vsphere

README

vCenter Server monitoring with Netdata

VMware vCenter Server is advanced server management software that provides a centralized platform for controlling your VMware vSphere environments.

This module collects hosts and vms performance statistics from one or more vCenter servers depending on configuration.

Warning: The vsphere collector cannot re-login and continue collecting metrics after a vCenter reboot. go.d.plugin needs to be restarted.

Metrics

All metrics have "vsphere." prefix.

Metric	Scope	Dimensions	Units
vm_cpu_usage_total	virtual machine	used	percentage
vm_mem_usage_percentage	virtual machine	used	percentage
vm_mem_usage	virtual machine	granted, consumed, active, shared	KiB
vm_mem_swap_rate	virtual machine	in, out	KiB/s
vm_mem_swap	virtual machine	swapped	KiB
vm_net_bandwidth_total	virtual machine	rx, tx	KiB/s
vm_net_packets_total	virtual machine	rx, tx	packets
vm_net_drops_total	virtual machine	rx, tx	packets
vm_disk_usage_total	virtual machine	read, write	KiB/s
vm_disk_max_latency	virtual machine	latency	ms
vm_overall_status	virtual machine	status	status
vm_system_uptime	virtual machine	time	seconds
host_cpu_usage_total	host	used	percentage
host_mem_usage_percentage	host	used	percentage
host_mem_usage	host	granted, consumed, active, shared, sharedcommon	KiB
host_mem_swap_rate	host	in, out	KiB/s
host_net_bandwidth_total	host	rx, tx	KiB/s
host_net_packets_total	host	rx, tx	packets
host_net_drops_total	host	rx, tx	packets
host_net_errors_total	host	rx, tx	errors
host_disk_usage_total	host	read, write	KiB/s
host_disk_max_latency	host	latency	ms
host_overall_status	host	status	status
host_system_uptime	host	time	seconds

Configuration

Edit the go.d/vsphere.conf configuration file using edit-config from the Netdata config directory, which is typically at /etc/netdata.

cd /etc/netdata # Replace this path with your Netdata config directory
sudo ./edit-config go.d/vsphere.conf

Needs only url, username and password. Here is an example for 2 servers:

jobs:
  - name: vcenter1
    url: https://203.0.113.0
    username: admin@vsphere.local
    password: somepassword
    host_include: ['/*']
    vm_include: ['/*']

  - name: vcenter2
    url: https://203.0.113.10
    username: admin@vsphere.local
    password: somepassword
    host_include: ['/*']
    vm_include: ['/*']

For all available options please see module configuration file.

Hosts/vms filtering

Module supports filtering hosts and vms. Filtering options are host_include and vm_include.

• host_include is a list of match patterns: /Dc pattern[/Cluster pattern/Host pattern].
• vm_include is a list of match patterns: /Dc pattern[/Cluster pattern/Host pattern/VM name].

Pattern should start with /. It matches name, syntax: simple patterns.

Examples:

    host_include: # filter all hosts
      - '/!*'
    vm_include: # allow all vms
      - '/*'

host_include: # allow all DC1 datacenter hosts and DC2 datacenter hosts except HOST2
  - '/DC1/*'
  - '/DC2/*/!HOST2 *'
vm_include: # allow all vms from datacenters whose names starts with DC1 and from all hosts except HOST1 and HOST2
  - '/DC1*/*/!HOST1 !HOST2 */*'

Update every

Default update_every is 20 seconds, and it doesn't make sense to decrease the value. VMware real-time statistics are generated at the 20-seconds specificity.

It is likely that 20 seconds is not enough for big installations and the value should be tuned.

To get better view we recommend to run the collector in debug mode and see how much time it will take to collect metrics.

Example (all not related debug lines were removed):

[ilyam@pc]$ ./go.d.plugin -d -m vsphere
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:94 discovering : starting resource discovering process
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:102 discovering : found 3 dcs, process took 49.329656ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:109 discovering : found 12 folders, process took 49.538688ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:116 discovering : found 3 clusters, process took 47.722692ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:123 discovering : found 2 hosts, process took 52.966995ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:130 discovering : found 2 vms, process took 49.832979ms
[ INFO  ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:140 discovering : found 3 dcs, 12 folders, 3 clusters (2 dummy), 2 hosts, 3 vms, process took 249.655993ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] build.go:12 discovering : building : starting building resources process
[ INFO  ] vsphere[vsphere] build.go:23 discovering : building : built 3/3 dcs, 12/12 folders, 3/3 clusters, 2/2 hosts, 3/3 vms, process took 63.3µs
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] hierarchy.go:10 discovering : hierarchy : start setting resources hierarchy process
[ INFO  ] vsphere[vsphere] hierarchy.go:18 discovering : hierarchy : set 3/3 clusters, 2/2 hosts, 3/3 vms, process took 6.522µs
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] filter.go:24 discovering : filtering : starting filtering resources process
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] filter.go:45 discovering : filtering : removed 0 unmatched hosts
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] filter.go:56 discovering : filtering : removed 0 unmatched vms
[ INFO  ] vsphere[vsphere] filter.go:29 discovering : filtering : filtered 0/2 hosts, 0/3 vms, process took 42.973µs
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] metric_lists.go:14 discovering : metric lists : starting resources metric lists collection process
[ INFO  ] vsphere[vsphere] metric_lists.go:30 discovering : metric lists : collected metric lists for 2/2 hosts, 3/3 vms, process took 275.60764ms
[ INFO  ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:74 discovering : discovered 2/2 hosts, 3/3 vms, the whole process took 525.614041ms
[ INFO  ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:11 starting discovery process, will do discovery every 5m0s
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] collect.go:11 starting collection process
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] scrape.go:48 scraping : scraped metrics for 2/2 hosts, process took 96.257374ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] scrape.go:60 scraping : scraped metrics for 3/3 vms, process took 57.879697ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] collect.go:23 metrics collected, process took 154.77997ms

There you can see that discovering took 525.614041ms, collecting metrics took 154.77997ms. Discovering is a separate thread, it doesn't affect collecting.

update_every and timeout parameters should be adjusted based on these numbers.

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot issues with the vsphere collector, run the go.d.plugin with the debug option enabled. The output should give you clues as to why the collector isn't working.

• Navigate to the plugins.d directory, usually at /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that's not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the plugins setting under [directories].

  cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/
  

• Switch to the netdata user.

  sudo -u netdata -s
  

• Run the go.d.plugin to debug the collector:

  ./go.d.plugin -d -m vsphere
  

Documentation

Index

• type Chart
• type Charts
• type Config
• type Dims
• type VSphere
  • func New() *VSphere
  • func (vs VSphere) Charts() *Charts
  • func (vs VSphere) Check() bool
  • func (vs *VSphere) Cleanup()
  • func (vs *VSphere) Collect() map[string]int64
  • func (vs *VSphere) Init() bool

Types

type Chart

type Chart = module.Chart

Chart is an alias for module.Chart

type Charts

type Charts = module.Charts

Charts is an alias for module.Charts

type Config

type Config struct {
	web.HTTP          `yaml:",inline"`
	DiscoveryInterval web.Duration                                   `yaml:"discovery_interval"`
	HostsInclude      match.HostIncludes                             `yaml:"host_include"`
	VMsInclude        match.VMIncludes                               `yaml:"vm_include"`
	HostMetrics       struct{ Name, Cluster, DataCenter bool }       `yaml:"host_metrics"`
	VMMetrics         struct{ Name, Host, Cluster, DataCenter bool } `yaml:"vm_metrics"`
}

type Dims

type Dims = module.Dims

Dims is an alias for module.Dims

type VSphere

type VSphere struct {
	module.Base
	UpdateEvery int `yaml:"update_every"`
	Config      `yaml:",inline"`
	// contains filtered or unexported fields
}

func New

func New() *VSphere

func (VSphere) Charts

func (vs VSphere) Charts() *Charts

func (VSphere) Check

func (vs VSphere) Check() bool

func (*VSphere) Cleanup

func (vs *VSphere) Cleanup()

func (*VSphere) Collect

func (vs *VSphere) Collect() map[string]int64

func (*VSphere) Init

func (vs *VSphere) Init() bool