Google Cloud VPN Metrics via Telegraf

Google Cloud VPN is a networking solution provided by Google Cloud that enables organizations to establish secure and encrypted connections between their on-premises infrastructure and resources in the cloud. It allows for secure communication and data transfer over public networks, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information.

• Begin by heading over to the 'Project Selector' and select the specific project from which you wish to send metrics.
• Progress to the 'Service Account Details' screen. Here, assign a distinct name to your service account and opt for 'Create and Continue'.
• In the 'Grant This Service Account Access to Project' screen, ensure the following roles: 'Compute Viewer', 'Monitoring Viewer', and 'Cloud Asset Viewer'.
• Upon completion of the above, click 'Done'.
• Now find and select your project in the 'Service Accounts for Project' list.
• Move to the 'KEYS' section.
• Navigate through Keys > Add Key > Create New Key, and specify 'JSON' as the key type.
• Lastly, click on 'Create', and make sure to save your new key.

Now add the environment variable for the key

On the machine run:

export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=<your-gcp-key>

This integration allows you to configure a Telegraf agent to send your metrics, in multiple formats, to Logit.io.

Telegraf is a flexible server agent equipped with plug-in support, useful for sending metrics and events from data sources like web servers, APIs, application logs, and cloud services.

To ship your metrics to Logit.io, we will integrate the relevant input and outputs.http plug-in into your Telegraf configuration file.

Choose the install for your operating system below to get started:

Windows

wget https://dl.influxdata.com/telegraf/releases/telegraf-1.19.2_windows_amd64.zip

Download and extract to: C:\Program Files\Logitio\telegraf\

Configuration file: C:\Program Files\Logitio\telegraf\

MacOS

brew install telegraf

Configuration file x86_64 Intel: /usr/local/etc/telegraf.conf Configuration file ARM (Apple Silicon): /opt/homebrew/etc/telegraf.conf

Ubuntu/Debian

wget -q https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdata-archive_compat.key
echo '393e8779c89ac8d958f81f942f9ad7fb82a25e133faddaf92e15b16e6ac9ce4c influxdata-archive_compat.key' | sha256sum -c && cat influxdata-archive_compat.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/influxdata-archive_compat.gpg > /dev/null
echo 'deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/influxdata-archive_compat.gpg] https://repos.influxdata.com/debian stable main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdata.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install telegraf

Configuration file: /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

RedHat and CentOS

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/influxdata.repo
[influxdata]
name = InfluxData Repository - Stable
baseurl = https://repos.influxdata.com/stable/\$basearch/main
enabled = 1
gpgcheck = 1
gpgkey = https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdata-archive_compat.key
EOF

sudo yum install telegraf

Configuration file: /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

SLES & openSUSE

zypper ar -f obs://devel:languages:go/ go
zypper in telegraf

Configuration file: /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

FreeBSD/PC-BSD

sudo pkg install telegraf

Configuration file: /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

Read more about how to configure data scraping and configuration options for Telegraf

First you need to set up the input plug-in to enable Telegraf to scrape the GCP data from your hosts. This can be accomplished by incorporating the following code into your configuration file:

# Gather timeseries from Google Cloud Platform v3 monitoring API
[[inputs.stackdriver]]
  ## GCP Project
  project = "<your-project-name>"

  ## Include timeseries that start with the given metric type.
  metric_type_prefix_include = [
    "vpn.googleapis.com",
  ]

  ## Most metrics are updated no more than once per minute; it is recommended
  ## to override the agent level interval with a value of 1m or greater.
  interval = "1m"

Read more about how to configure data scraping and configuration options for Stackdriver

Once you have generated the configuration file, you need to set up the output plug-in to allow Telegraf to transmit your data to Logit.io in Prometheus format. This can be accomplished by incorporating the following code into your configuration file:

[[outputs.http]]
  
  url = "https://<your-metrics-username>:<your-metrics-password>@<your-metrics-stack-id>-vm.logit.io:0/api/v1/write"
  data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"

  [outputs.http.headers]
    Content-Type = "application/x-protobuf"
    Content-Encoding = "snappy"

Windows

telegraf.exe --service start

MacOS

telegraf --config telegraf.conf

Linux

sudo service telegraf start

for systemd installations

systemctl start telegraf

Data should now have been sent to your Stack.

View my data

If you don't see metrics take a look at How to diagnose no data in Stack below for how to diagnose common issues.

If you don't see data appearing in your Stack after following the steps, visit the Help Centre guide for steps to diagnose no data appearing in your Stack or Chat to support now.

Telegraf, InfluxData's open-source server agent, excels at collecting metrics and data from a wide array of sources, including network and security services. Its integration with Google Cloud VPN enables secure and scalable connectivity between Google Cloud resources and external networks. Google Cloud VPN is designed to provide secure, encrypted tunnels from Google Cloud to your on-premises network or another cloud provider, facilitating private communication channels over the internet.

By integrating Telegraf with Google Cloud VPN, organizations can monitor the health, throughput, and security of their VPN connections in real time. This is crucial for network administrators and security professionals who need to ensure that the VPN provides a reliable and secure communication path for their data. Metrics such as traffic volume, packet loss, latency, and tunnel uptime are essential for diagnosing connectivity issues, optimizing network performance, and maintaining the security and integrity of data transmissions.

However, the complexity and critical nature of VPN metrics, combined with the challenges of managing and analyzing large volumes of network data, necessitate a robust platform for data visualization and analysis. Logit.io offers a comprehensive solution, providing an advanced analytics platform that simplifies the ingestion, processing, visualization, and analysis of metrics from Telegraf and Google Cloud VPN.

With Logit.io, businesses can enhance their VPN monitoring and analytics capabilities, enabling them to proactively manage their network infrastructure, quickly identify and resolve issues, and ensure secure, high-performance connectivity. The platform's advanced analytics and visualization tools support informed decision-making, facilitating the optimization of VPN configurations and the maintenance of robust security practices.

For those using Telegraf in conjunction with Google Cloud VPN and looking to improve their network monitoring and security analytics, Logit.io provides the tools and expertise necessary. Our platform facilitates the effective management of VPN metrics, allowing organizations to derive actionable insights and maintain a secure, reliable networking environment. By seamlessly sending data from your Google Cloud VPN to Logit.io, you gain invaluable insights into network performance, security, and operational efficiency. But the power of integration doesn't stop there. With Google Cloud's TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) integration , you can supercharge your machine learning and AI workloads. Efficiency and synergy are paramount in the cloud, and our Google Storage Transfer Service integration enables seamless data movement between Google Cloud and Google Cloud Storage. Telegraf's versatility extends here as well, making it a breeze to keep an eye on your data transfer operations.