Effortless monitoring with collectd, Graphite and Docker (opens in new tab)

(blog.docker.io)

72 pointskalessin12y ago23 comments

23 comments

19 comments · 5 top-level

hcarvalhoalves12y ago· 6 in thread

The biggest problem is setting up and upgrading Graphite, which is a pain and semi-broken right now.

I've been successful using collectd + Librato, works great, specially since you can setup alerts effortlessly.

Yes, setting up graphite can be confusing and painful. Looks like the author created a Docker app that should also make it easier.

Another alternative and a shamless plug - I've created an open-source fabric script that automates the graphite install processes (on debian-based hosts). See https://github.com/gingerlime/graphite-fabric

lsh12312y ago

Yep, I think it has too many dependencies and the architecture is over complicated. I've built a standalone stats collection/storage daemon that just works with any charts packaging - google charts, or whatever. Works great and doesn't require 10000 dependencies.

https://github.com/lsh123/stats-rrdb

kawsper12y ago

I made a gist to show how to install it on the newest Ubuntu release: https://gist.github.com/kaspergrubbe/5792356

There is too many moving parts for my taste, but the web-interface is the worst.

hcarvalhoalves12y ago

I know, I've used your script in the past actually :)

shykes12y ago

That's why they use docker: it automates the process of building and packaging Graphite, so you don't have to worry about it.

    $ docker run lopter/collectd-graphite

You're done.

hcarvalhoalves12y ago

Yeah, I get that from the post. It's not a definitive solution though, docker is of limited use and doesn't excuse Graphite setup being broken in the first place.

mdellabitta12y ago· 5 in thread

I don't understand this idea that you should build a metrics system from components rather than use one of the end-to-end projects out there like Zabbix. Can someone clue me in?

jlgreco12y ago

Barrier to entry. Zabbix is "enterprise" out its ass.

Graphite, statsd, collectd are small simple systems that you can have mostly figured out in a few minutes. Meanwhile Zabbix's website makes it seem like the sole reason for that project to exist is to sell consulting and training gigs.

Datadog seems like it might be slightly better, but I haven't spent much time looking at it.

golovast12y ago

That's not true. Maybe that's the impression it gives off, but it's a very good package that blows Nagios out of the water. It's UI/UX needs work and some things are a bit quirky (to say the least), but it scales well, works quickly out of the box (basic level), has decent and improving API, integrated graphs, etc.

It's not perfect and suffers from the same problems as other monitoring systems, but given the options it's better then most systems with similar scope.

P.S. I am not affiliated with them in any way shape or form. Just used it for a little while.

1 more reply

otterley12y ago

I don't, either. And Graphite doesn't allow you to tag metrics for easy aggregation, which is a huge win if you're monitoring more than a few instances of a metric. (Nor does Zabbix, BTW.)

I'm a reasonably happy Datadog customer.

TallboyOne12y ago

Datadog is very cool. What are some of the other solutions out there that are similar? I like how it mostly just integrates with anything I need, that makes things easy for a non-enterprise-level project.

jacobscott12y ago

Have you used any other cloud monitoring/metric/etc providers? If so, how do they compare to DataDog?

1 more reply

gingerlime12y ago· 3 in thread

UDP is really great, but it also makes it extremely easy to spoof the source IP and flood your monitoring server with fake metrics. It's probably not a huge concern, but something to be aware of. See a blog post I wrote in the context of statsd/carbon[1]

<shameless plug> Also, if you're looking for a nice open-source front-end to graphite, take a look at Giraffe[2]. It also has a collectd plugin[3] </shameless plug>

[1]http://blog.gingerlime.com/2012/statsd-and-carbon-security/ [2]http://giraffe.kenhub.com/ [3]https://github.com/bflad/giraffe-collectd

kalessinOP12y ago

Yeah, that's why collectd supports authentication and encryption (https://www.collectd.org/documentation/manpages/collectd.con...). I can't really speak about Graphtie since I'm less used to it; but in this case you can decide to not expose the Graphite port and only expose the collectd port.

gingerlime12y ago

Ah. I wasn't aware of this. Graphite/Carbon/Statsd are much more "basic" in that respect.

sciurus12y ago

Good point. However, collectd's protocol is much more complex that carbon's; it can sign or encrypt the data to prevent spoofing. If spoofing is a concern, then instead of having collectd on your systems being monitored send directly to carbon, have them send to a collectd instance on your graphite server, and have that instance send to carbon on localhost.

https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Networking_introduction

sciurus12y ago

To extend on this idea a little bit, once you have the data in graphite you can use it as input to an alerting system. As an example, here's a Nagios plugin I wrote to do that- https://github.com/sciurus/grallect

plasma12y ago

I'd love to see a "fixed" version of statsd/graphite/etc that is painless to install, understand and use.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

23 comments

19 comments · 5 top-level

hcarvalhoalves12y ago· 6 in thread

The biggest problem is setting up and upgrading Graphite, which is a pain and semi-broken right now.

I've been successful using collectd + Librato, works great, specially since you can setup alerts effortlessly.

gingerlime12y ago

Yes, setting up graphite can be confusing and painful. Looks like the author created a Docker app that should also make it easier.

lsh12312y ago

https://github.com/lsh123/stats-rrdb

kawsper12y ago

I made a gist to show how to install it on the newest Ubuntu release: https://gist.github.com/kaspergrubbe/5792356

There is too many moving parts for my taste, but the web-interface is the worst.

hcarvalhoalves12y ago

I know, I've used your script in the past actually :)

shykes12y ago

That's why they use docker: it automates the process of building and packaging Graphite, so you don't have to worry about it.

    $ docker run lopter/collectd-graphite

You're done.

hcarvalhoalves12y ago

Yeah, I get that from the post. It's not a definitive solution though, docker is of limited use and doesn't excuse Graphite setup being broken in the first place.

mdellabitta12y ago· 5 in thread

I don't understand this idea that you should build a metrics system from components rather than use one of the end-to-end projects out there like Zabbix. Can someone clue me in?

jlgreco12y ago

Barrier to entry. Zabbix is "enterprise" out its ass.

Datadog seems like it might be slightly better, but I haven't spent much time looking at it.

golovast12y ago

It's not perfect and suffers from the same problems as other monitoring systems, but given the options it's better then most systems with similar scope.

P.S. I am not affiliated with them in any way shape or form. Just used it for a little while.

1 more reply

otterley12y ago

I don't, either. And Graphite doesn't allow you to tag metrics for easy aggregation, which is a huge win if you're monitoring more than a few instances of a metric. (Nor does Zabbix, BTW.)

I'm a reasonably happy Datadog customer.

TallboyOne12y ago

jacobscott12y ago

Have you used any other cloud monitoring/metric/etc providers? If so, how do they compare to DataDog?

1 more reply

gingerlime12y ago· 3 in thread

<shameless plug> Also, if you're looking for a nice open-source front-end to graphite, take a look at Giraffe[2]. It also has a collectd plugin[3] </shameless plug>

[1]http://blog.gingerlime.com/2012/statsd-and-carbon-security/ [2]http://giraffe.kenhub.com/ [3]https://github.com/bflad/giraffe-collectd

kalessinOP12y ago

gingerlime12y ago

Ah. I wasn't aware of this. Graphite/Carbon/Statsd are much more "basic" in that respect.

sciurus12y ago

https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Networking_introduction

sciurus12y ago

plasma12y ago

I'd love to see a "fixed" version of statsd/graphite/etc that is painless to install, understand and use.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse