Learn about the Linux Host Integration.

Linux Host Integration

Monitoring Linux hosts is easy with Wavefront. This integration installs and configures Telegraf to send host metrics into Wavefront. Telegraf is a light-weight server process capable of collecting, processing, aggregating, and sending metrics to a Wavefront proxy.

In addition to setting up the metrics flow, this integration also installs a dashboard. Here’s the CPU section of a dashboard displaying Linux host metrics.

images/linux_db.png

To see a list of the metrics for this integration, select the integration from https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/tree/master/plugins/inputs.

Linux Host Setup

This integration uses various Telegraf input plugins and offers several setup options

  • Use a proxy already running in your environment (preferred) or create a new proxy.
  • Install the Wavefront proxy and Telegraf agent on the same host or on separate hosts.

You can choose automatic installation or manual installation and configuration. For proxy installation prerequisites, see the Proxy Host Requirements.

Install Wavefront Proxy and Telegraf Agent Automatically

Log in to your Operations for Applications instance, navigate to the integration, and follow the instructions on the Setup tab to install Telegraf and the Wavefront proxy in your environment. If a proxy is already running in your environment, you can select that proxy and the Telegraf install command connects with that proxy. Sign up for a free trial to check it out!

Install and Configure Wavefront Proxy and Telegraf Agent Manually

You can install the Wavefront proxy and Telegraf agent manually from our package cloud repositories.

  1. Install the Wavefront proxy packages.
  2. Go to the Wavefront proxy directory created during the package installation: cd /opt/wavefront/wavefront-proxy.
  3. Run the interactive configuration script: bin/autoconf-wavefront-proxy.sh. The script prompts you for the following properties:
    • server - https://YOUR_CLUSTER.wavefront.com/api/
    • token - YOUR_API_TOKEN
    • proxyname - A name (alphanumeric plus periods) unique across your entire account representing the machine that the proxy is running on. The proxyname is not used to tag your data; rather, it’s used to tag data internal to the proxy, such as JVM statistics, per-proxy point rates, and so on.
    • enable graphite - Indicate whether to enable the Graphite format. See the Graphite integration for details on Graphite configuration. When the interactive configuration is complete, the Wavefront proxy configuration at /etc/wavefront/wavefront-proxy/wavefront.conf is updated with the input that you provided and the wavefront-proxy service is started.
  4. Restart the proxy: sudo service wavefront-proxy restart (Optional).
  5. Verify that the proxy has registered with the Wavefront server.
  6. Install the Telegraf packages.
  7. Create a file called 10-wavefront.conf in /etc/telegraf/telegraf.d and enter the following: 
    [[outputs.wavefront]]
  host = "WAVEFRONT_PROXY_ADDRESS"
  port = 2878
  metric_separator = "."
  source_override = ["proxyname", "agent_host", "node_host"]
  convert_paths = true
  8. Restart the Telegraf agent: sudo service telegraf restart

Uninstall the Wavefront Proxy and Telegraf Agent

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get remove wavefront-proxy
sudo apt-get remove telegraf

RHEL/CentOS:

sudo yum remove wavefront-proxy
sudo yum remove telegraf

Linux Logs Setup (Beta)

This integration uses Fluentd input plugins and offers several setup options. For Fluentd installation prerequisites, see the Fluentd Requirements.

  • Use a proxy already running in your environment (preferred) or install a new proxy.
  • Install the Wavefront proxy and Fluentd agent on the same host or on separate hosts.

Install the Wavefront Proxy

The Wavefront proxy is required to send logs from your systems into Tanzu Observability. If you have not already done so, install a Wavefront proxy (version 11.4 or later).

Install Fluentd

Install Fluentd to send logs data to Wavefront proxy.

  • See the prerequisites for installing Fluentd.

  • To install the stable distribution package of Fluentd, called td-agent, use one the following cURL commands, depending on the Linux distribution that you use:

    
  # Ubuntu 20.04 Focal
  curl -L https://toolbelt.treasuredata.com/sh/install-ubuntu-focal-td-agent4.sh | sh

 # Debian Bullseye
 curl -L https://toolbelt.treasuredata.com//sh/install-debian-bullseye-td-agent4.sh | sh

 # Redhat/CentOS 7/8
 curl -L https://toolbelt.treasuredata.com/sh/install-redhat-td-agent4.sh | sh

    The command automatically installs Fluentd and starts the daemon. To make sure that everything is running as expected, run the following command:

    
  systemctl status td-agent.service

    If you use a different Linux distribution, see the Fluentd installation documentation.

Configure Fluentd

Use the following example to configure the input and output sources for Fluentd logs. In this example, we’ll use syslog logs as the input.

  1. Open the Fluentd configuration file: 
    
sudo vi /etc/td-agent/td-agent.conf
  2. Define syslog as the input source for Fluentd: 
    
# You can add additional files as sources.
<source>
   @type tail
   path /var/log/syslog
   pos_file /var/log/td-agent/syslog.pos
   pos_file_compaction_interval 72h
   read_from_head true
   format none
   path_key tailed_path
   tag linux.syslog
</source>
  3. Define the Wavefront proxy as a “match” (the Fluentd term for an output destination): 
    
# ------- Tagging and sending the tags to the Wavefront proxy. -------
# You can add additional fields.
<filter linux.**>
  @type record_transformer
  enable_ruby
  <record>
    source ${hostname}
    timestamp ${time.to_datetime().strftime('%Q')}
    log_integration_source "linux"
    service ${tag_suffix[-1]}
    application wavefront
  </record>
</filter>

<match linux.**>
   @type copy
   <store>
    @type http
    endpoint http://WAVEFRONT_PROXY_ADDRESS:2878/logs/json_array?f=logs_json_arr
    open_timeout 2
    json_array true
    <buffer>
      flush_interval 10s
    </buffer>
  </store>
</match>

    Replace WAVEFRONT_PROXY_ADDRESS with the address of your Wavefront proxy.

Restart Fluentd

Restart the Fluentd service:


systemctl restart td-agent.service

View the Linux Logs

In the Logs Browser you can see your Linux logs. You can also search and filter the logs, and troubleshoot your issues.

integrations list