Netdata

Server monitoring/dashboard solution.

Installing

Main article: Netdata/Installing

We recommend installing Netdata on Linux using the quick one-liner:

bash <(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart.sh)

The Netdata/Installing page has more details about installation steps.

Netdata Web Dashboard

Navigate to port 19999 on the server running netdata, and you'll see a slick live dashboard detailing the status of the server netdata is running on:

Netdata errs on the side of too much info, rather than too little. It is also designed to display the current state of the machine, it does not put any effort into archiving or data storage or memory other than a backend plugin to continuously export data.

Database Backends

Here we are interested in dumping data from netdata to a database.

Netdata wiki page on backends: https://github.com/firehol/netdata/wiki/netdata-backends

Backend API URLs

We'll use this below, but check out how to use URLs to access the Netdata backend API:

http://192.168.25.236:19999/api/v1/allmetrics?format=json&help=yes

http://192.168.25.236:19999/api/v1/allmetrics?format=prometheus&help=yes

This helpful information was pointed out by this guide to setting up Prometheus backend: https://github.com/firehol/netdata/wiki/Netdata,-Prometheus,-and-Grafana-Stack

Prometheus Backend

Following this guide to setting up Prometheus backend, which is on the Netdata wiki: https://github.com/firehol/netdata/wiki/Netdata,-Prometheus,-and-Grafana-Stack

Netdata/Prometheus

Json Backend

I had some trouble getting Netdata to work with MongoDB, a JSON database. I pointed Netdata to a particular port, and then set up a simple echo socket listener in Python, but saw no activity on the port.

I tried this using the following /etc/netdata/netdata.conf:

[backend]
	enabled = yes
	type = json
	destination = localhost:27017
	data source = average
	prefix = netdata
	update every = 10
	buffer on failures = 10
	timeout ms = 20000
        send charts matching = *
        send names instead of ids = yes

Securing Netdata

To secure the Netdata portal, set up a VPN and bind Netdata to the VPN IP address.

See Netdata/Security

Resources

Netdata Github repo: https://github.com/firehol/netdata

Netdata wiki: https://github.com/firehol/netdata/wiki

Netdata wiki article on setting up Prometheus backend: https://github.com/firehol/netdata/wiki/Netdata,-Prometheus,-and-Grafana-Stack

Netdata command line options: https://github.com/firehol/netdata/wiki/Command-Line-Options

Databases

Replicating databases across multiple netdata instances: https://github.com/firehol/netdata/wiki/Replication-Overview

Archiving data to database backends: https://github.com/firehol/netdata/wiki/netdata-backends