Nginx Metrics via Telegraf

Update the NGINX configuration file (nginx.conf) to enable the stub_status module:

server {
  listen 127.0.0.1:80;
  server_name 127.0.0.1;
  location /nginx_status {
    stub_status on;
    allow <Your localhost address>;
    deny all;
  }
}     

Replace with your localhost address and restart Nginx.

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

The configuration file below is pre-configured to scrape the system metrics from your hosts, add the following code to the configuration file /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf from the previous step.

# Read Nginx's basic status information (ngx_http_stub_status_module)
[[inputs.nginx]]
  ## An array of Nginx stub_status URI to gather stats.
  urls = ["http://localhost/server_status"]

  ## Optional TLS Config
  # tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  ## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

  ## HTTP response timeout (default: 5s)
  response_timeout = "5s"

[[inputs.disk]]
[[inputs.net]]
[[inputs.mem]]
[[inputs.system]]
[[inputs.cpu]]

  percpu = false
  totalcpu = true
  collect_cpu_time = true
  report_active = true

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.

To effectively monitor and analyze Nginx metrics in a distributed environment, organizations need a reliable and efficient metrics management solution. Telegraf is an open-source metrics collection agent that can gather Nginx metrics from various sources, including operating Nginx, databases, and other applications.

With a wide range of input plugins, Telegraf allows users to collect metrics from different sources, such as CPU usage, memory usage, network activity, and more. To store and query the collected metrics, organizations can use Prometheus, an open-source monitoring and alerting tool that supports a flexible querying language and graphical visualization of data.

By configuring Telegraf to output metrics in the Prometheus format and using Prometheus to scrape the metrics from the Telegraf server, organizations can ship Nginx metrics from Telegraf to Prometheus. This process involves setting up Telegraf to collect Nginx metrics, outputting them in the Prometheus format, configuring Prometheus to scrape the metrics from the Telegraf server, and visualizing the data using Prometheus' flexible querying and graphical visualization capabilities.

Using Telegraf to ship Nginx metrics to Prometheus is a reliable and efficient metrics management solution for distributed environments. It allows organizations to gain insights into Nginx performance, optimize their distributed Nginx, and troubleshoot any issues that arise.

If you need any further assistance with shipping your log data to Logit.io we're here to help you get started. Feel free to get in contact with our support team by sending us a message via live chat & we'll be happy to assist.