neo-agent

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Published: Jun 12, 2018 License: Apache-2.0

README

SignalFx Smart Agent

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The SignalFx Smart Agent is a metric agent written in Go for monitoring infrastructure and application services in a variety of different environments. It is meant as a successor to our previous collectd agent, but still uses that internally -- so any existing Python or C-based collectd plugins will still work without modification.

Concepts

The agent has three main components:

  1. Observers that discover applications and services running on the host
  2. Monitors that collect metrics from the host and applications
  3. The Writer that sends the metrics collected by monitors to SignalFx.
Observers

Observers watch the various environments that we support to discover running services and automatically configure the agent to send metrics for those services.

For a list of supported observers and their configurations, see Observer Config.

Monitors

Monitors collect metrics from the host system and services. They are configured under the monitors list in the agent config. For application-specific monitors, you can define discovery rules in your monitor configuration. A separate monitor instance is created for each discovered instance of applications that match a discovery rule. See Auto Discovery for more information.

Many of the monitors are built around collectd, an open source third-party monitor, and use it to collect metrics. Some other monitors do not use collectd. However, either type is configured in the same way.

For a list of supported monitors and their configurations, see Monitor Config.

The agent is primarily intended to monitor services/applications running on the same host as the agent. This is in keeping with the collectd model. The main issue with monitoring services on other hosts is that the host dimension that collectd sets on all metrics will currently get set to the hostname of the machine that the agent is running on. This allows everything to have a consistent host dimension so that metrics can be matched to a specific machine during metric analysis.

Writer

The writer collects metrics emitted by the configured monitors and sends them to SignalFx on a regular basis. By default it batches metrics for 1 second before sending. There are a few things that can be configured in the writer, but this is generally unnecessary.

Installation

The agent is available for Linux in both a containerized and standalone form. Whatever form you use, the dependencies are completely bundled along with the agent, including a Java JRE runtime and a Python runtime, so there are no additional dependencies required. This means that the agent should work on any relatively modern Linux distribution (kernel version 2.6+).

Deployment

We support the following deployment/configuration management tools to automate the installation process. See Bundles for a list of underlying packages for the agent.

Installer Script

For non-containerized environments, there is a convenience script that you can run on your host to install the agent package. This is useful for testing and trials, but for full-scale deployments you will probably want to use a configuration management system like Chef or Puppet. You can view the source for the installer script and use it on your hosts by running:

curl -sSL https://dl.signalfx.com/signalfx-agent.sh > /tmp/signalfx-agent.sh
sudo sh /tmp/signalfx-agent.sh YOUR_SIGNALFX_API_TOKEN
Chef

We offer a Chef cookbook to install and configure the agent. See the cookbook source and on the Chef Supermarket.

Puppet

We also offer a Puppet manifest to install and configure the agent. See the manifest source and on the Puppet Forge.

Ansible

We also offer an Ansible Role to install and configure the Smart Agent. See the role source.

Salt

We also offer a Salt Formula to install and configure the Smart Agent. See the formula source.

Kubernetes

See our Kubernetes setup instructions and the documentation on Monitoring Kubernetes for more information.

Bundles

We offer the agent in the following forms:

Docker Image

We provide a Docker image at quay.io/signalfx/signalfx-agent. The image is tagged using the same agent version scheme.

If you are using Docker outside of Kubernetes, you can run the agent in a Docker container and still gather metrics on the underlying host by running it with the following flags:

$ docker run \
    --name signalfx-agent \
    --pid host \
    --net host \
    -v /:/hostfs:ro \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
    -v /etc/signalfx/:/etc/signalfx/:ro \
    quay.io/signalfx/signalfx-agent:<version>

This assumes you have the agent config in the conventional directory (/etc/signalfx) on the root mount namespace.

If you have the Docker API available through the conventional UNIX domain socket, you should mount that in to be able to use the docker-container-stats monitor.

It is necessary to mount in the host root filesystem at /hostfs in order to get disk usage metrics for the host filesystems using the collectd/df. You will need to set the hostFSPath: /hostfs config option on that monitor to make it use this non-default path.

The only other special config you will need is the etcPath: /hostfs/etc option under the collectd/signalfx-metadata monitor config. This tells it where to find certain files like /etc/os-release that are used to generate host metadata such as the Linux distro and version.

You may also want to use the Docker observer to automatically discover other containers running in the same Docker engine.

Debian Package

We provide a Debian package repository that you can make use of with the following commands:

curl -sSL https://dl.signalfx.com/debian.gpg > /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/signalfx.gpg
echo 'deb https://dl.signalfx.com/debs/signalfx-agent/final /' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signalfx-agent.list
apt-get update
apt-get install -y signalfx-agent
RPM Package

We provide a RHEL/RPM package repository that you can make use of with the following commands:

cat <<EOH > /etc/yum.repos.d/signalfx-agent.repo
[signalfx-agent]
name=SignalFx Agent Repository
baseurl=https://dl.signalfx.com/rpms/signalfx-agent/final
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://dl.signalfx.com/yum-rpm.key
enabled=1
EOH

yum install -y signalfx-agent
Standalone tar.gz

If you don't want to use a distro package, we offer a .tar.gz that can be deployed to the target host. This bundle is available for download on the Github Releases Page for each new release.

To use the bundle:

  1. Unarchive it to a directory of your choice on the target system.

  2. Ensure a valid configuration file is available somewhere on the target system. The main thing that the distro packages provide -- but that you will have to provide manually with the bundle -- is a run directory for the agent to use. Since you aren't installing from a package, there are three config options that you will especially want to consider:

  • diagnosticsSocketPath - This is the full path to a UNIX domain socket that the agent will listen on so that the signalfx-agent status command can read diagnostic information from a running agent. It can be blank if you don't desire that functionality.

  • internalMetricsSocketPath - This is the full path to a UNIX domain socket that the agent will listen on for requests from the internal-metrics monitor to gather internal metrics about the agent. It can also be blank to disable this socket.

  • collectd.configDir - This is where the agent writes the managed collectd config, since collectd can only be configured by files. Note that this entire dir will be wiped by the agent upon startup so that it doesn't pick up stale collectd config, so be sure that it is not used for anything else. Also note that these files could have sensitive information in them if you have passwords configured for collectd monitors, so you might want to place this dir on a tmpfs mount to avoid credentials persisting on disk.

See the section on Privileges for information on the capabilities the agent requires.

  1. Run the agent by invoking the archive path signalfx-agent/bin/signalfx-agent -config <path to config.yaml>. The agent logs only to stdout/err so it is up to you to direct that to a log file or other log management system if you wish to persist logs. See the signalfx-agent command doc for more information on supported command flags.
Privileges

When using the host observer, the agent requires the Linux capabilities DAC_READ_SEARCH and SYS_PTRACE, both of which are necessary to allow the agent to determine which processes are listening on network ports on the host. Otherwise, there is nothing built into the agent that requires privileges. When using a package to install the agent, the agent binary is given those capabilities in the package post-install script, but the agent is run as the signalfx-agent user. If you are not using the host observer, then you can strip those capabilities from the agent binary if so desired.

You should generally not run the agent as root unless you can't use capabilities for some reason.

Configuration

The agent is configured primarily from a YAML file (by default, /etc/signalfx/agent.yaml, but this can be overridden by the -config command line flag).

For the full schema of the config, see Config Schema.

For information on how to configure the agent from remote sources, such as other files on the filesystem or KV stores such as Etcd, see Remote Configuration.

Logging

Currently the agent only supports logging to stdout/stderr, which will generally be redirected by the init scripts we provide to either a file at /var/log/signalfx-agent.log or to the systemd journal on newer distros. The default log level is info, which will log anything noteworthy in the agent without spamming the logs too much. Most of the info level logs are on startup and upon service discovery changes. debug will create very verbose log output and should only be used when trying to resolve a problem with the agent.

Proxy Support

To use an HTTP(S) proxy, set the environment variable HTTP_PROXY and/or HTTPS_PROXY in the container configuration to proxy either protocol. The SignalFx ingest and API servers both use HTTPS. The agent will automatically manipulate the NO_PROXY envvar to not use the proxy for local services.

Diagnostics

The agent serves diagnostic information on a UNIX domain socket at the path configured by the diagnosticsSocketPath option. The socket takes no input, but simply dumps its current status back upon connection. As a convenience, the command signalfx-agent status will read this socket and dump out its contents.

The agent status output has the following sections:

  • Version: The agent version and build time
  • Agent Configuration: The current configuration in use by the agent, with secret values replaced by *s. Default values will be shown here if they were not set in the agent config file.
  • Writer Status: The status and metrics about the writer component which writes datapoints to SignalFx.
  • Observers: The active observers in the agent
  • Monitor Configurations (Not necessarily active): A list of monitor configurations that are in place. If a configuration has a discovery rule but no discovered endpoints match that rule, there will not be any active instances of this monitor.
  • Active Monitors: Monitors instances that are actively monitoring something. There may be multiple instances of these per configuration above if there is a discovery rule that matches multiple services.
  • Discovered Endpoints: A list of the endpoints discovered by the agent's observers. The fields shown there will be the fields used when matching discovery rules to a discovered endpoint.
  • Bad Monitor Configurations: This will be a set of monitor configurations that did not validate and the associated error. Bad monitor configuration generally does not prevent the agent from starting up, but will prevent that monitor from ever instantiating.

Also see our FAQ for more troubleshooting help.

Development

If you wish to contribute to the agent, see the Developer's Guide.

Directories

Path Synopsis
cmd
internal
core
Package core contains the central frame of the agent that hooks up the various subsystems.
Package core contains the central frame of the agent that hooks up the various subsystems.
core/config
Package config contains configuration structures and related helper logic for all agent components.
Package config contains configuration structures and related helper logic for all agent components.
core/config/sources
Package sources contains all of the config source logic.
Package sources contains all of the config source logic.
core/config/sources/zookeeper
Package zookeeper contains the logic for using Zookeeper as a config source.
Package zookeeper contains the logic for using Zookeeper as a config source.
core/dpfilters
Package dpfilters has logic describing the filtering of unwanted metrics.
Package dpfilters has logic describing the filtering of unwanted metrics.
core/hostid
Package hostid contains methods that can be called upon agent start up to determine host-specific values that uniquely identify a particular host, particularly ids that can be used to correlate metrics coming from this host to other metrics generated elsewhere, such as AWS CloudWatch metrics.
Package hostid contains methods that can be called upon agent start up to determine host-specific values that uniquely identify a particular host, particularly ids that can be used to correlate metrics coming from this host to other metrics generated elsewhere, such as AWS CloudWatch metrics.
core/services
Package services has service endpoint types.
Package services has service endpoint types.
core/writer
Package writer contains the SignalFx writer.
Package writer contains the SignalFx writer.
monitors
Package monitors is the core logic for monitors.
Package monitors is the core logic for monitors.
monitors/cadvisor
Package cadvisor contains a monitor that pulls cadvisor stats either directly from cadvisor or from the kubelet /stats endpoint that exposes cadvisor.
Package cadvisor contains a monitor that pulls cadvisor stats either directly from cadvisor or from the kubelet /stats endpoint that exposes cadvisor.
monitors/collectd/activemq
Package activemq has an ActiveMQ Collectd monitor that uses GenericJMX
Package activemq has an ActiveMQ Collectd monitor that uses GenericJMX
monitors/collectd/custom
Package custom contains a custom collectd plugin monitor, for which you can specify your own config template and parameters.
Package custom contains a custom collectd plugin monitor, for which you can specify your own config template and parameters.
monitors/collectd/genericjmx
Package genericjmx coordinates the various monitors that rely on the GenericJMX Collectd plugin to pull JMX metrics.
Package genericjmx coordinates the various monitors that rely on the GenericJMX Collectd plugin to pull JMX metrics.
monitors/collectd/netinterface
Package netinterface wraps the "interface" collectd plugin for gather network interface metrics.
Package netinterface wraps the "interface" collectd plugin for gather network interface metrics.
monitors/docker
Package docker contains a monitor for getting metrics about containers running in a docker engine.
Package docker contains a monitor for getting metrics about containers running in a docker engine.
monitors/kubernetes/cluster
Package cluster contains a Kubernetes cluster monitor.
Package cluster contains a Kubernetes cluster monitor.
monitors/types
Package types exists to avoid circular references between things that need to reference common types
Package types exists to avoid circular references between things that need to reference common types
observers
Package observers contains the core logic for observers, which are what observe the environment to discover running services.
Package observers contains the core logic for observers, which are what observe the environment to discover running services.
observers/docker
Package docker is an observer that watches a docker daemon and reports container ports as service endpoints.
Package docker is an observer that watches a docker daemon and reports container ports as service endpoints.
observers/file
Package file is a file-based observer that is primarily meant for development and test purposes.
Package file is a file-based observer that is primarily meant for development and test purposes.
observers/host
Package host observer that monitors the current host for active network listeners and reports them as service endpoints Use of this observer requires the CAP_SYS_PTRACE and CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH capability in Linux.
Package host observer that monitors the current host for active network listeners and reports them as service endpoints Use of this observer requires the CAP_SYS_PTRACE and CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH capability in Linux.
observers/kubernetes
Package kubernetes contains an observer that watches the Kubernetes API for pods that are running on the same node as the agent.
Package kubernetes contains an observer that watches the Kubernetes API for pods that are running on the same node as the agent.
selfdescribe
Package selfdescribe contains code that knows how to pull metadata from various agent component out into a well structured format that can be fed into other workflows to generate documentation or other resources such as chef recipies.
Package selfdescribe contains code that knows how to pull metadata from various agent component out into a well structured format that can be fed into other workflows to generate documentation or other resources such as chef recipies.
utils
Package utils hold miscelaneous utility functions
Package utils hold miscelaneous utility functions
utils/filter
Package filter contains common filtering logic that can be used to filter datapoints or various resources within other agent components, such as monitors.
Package filter contains common filtering logic that can be used to filter datapoints or various resources within other agent components, such as monitors.

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