Monitor Linux System with Grafana and Telegraf

In this article, we’re going to look at how to Monitor a Linux System with Grafana and Telegraf. Telegraf metrics will be stored on InfluxDB, then we can visualize them on Grafana using a system dashboard.

A prerequisite for this setup is a Linux system and InfluxDB server. You can check our previous guides on:

How to Install InfluxDB on CentOS 7

Install InfluxDB on Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian 9

On the same guide, we defined what telegraf and InfluxDB are before demonstrating the installation steps.

Installing Telegraf on CentOS 7

Influxdata provides the repository for installing telegraf on CentOS 7. To add the repository to your system, use the commands:

sudo vim  /etc/yum.repos.d/influxdb.repo

Add the following content:

[influxdb]
name = InfluxDB Repository - RHEL \$releasever
baseurl = https://repos.influxdata.com/rhel/\$releasever/\$basearch/stable
enabled = 1
gpgcheck = 1
gpgkey = https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key

Update cache to confirm that the repository is working fine:

sudo yum makecache fast

Then install telegraf:

sudo yum -y install telegraf

Installing Telegraf on Ubuntu 18.04 / Debian 9

For a Debian 9 and  Ubuntu 18.04, install telegraf using:

How to Install and Configure Telegraf on Ubuntu 18.04 / Debian 9

Configure telegraf on Linux

A basic telegraf configuration with InfluxDB output and basic inputs to collect system metrics can look like below:

[global_tags]


# Configuration for telegraf agent
[agent]
    interval = "10s"
    debug = false
    hostname = "server-hostname"
    round_interval = true
    flush_interval = "10s"
    flush_jitter = "0s"
    collection_jitter = "0s"
    metric_batch_size = 1000
    metric_buffer_limit = 10000
    quiet = false
    logfile = ""
    omit_hostname = false

###############################################################################
#                                  OUTPUTS                                    #
###############################################################################

[[outputs.influxdb]]
    urls = ["http://influxdb-ip:8086"]
    database = "database-name"
    timeout = "0s"
    username = "auth-username"
    password = "auth-password"
    retention_policy = ""

###############################################################################
#                                  INPUTS                                     #
###############################################################################

[[inputs.cpu]]
    percpu = true
    totalcpu = true
    collect_cpu_time = false
    report_active = false
[[inputs.disk]]
    ignore_fs = ["tmpfs", "devtmpfs", "devfs"]
[[inputs.io]]
[[inputs.mem]]
[[inputs.net]]
[[inputs.system]]
[[inputs.swap]]
[[inputs.netstat]]
[[inputs.processes]]
[[inputs.kernel]]

For a comprehensive list of inputs supported by Telegraf, visit Telegraf inputs Github page.

Replace:

server-hostname with your valid hostname.
http://influxdb-ip:8086 with your valid InfluxDB URL, IP address, and port.
database-name with InfluxDB database name for this host
auth-username with InfluxDB http authentication username.
auth-password with InfluxDB http authentication password.

Once all changes have been made, you can then start and enable the telegraf service:

sudo systemctl start telegraf && systemctl enable telegraf

This will automatically create the InfluxDB database if it doesn’t exist.

Add an InfluxDB data source to Grafana

You need to have Grafana installed, you can follow:

How to Install Grafana on CentOS 7

How to Install Grafana on Ubuntu 18.04 and Debian 9

Before you can add a dashboard to Grafana for Telegraf system metrics, you need to first import the data source. Login to your Grafana and go to Configuration > Data Sources > Add data source 

Provide the following details:

• Name – Any valid name
• Type: InfluxDB
• HTTP URL: InfluxDB URL address e.g http://localhost:8086 for local db server

Under InfluxDB Details, provide:

• Database name as defined on telegraf configuration file
• HTTP authentication username and password as configured on telegraf.

Importing Grafana Dashboard

Once the data source has been added, the next thing is to import the dashboard. I customized one of the dashboards initially created by a user on the community and uploaded it.

Download the dashboard from https://grafana.com/dashboards/5955, it is in JSON format. The head over to Grafana > Import

Select Upload .json and upload downloaded file. Alternatively, you can use Grafana dashboard URL or ID – 5955. Under Options section, give it a unique name and select data source added earlier from the drop-down menu and click the import button.

You should see Metrics being visualized immediately.

Also, see:

Monitoring Ceph Cluster with Prometheus and Grafana

How to Monitor Redis Server with Prometheus and Grafana in 5 minutes

How to Monitor Linux Server Performance with Prometheus and Grafana in 5 minutes

How to Monitor BIND DNS server with Prometheus and Grafana

Monitoring MySQL / MariaDB with Prometheus in five minutes