Observability Agent¶

Introduction¶

The Observability Agent, an open source autoconfiguration and installation tool, is a wrapper for the Grafana Agent that can install the agent, detect which services are running on your machine, and automatically create a configuration file with integrations for detected services.

Info

A Node/Windows exporter integration will be added by default.

Prerequisites¶

For Unix machines, the script will have to be run with root privileges, otherwise you will be prompted for your password during execution.

Windows machines must have Powershell 5.1 or later installed.

MacOS is not currently supported.

The script will automatically detect what is running on your machine and add integrations to the config file. Each service requiring an integration must be running on its default port. These are:

Integration	Default port
MySQL	3306
MSSQL	1433
Postgres	5432

Procedure¶

Linux¶

To download and run the installer:

curl -O -L "https://github.com/intergral/observability-agent/releases/download/v0.1.0/observability-agent-autoconf.sh" 

chmod a+x "observability-agent-autoconf.sh"`

sudo /bin/bash path/to/observability-agent-autoconf.sh

Windows¶

In a terminal, run:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/intergral/observability-agent/releases/download/v0.1.0/observability-agent-autoconf.ps1" -OutFile "observability-agent-autoconf.ps1"
.\observability-agent-autoconf.ps1

Info

The installer for Windows assumes you are installing the Grafana Agent in the default location on the C drive. This is required for the config file to be placed in the correct location for the Grafana Agent to read it.

Options¶

Agent installation is enabled by default.

Run without the agent installed¶

To run without installing the agent, add --install false to the end of the run command.

Example

sudo path/to/observability-agent-autoconf.sh --install false`

Modify a pre-existing config file¶

To modify a pre-existing config file, add --config.file, followed by the path to the file, to the end of the run command.

Example

sudo path/to/observability-agent-autoconf.sh --config.file path/to/configfile`

Info

A backup of your original file will be created.

Using both install & config.file options¶

It is possible to use both --install and --config.file options in the same run command - the order is irrelevant.

Example

sudo path/to/observability-agent-autoconf.sh --install false --config.file path/to/config 

sudo path/to/observability-agent-autoconf.sh --config.file path/to/config --install false

Docker¶

When running in Docker, you will not be prompted for any information. Therefore, you must specify an API key before running. Additionally, you must set the relevant environment variables, for whichever services you have running, so they can be configured.

To run in Docker, we provide prebuilt images in our Docker Hub repository.

Learn more

Docker Hub

FusionReactor Observability Agent Docker installation from FusionReactorAPM on Vimeo.

Environment variables¶

To add integrations without being prompted for credentials, there are several environment variables you can use:

Ingest¶

Variable	Type	Description
`api_key`	`string`	API Key to authenticate with your FusionReactor Cloud Account. Generate an API key.
`metricsEndpoint`	`string`	Default: `https://api.fusionreactor.io/v1/metrics`
`logsEndpoint`	`string`	Default: `https://api.fusionreactor.io/v1/logs`

Metric exporters¶

Variable	Type	Description
`mysql_user`	`string`	User for the local Mysql database
`mysql_password`	`string`	Password for the local Mysql database
`mysql_disabled`	`bool`	Enables/Disables the Mysql exporter (enabled by default)
`mssql_user`	`string`	User for the local Mssql database
`mssql_password`	`string`	Password for the local Mssql database
`mssql_disabled`	`bool`	Enables/Disables the Mssql exporter (enabled by default)
`postgres_user`	`string`	User for the local Postgres database
`postgres_password`	`string`	Password for the local Postgres database
`postgres_disabled`	`bool`	Enables/Disables the Postgres exporter (enabled by default)

Exporting metrics from external machines¶

To replace these with a custom connection string, there are several environment variables you can use:

Variable	Type	Example (Defaults)
`mysql_connection_string`	`string`	`<username>:<password>@(<host>:3306)/`
`mssql_connection_string`	`string`	`sqlserver://<username>:<password>@<host>:1433`
`postgres_connection_string`	`string`	`postgresql://<username>:<password>@<host>:5432/shop?`

Log exporters¶

If you wish to enable log collection, the following environment variables must be set:

Variable	Type	Description
`log_collection`	`bool`	Enables log collection
`service_name`	`string`	Set a name for your log collection service
`log_path`	`string`	Set a file path for your log collection service

Scraping from additional exporters¶

At present, there are some integrations we don't support out the box. One of these integrations is Nginx which does not have native integration and use is via a scrape endpoint.

To scrape these exporters, locate your config file and append the example below. By default your config file will be:

Linux: /etc/grafana-agent.yaml

Windows: C:\Program Files\Grafana Agent\agent-config.yaml

Example configuration block¶

remote_write:
           - url: "https://api.fusionreactor.io/v1/metrics"
             authorization:
               credentials: 7f5e1598e67524aacf90da7d8479a16f1236fe01095b081f0b684eae7570e54c4c5660b2b8adae573f860c2bca3b98b5ffe4237de2980e26d8951324ed4a9ee1
     configs:
       - name: nginx
         scrape_configs:
           static_configs:
           - targets: ['{nginx-collector}:9113']

Example Nginx config file¶

The NGINX Prometheus exporter makes it possible to monitor Nginx or Nginx Plus using Prometheus.

This exporter requires different configuration depending on whether you are monitoring Nginx community or Nginx pro editions. Both require a URI and pro is not enabled by default.

Learn more

NGINX Prometheus exporter - includes additional configuration options.

Example: Nginx community edition

nginxexporter:
  image: nginx/nginx-prometheus-exporter
  environment:
    - SCRAPE_URI=http://{nginx-host}:80/basic_status
  ports:
    - "9113:9113"

Example: Nginx pro edition

nginxexporter:
  image: nginx/nginx-prometheus-exporter
  environment:
    - SCRAPE_URI=http://{nginx-host}:80/api
    - NGINX_PLUS=true
  ports:
    - "9113:9113"

.Env files¶

If you wish to use an environment file to set environment variables, rather than setting them as system environment variables, name the file ".env" and place it in the same directory as the "observability-agent-autoconf" script.

Example ".env" file:¶

api_key=1234567890
mysql_connection_string=root:my-secret-pw@(mysql:3306)/
log_collection=true
service_name=service
log_path=path

Custom integrations¶

We plan to continually add integrations. Should you require a specific integration, please contact us through the chat bubble and we'll see what we can do.

Need more help?

Contact support in the chat bubble and let us know how we can assist.