Install and Configure Telegraf on Debian 10 (Buster)

Telegraf is a monitoring agent application developed by InfluxData as part of Tick Stack. This application is written in Go and is used for collecting system performance metrics. Telegraf can collect metrics from a wide array of inputs and write them into a wide array of outputs. It is plugin-driven for both collection and output of data so it is easily extendable.

With over 200+ plugins available written by subject matter experts on the data in the community, it is easy to start collecting metrics from your end-points. You can easily add new inputs and outputs to suit your monitoring desires.

How To Install Telegraf on Debian 10 – Buster

In this guide, I’ll show you how to install and configure Telegraf on Debian 10 (Buster) Linux system.

Step 1: Update System

Update your Debian system.

sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade

Step 2: Add Influxdata repository

The pre-packaged Go binaries for Telegraf are available on Influxdata repository.

Import repository GPG key.

sudo apt install -y gnupg2 curl wget
wget -qO- https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key | sudo apt-key add -

Add InfluxDB APT repository using the command below.

echo "deb https://repos.influxdata.com/debian buster stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdb.list

Once the repository is added, install Telegraf on Debian 10 (Buster).

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install telegraf

Step 3: Configure Telegraf on Debian 10

Start and enable telegraf service.

$ systemctl status telegraf
● telegraf.service - The plugin-driven server agent for reporting metrics into InfluxDB
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/telegraf.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2019-10-23 16:10:04 UTC; 27s ago
     Docs: https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf
 Main PID: 7514 (telegraf)
    Tasks: 10 (limit: 4719)
   Memory: 23.1M
   CGroup: /system.slice/telegraf.service
           └─7514 /usr/bin/telegraf -config /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf -config-directory /etc/telegraf/telegraf.d

Oct 23 16:10:04 deb10 telegraf[7514]: 2019-10-23T16:10:04Z I! Loaded aggregators:
Oct 23 16:10:04 deb10 telegraf[7514]: 2019-10-23T16:10:04Z I! Loaded processors:
Oct 23 16:10:04 deb10 telegraf[7514]: 2019-10-23T16:10:04Z I! Loaded outputs: influxdb
Oct 23 16:10:04 deb10 telegraf[7514]: 2019-10-23T16:10:04Z I! Tags enabled: host=deb10
Oct 23 16:10:04 deb10 telegraf[7514]: 2019-10-23T16:10:04Z I! [agent] Config: Interval:10s, Quiet:false, Hostname:"deb10", Flush Interval:10s
Oct 23 16:10:04 deb10 telegraf[7514]: 2019-10-23T16:10:04Z W! [outputs.influxdb] when writing to [http://localhost:8086]: database "" creation fail
Oct 23 16:10:20 deb10 telegraf[7514]: 2019-10-23T16:10:20Z E! [outputs.influxdb] when writing to [http://localhost:8086]: Post http://localhost:808
Oct 23 16:10:20 deb10 telegraf[7514]: 2019-10-23T16:10:20Z E! [agent] Error writing to outputs.influxdb: could not write any address
Oct 23 16:10:30 deb10 telegraf[7514]: 2019-10-23T16:10:30Z E! [outputs.influxdb] when writing to [http://localhost:8086]: Post http://localhost:808

The main configuration file for telegraf is /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf. Most sections are commented out, but you can uncomment to unlock the inputs, outputs and configurations you wish to use.

We have a guide on monitoring of Linux system with Telegraf and Grafana:

Monitor Linux System with Grafana and Telegraf

This requires InfluxDB and Grafana installed, use below guides:

Install InfluxDB on Debian

Install Grafana on Debian