macs running Mac OS X / Darwin: Temperature, fanspeed and + voltage sensors. - - Battery - (Charge, current and charge of ACPI and PMU based batteries) + - battery + Batterycharge, -current and volatage of ACPI and PMU based laptop + batteries. - - CPU utilization - (Time spent in system, user, nice and idle) + - cpu + CPU utilization: Time spent in the system, user, nice, idle, and related + states. - - CPU frequency - (For laptops with speed step or a similar technology) + - cpufreq + CPU frequency (For laptops with speed step or a similar technology) - - Mountpoint usage - (Basically the values `df(1)' delivers) + - df + Mountpoint usage (Basically the values `df(1)' delivers) - - Disk utilization - (Sectors read/written, number of read/write actions, time spent doing IO) + - disk + Disk utilization: Sectors read/written, number of read/write actions, + average time an IO-operation took to complete. - - DNS traffic - (query types, response codes, opcodes and traffic) + - dns + DNS traffic: Query types, response codes, opcodes and traffic/octets + transfered. - - Email statistics - (count, traffic, spam scores and checks) + - email + Email statistics: Count, traffic, spam scores and checks. + See collectd-email(5). - - Entropy available - (Amount of entropy available to the system) + - entropy + Amount of entropy available to the system. - - Exec - (Values gatheres by a custom program or script) + - exec + Values gathered by a custom program or script. + See collectd-exec(5). - - Harddisk temperatures - (Uhm, yeah, temperature of harddisks that is ;) + - hddtemp + Harddisk temperatures using hddtempd. - - Interface traffic - (Number of octets, packets and errors for each interface) + - interface + Interface traffic: Number of octets, packets and errors for each + interface. - - Iptables' counters - (Number of bytes that were matched by a certain iptables rule) + - iptables + Iptables' counters: Number of bytes that were matched by a certain + iptables rule. - - IRQ counters - (Frequency in which certain interrupts occur) + - irq + IRQ counters: Frequency in which certain interrupts occur. - - System load - (Load average over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes) + - load + System load average over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes. - - mbmon - motherboard monitoring - (temperature, fanspeed and voltage information) + - mbmon + Motherboard sensors: temperature, fanspeed and voltage information, + using mbmon(1). - - Memory utilization - (Memory occupied by running processes, page cache, buffer cache and free) + - memory + Memory utilization: Memory occupied by running processes, page cache, + buffer cache and free. - - Multimeter - (Information provided by serial multimeters, such as the «Metex M-4650CR») + - multimeter + Information provided by serial multimeters, such as the `Metex + M-4650CR'. - - MySQL server statistics - (Commands issued, handlers triggered, thread usage, query cache - utilization and traffic sent/received) + - mysql + MySQL server statistics: Commands issued, handlers triggered, thread + usage, query cache utilization and traffic/octets sent and received. - - NFS Procedures - (Which NFS command were called how often. Only NFSv2 and NFSv3 right now) + - network + Receive values that were collected by other hosts. Large setups will + want to collect the data on one dedicated machine, and this is the + plugin of choice for that. - - NTP Daemon - (Local clock drift, offset to peers, etc) + - nfs + NFS Procedures: Which NFS command were called how often. Only NFSv2 and + NFSv3 right now. - - Network UPS tools - (UPS current, voltage, power, charge, utilisation, temperature, etc.) + - ntp + NTP daemon statistics: Local clock drift, offset to peers, etc. - - Ping latency - (Time to reach the default gateway or another given host) + - nut + Network UPS tools: UPS current, voltage, power, charge, utilisation, + temperature, etc. See upsd(8). - - Process counts - (Number of running, sleeping, zombie, ... processes) + - perl + The perl plugin implements a Perl-interpreter into collectd. You can + write your own plugins in Perl and return arbitary values using this + API. See collectd-perl(5). - - Sensors - (lm_sensors voltages, temperatures and fan rotation speeds) + - ping + Network latency: Time to reach the default gateway or another given + host. - - Serial - (RX and TX of serial interfaces) + - processes + Process counts: Number of running, sleeping, zombie, ... processes. - - Swap - (Pages swapped out onto harddisk or whatever is called `swap' by the OS..) + - sensors + System sensors, accessed using lm_sensors: Voltages, temperatures and + fan rotation speeds. - - Tape - (Read and write bytes and operations on tape devices) + - serial + RX and TX of serial interfaces. Linux only; needs root privileges. - - Users - (Currently logged in users) + - swap + Pages swapped out onto harddisk or whatever is called `swap' by the OS.. - - VServer - (System ressources used by vservers) + - tape + Bytes and operations read and written on tape devices. Solaris only. - - Wireless - (Link quality of wireless cards) + - users + Users currently logged in. - * Output to CSV- and RRD-files, send values over the network and/or provide a - generic interface for use by other means, e. g. a Nagios-plugin. + - vserver + System ressources used by Linux VServers. + See . - * Performance: Running as a daemon collectd doesn't spend much time in - startup. Since collectd links against libping, librrd and libsensors it - doesn't need to start any other processes. + - wireless + Link quality of wireless cards. Linux only. - * Hardly any maintenance neccessary and setup is trivial. + * Output can be written or send to various destinations by the following + plugins: - * Extremely easy and failsafe network operation possible. + - csv + Write to comma seperated values (CSV) files. This needs lots of + diskspace but is extremely portable and can be analysed with almost + every program that can analyse anything. Even Microsoft's Excel.. + + - network + Send the data to a remote host to save the data somehow. This is useful + for large setups where the data should be saved by a dedicated machine. + + - perl + Of course the values are propagated to plugins written in Perl, too, so + you can easily do weird stuff with the plugins we didn't dare think of + ;) See collectd-perl(5). + + - rrdtool + Output to round-robin-database (RRD) files using librrd. See rrdtool(1). + This is likely the most popular destination for such values. Since + updates to RRD-files are somewhat expensive this plugin can cache + updates to the files and write a bunch of updates at once, which lessens + system load a lot. + + - unixsock + One can query the values from the unixsock plugin whenever they're + needed. Please read collectd-unixsock(5) for a description on how that's + done. + + * Logging is, as everything in collectd, provided by plugins. The following + plugins keep up informed about what's going on: + + - logfile + Writes logmessages to a file or STDOUT/STDERR. + + - syslog + Logs to the standard UNIX logging mechanismn, syslog. + + * Performance: Since collectd is running as a daemon it doesn't spend much + time starting up again and again. With the exception of the exec plugin no + processes are forked. Caching in output plugins, such as the rrdtool and + network plugins, makes sure your resources are used efficiently. Also, + since collectd is programmed multithreaded it benefits from hyperthreading + and multicore processors and makes sure that the daemon isn't idle if only + one plugins waits for an IO-operation to complete. + + * Once set up, hardly any maintenence is neccessary. Setup is kept as easy + as possible and the default values should be okay for most users. Operation @@ -138,19 +203,21 @@ Operation files. The usual place for these files is beneath `/var/lib/collectd'. * When using some of the plugins, collectd needs to run as user root, since only - root can do certain thing, such as craft ICMP packages needed to ping other - hosts. collectd should NOT be installed setuid root since it can be used to - overwrite valuable files.. + root can do certain things, such as craft ICMP packages needed to ping + other hosts. collectd should NOT be installed setuid root since it can be + used to overwrite valuable files! * Sample scripts to generate graphs reside in `contrib/' in the source package or somewhere near `/usr/share/doc/collectd' in most distributions. Please be aware that those script are meant as a starting point for your own experiments.. Some of them require the `RRDs' Perl module. - (`librrds-perl' on Debian) + (`librrds-perl' on Debian) If you have written a more sophisticated + solution please share it with us. * The RRAs of the automatically created RRD files depend on the `step' - and `heartbeat' settings given. For a list of the default RRAs take a look - in the collectd(1) manpage. + and `heartbeat' settings given. If change these settings you may need to + re-create the files, losing all data. Please be aware of that when changing + the values and read the rrdtool(1) manpage thoroughly. Prerequisites @@ -202,11 +269,13 @@ Prerequisites Various standard Solaris libraries which provide system functions. * CoreFoundation.framework and IOKit.framework - For compiling on darwin in general and the `apple_sensors' plugin in + For compiling on Darwin in general and the `apple_sensors' plugin in particular. Author ------ - Florian octo Forster + Florian octo Forster , + Sebastian tokkee Hard , + and many contributors (see `AUTHORS'). diff --git a/src/collectd.conf.pod b/src/collectd.conf.pod index 45f14f01..939c72a3 100644 --- a/src/collectd.conf.pod +++ b/src/collectd.conf.pod @@ -85,6 +85,10 @@ required C to be configured in the webserver you're going to collect data from. These plugins are listed below as well, even if they don't require any configuration within collectd's configfile. +A list of all plugins and a short summary for each plugin can be found in the +F file shipped with the sourcecode and hopefully binary packets as +well. + =head2 Plugin C To configure the C-plugin you first need to configure the Apache diff --git a/src/collectd.pod b/src/collectd.pod index 9fe21280..d7c854e1 100644 --- a/src/collectd.pod +++ b/src/collectd.pod @@ -47,8 +47,12 @@ Output usage information and exit. =head1 PLUGINS -As noted above, the real power of collectd lies within it's plugins. There are -two big groups of plugins, B and B plugins: +As noted above, the real power of collectd lies within it's plugins. A +(hopefully complete) list of plugins and short descriptions can be found in the +F file that is distributed with the sourcecode. If you're using a +package it's a good bet to search somewhere near F. + +There are two big groups of plugins, B and B plugins: =over 4