Install Telegraf from InfluxData Repos
If you want to install it from the InfluxData repos to ensure seamless updates whenever there are new releases, simply create the InfluxData repos as follows;
wget -qO- https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key | sudo apt-key add -
source /etc/lsb-release
echo "deb https://repos.influxdata.com/${DISTRIB_ID,,} ${DISTRIB_CODENAME} stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdb.list
apt update
apt install telegraf
Once the installation is done, you can start and enable Telegraf to run on system boot (This is usually done automatically during installation);
systemctl enable --now telegraf
Configuring Telegraf to Collect System Metrics
is a plugin-driven server agent for collecting and sending metrics and events from databases, systems, and IoT sensors. All metrics are gathered from the declared inputs, and sent to the declared outputs. It is basically made up of four distinct plugin types:
- Input Plugins collect metrics from the system, services
- Processor Plugins transform, decorate, and/or filter metrics
- Aggregator Plugins create aggregate metrics (e.g. mean, min, max, quantiles, etc.)
- Output Plugins write metrics to various destinations such as InfluxDB for our case.
/etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf is the default Telegraf configuration file.
In this tutorial, we will configure TIG stack monitor system memory usage, system processes, disk usage, system load, system uptime and logged in users.
As such, we will generate our custom Telegraf configuration with the above specified metrics on the input filter. Custom Telegraf configuration file can be generated with telegraf command.
Create a backup of the original Telegraf configuration file.
mv /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf{,.old}
Generate the Custom Telegraf for the specified metrics;
telegraf config -input-filter cpu:mem:swap:system:processes:disk -output-filter influxdb > /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf
Read more about Telegraf input plugins on Telegraf Plugins Github page.
Once the configuration file is generated, edit it to define the connection details to InfluxDB metrics database;
nano /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf
Replace the InfluxDB database connection details accordingly.
############################################################################### # OUTPUT PLUGINS # ############################################################################### # Configuration for sending metrics to InfluxDB [[outputs.influxdb]] urls = ["http://127.0.0.1:8086"] database = "telegraf" username = "telegraf" password = "[email protected]"
Restart Telegraf after modifications;
systemctl restart telegraf
Recheck the status;
systemctl status telegraf
● telegraf.service - The plugin-driven server agent for reporting metrics into InfluxDB
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/telegraf.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sat 2020-05-30 16:43:07 UTC; 8s ago
Docs: https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf
Main PID: 4776 (telegraf)
Tasks: 10 (limit: 2282)
Memory: 10.1M
CGroup: /system.slice/telegraf.service
└─4776 /usr/bin/telegraf -config /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf -config-directory /etc/telegraf/telegraf.d
May 30 16:43:07 ubuntu20 systemd[1]: Started The plugin-driven server agent for reporting metrics into InfluxDB.
May 30 16:43:07 ubuntu20 telegraf[4776]: 2020-05-30T16:43:07Z I! Starting Telegraf 1.14.3
May 30 16:43:07 ubuntu20 telegraf[4776]: 2020-05-30T16:43:07Z I! Loaded inputs: swap system cpu disk diskio kernel mem processes
May 30 16:43:07 ubuntu20 telegraf[4776]: 2020-05-30T16:43:07Z I! Loaded aggregators:
May 30 16:43:07 ubuntu20 telegraf[4776]: 2020-05-30T16:43:07Z I! Loaded processors:
May 30 16:43:07 ubuntu20 telegraf[4776]: 2020-05-30T16:43:07Z I! Loaded outputs: influxdb
May 30 16:43:07 ubuntu20 telegraf[4776]: 2020-05-30T16:43:07Z I! Tags enabled: host=ubuntu20
May 30 16:43:07 ubuntu20 telegraf[4776]: 2020-05-30T16:43:07Z I! [agent] Config: Interval:10s, Quiet:false, Hostname:"ubuntu20", Flush Interval:10sStart Telegraf and Verify If data appears
Telegraf enables you to run configuration tests outputing metrics to stdout. To run a general test for all metrics defined;
telegraf --config /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf --test
To run configuration test for a specific metric for example, system input plugin;
telegraf -test -config /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf --input-filter system
2020-05-30T11:07:42Z I! Starting Telegraf 1.14.3 > system,host=ubuntu20 load1=0.01,load15=0,load5=0.02,n_cpus=2i,n_users=2i 1590836862000000000 > system,host=ubuntu20 uptime=9206i 1590836862000000000 > system,host=ubuntu20 uptime_format=" 2:33" 1590836862000000000
