Windows machine monitoring with Netdata

This module will monitor one or more Windows machines, using the windows_exporter.

The module collects metrics from the following collectors:

• cpu
• memory
• net
• logical_disk
• os
• system
• logon
• thermalzone

Installation: please follow the official guide.

Requirements

windows_exporter version v0.13.0+

• On your Windows machine download the latest version of the windows_exporter msi

• Install the windows_exporter with msiexec and the parameters shown below:

  msiexec -i <path-to-msi-file> ENABLED_COLLECTORS=cpu,memory,net,logical_disk,os,system,logon,thermalzone

  The msi installer automatically adds and starts a service called windows_exporter, which listens to port 9182 by default. Full installation instructions options can be found here.

• Verify that the exporter works properly by accessing http://localhost:9182/

Metrics

All metrics have "wmi." prefix.

Metric	Scope	Dimensions	Units
cpu_utilization_total	global	dpc, user, privileged, interrupt	percentage
cpu_dpcs	global	a dimension per core	dpcs/s
cpu_interrupts	global	a dimension per core	interrupts/s
cpu_utilization	cpu core	dpc, user, privileged, interrupt	percentage
cpu_cstate	cpu core	c1, c2, c3	percentage
memory_utilization	global	available, used	KiB
memory_page_faults	global	page_faults	events/s
memory_swap_utilization	global	available, used	KiB
memory_swap_operations	global	read, write	operations/s
memory_swap_pages	global	read, written	pages/s
memory_cached	global	cached	KiB
memory_cache_faults	global	cache_faults	events/s
memory_system_pool	global	paged, non-paged	KiB
net_bandwidth	network device	received, sent	kilobits/s
net_packets	network device	received, sent	packets/s
net_errors	network device	inbound, outbound	errors/s
net_discarded	network device	inbound, outbound	discards/s
logical_disk_utilization	logical disk	free, used	KiB
logical_disk_utilization	logical disk	read, write	KiB/s
logical_disk_operations	logical disk	reads, writes	operations/s
logical_disk_latency	logical disk	read, write	milliseconds
os_processes	global	processes	number
os_users	global	users	users
os_visible_memory_usage	global	free, used	bytes
os_paging_files_usage	global	free, used	bytes
system_threads	global	threads	number
system_uptime	global	time	seconds
logon_type_sessions	global	system, interactive, network, batch, service, proxy, unlock, network_clear_text, new_credentials, remote_interactive, cached_interactive, cached_remote_interactive, cached_unlock	seconds
thermalzone_temperature	global	a dimension per thermalzone	celsius

Configuration

Edit the go.d/wmi.conf configuration file using edit-config from the Netdata config directory, which is typically at /etc/netdata.

cd /etc/netdata # Replace this path with your Netdata config directory
sudo ./edit-config go.d/wmi.conf

Needs only url to windows_exporter metrics endpoint. Here is an example for 2 instances:

jobs:
  - name: win_server1
    url: http://203.0.113.10:9182/metrics

  - name: win_server2
    url: http://203.0.113.11:9182/metrics

For all available options please see module configuration file.

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot issues with the wmi collector, run the go.d.plugin with the debug option enabled. The output should give you clues as to why the collector isn't working.

• Navigate to the plugins.d directory, usually at /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that's not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the plugins setting under [directories].

  cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/

• Switch to the netdata user.

  sudo -u netdata -s

• Run the go.d.plugin to debug the collector:

  ./go.d.plugin -d -m wmi