circonus-agent

README

Circonus Agent

NOTE: This is an "in development" project. As such, there are a few things to be aware of at this time...

Caveats:

• The code is changing frequently - please ensure the latest release is being used
• No target specific packages. (e.g. rpm|deb|pkg)
• No service configurations provided. (e.g. systemd, upstart, init, svc)
• Native plugins (.js) do not work. Unless modified to run node independently and follow plugin output guidelines

⚠ v0.10.0 BREAKING changes -- Update command line and configuration files accordingly. See circonus-agentd -h and/or circonus-agentd --show-config=<format> for details. Notably, the check configuration options are in a dedicated check section in the configuration now (no longer under reverse). Additionally, automatic enabling of new metrics requires that a state directory be present and it must be owned by the user circonus-agentd runs as (i.e. nobody).

Features

1. Builtin metric collectors
2. Plugin architecture for local metric collection
3. Local HTTP Receiver for POST/PUT metric collection
4. Local StatsD listener for application metrics

Quick Start

Installing on a system which has already had cosi install and configure NAD.

1. mkdir -p /opt/circonus/agent
2. Download latest release from repository
3. Extract archive into /opt/circonus/agent
4. If planning to use --check-enable-new-metrics, ensure the state directory is owned by the user circonus-agentd will run as
5. If NAD installed, stop (e.g. systemctl stop nad)
6. Create a config or use command line parameters
7. Run sbin/circonus-agentd (optionally, for systems with systemd, edit and use service/circonus-agent.service.)

Example, minimal, configuration using existing cosi install, configuration would be placed into /opt/circonus/agent/etc/circonus-agent.toml:

# enable debug for more verbose messages
#debug = true

# set the plugin directory to NAD's plugins
plugin-dir = "/opt/circonus/nad/etc/node-agent.d"

[api]
key = "cosi" # use cosi api configuration

[check]
bundle_id = "cosi" # use cosi system check bundle

[reverse]
enabled = true

Options

$ /opt/circonus/agent/sbin/circonus-agentd -h

Flags:
      --api-app string                    [ENV: CA_API_APP] Circonus API Token app (default "circonus-agent")
      --api-ca-file string                [ENV: CA_API_CA_FILE] Circonus API CA certificate file
      --api-key string                    [ENV: CA_API_KEY] Circonus API Token key
      --api-url string                    [ENV: CA_API_URL] Circonus API URL (default "https://api.circonus.com/v2/")
      --check-broker string               [ENV: CA_CHECK_BROKER] ID of Broker to use or 'select' for random selection of valid broker, if creating a check bundle (default "select")
  -C, --check-create                      [ENV: CA_CHECK_CREATE] Create check bundle (for reverse and auto enable new metrics)
      --check-enable-new-metrics          [ENV: CA_CHECK_ENABLE_NEW_METRICS] Automatically enable all new metrics
  -I, --check-id string                   [ENV: CA_CHECK_ID] Check Bundle ID or 'cosi' for cosi system check (for reverse and auto enable new metrics)
      --check-metric-refresh-ttl string   [ENV: CA_CHECK_METRIC_REFRESH_TTL] Refresh check metrics TTL (default "5m")
      --check-tags string                 [ENV: CA_CHECK_TAGS] Tags [comma separated list] to use, if creating a check bundle
  -T, --check-target string               [ENV: CA_CHECK_TARGET] Check target host (for creating a new check) (default <hostname>)
      --check-title string                [ENV: CA_CHECK_TITLE] Title [display name] to use, if creating a check bundle (default "<check-target> /agent")
      --collectors stringSlice            [ENV: CA_COLLECTORS] List of builtin collectors to enable
  -c, --config string                     config file (default is /opt/circonus/agent/etc/circonus-agent.(json|toml|yaml)
  -d, --debug                             [ENV: CA_DEBUG] Enable debug messages
      --debug-cgm                         [ENV: CA_DEBUG_CGM] Enable CGM & API debug messages
  -h, --help                              help for circonus-agent
  -l, --listen stringSlice                [ENV: CA_LISTEN] Listen spec e.g. :2609, [::1], [::1]:2609, 127.0.0.1, 127.0.0.1:2609, foo.bar.baz, foo.bar.baz:2609 (default ":2609")
  -L, --listen-socket stringSlice         [ENV: CA_LISTEN_SOCKET] Unix socket to create
      --log-level string                  [ENV: CA_LOG_LEVEL] Log level [(panic|fatal|error|warn|info|debug|disabled)] (default "info")
      --log-pretty                        [ENV: CA_LOG_PRETTY] Output formatted/colored log lines [ignored on windows]
      --no-gzip                           Disable gzip HTTP responses
      --no-statsd                         [ENV: CA_NO_STATSD] Disable StatsD listener
  -p, --plugin-dir string                 [ENV: CA_PLUGIN_DIR] Plugin directory (default "/opt/circonus/agent/plugins")
      --plugin-ttl-units string           [ENV: CA_PLUGIN_TTL_UNITS] Default plugin TTL units (default "s")
  -r, --reverse                           [ENV: CA_REVERSE] Enable reverse connection
      --reverse-broker-ca-file string     [ENV: CA_REVERSE_BROKER_CA_FILE] Broker CA certificate file
      --show-config string                Show config (json|toml|yaml) and exit
      --ssl-cert-file string              [ENV: CA_SSL_CERT_FILE] SSL Certificate file (PEM cert and CAs concatenated together) (default "/opt/circonus/agent/etc/circonus-agent.pem")
      --ssl-key-file string               [ENV: CA_SSL_KEY_FILE] SSL Key file (default "/opt/circonus/agent/etc/circonus-agent.key")
      --ssl-listen string                 [ENV: CA_SSL_LISTEN] SSL listen address and port [IP]:[PORT] - setting enables SSL
      --ssl-verify                        [ENV: CA_SSL_VERIFY] Enable SSL verification (default true)
      --statsd-group-cid string           [ENV: CA_STATSD_GROUP_CID] StatsD group check bundle ID
      --statsd-group-counters string      [ENV: CA_STATSD_GROUP_COUNTERS] StatsD group metric counter handling (average|sum) (default "sum")
      --statsd-group-gauges string        [ENV: CA_STATSD_GROUP_GAUGES] StatsD group gauge operator (default "average")
      --statsd-group-prefix string        [ENV: CA_STATSD_GROUP_PREFIX] StatsD group metric prefix (default "group.")
      --statsd-group-sets string          [ENV: CA_STATSD_GROPUP_SETS] StatsD group set operator (default "sum")
      --statsd-host-cateogry string       [ENV: CA_STATSD_HOST_CATEGORY] StatsD host metric category (default "statsd")
      --statsd-host-prefix string         [ENV: CA_STATSD_HOST_PREFIX] StatsD host metric prefix (default "host.")
      --statsd-port string                [ENV: CA_STATSD_PORT] StatsD port (default "8125")
  -V, --version                           Show version and exit

Configuration

The Circonus agent can be configured via the command line, environment variables, and/or a configuration file. For details on using configuration files, see the configuration section of etc/README.md

Plugins

For documentation on plugins please refer to plugins/README.md.

Receiver

The Circonus agent provides a special handler for the endpoint /write which will accept HTTP POST and HTTP PUT requests containing structured JSON.

The structure of the JSON expected by the receiver is the same as the JSON format accepted from plugins. See the JSON section of the plugin documentation for details on the structure.

The URL syntax for sending metrics is /write/ID where ID is a prefix for all of the metrics being sent in the request.

For example:

HTTP POST http://127.0.0.1:2609/write/test with a payload of:

{
    "t1": {
        "_type": "i",
        "_value": 32
    },
    "t2": {
        "_tags": ["abc:123"],
        "_type": "s",
        "_value": "foo"
    }
}

Would result in metrics in the Circonus UI of:

test`t1 numeric 32
test`t2|ST[abc:123] text "foo"

StatsD

The Circonus agent provides a StatsD listener by default (disable: --no-statsd, configure port: --statsd-port). It accepts the basic StatsD metric types as well as, Circonus specific metric types h and t. In addition, the StatsD listener support adding stream tags to metrics via |#tag_list added to a metric (where tag_list is a comma separated list of key:value pairs).

Syntax: name:value|type[|@rate][|#tag_list]

Type	Note
c	Counter
g	Gauge
h	Histogram - Circonus specific
ms	Timing - treated as a Histogram
s	Sets - treated as a Counter
t	Text - Circonus specific

NOTE: the derivative metrics automatically generated with some StatsD types are not created by Circonus, as the data is already available within the Circonus UI.

Builtin collectors

The circonus-agent has builtin collectors offering a higher level of efficiency over executing plugins. The circonus-agent --collectors command line option controls which collectors are enabled. Builtin collectors take precedence over plugins - if a builtin collector exists with the same ID as a plugin, the plugin will not be activated. Configuration files for builtins are located in the circonus-agent etc directory (e.g. /opt/circonus/agent/etc or C:\circonus-agent\etc).

Configuration:

• Command line --collectors (space delimited list)

• Environment CA_COLLECTORS (space delimited list)

• Config file collectors (array of strings)

• Windows default WMI collectors: ['cache', 'disk', 'ip', 'interface', 'memory', 'object', 'paging_file' 'processor', 'tcp', 'udp']

• Linux default ProcFS collectors: ['cpu','diskstats','if','loadavg','vm']

• Common prometheus (disabled if no configuration file exists)

For complete list of collectors and details on collector specific configuration see etc/README.md.

To disable all default builtin collectors pass --connectors="" on the command line or configure collectors attribute in a configuration file.

Manual build

1. Clone repo git clone https://github.com/circonus-labs/circonus-agent.git
2. Dependencies, run dep ensure (requires dep utility)
3. Build go build -o circonus-agentd
4. Install cp circonus-agentd /opt/circonus/agent/sbin