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Install Netdata on macOS

Netdata works on macOS, albeit with some limitations. The number of charts displaying system metrics is limited, but you can use any of Netdata's external plugins to monitor any services you might have installed on your macOS system. You could also use a macOS system as the parent node in a streaming configuration.

You can install Netdata in one of the three following ways:

Each of these installation option requires Homebrew for handling dependencies.

The Netdata Homebrew package is community-created and -maintained. Community-maintained packages may receive support from Netdata, but are only a best-effort affair. Learn more about Netdata's platform support policy.

Install Netdata with our automatic one-line installation script​

Local Netdata Agent installation​

To install Netdata using our automatic kickstart open a new terminal and run:

curl https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh > /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh

The Netdata Agent is installed under /usr/local/netdata. Dependencies are handled via Homebrew.

Automatically connect to Netdata Cloud during installation​

The kickstart.sh script accepts additional parameters to automatically connect your node to Netdata Cloud immediately after installation. Find the token and rooms strings by signing in to Netdata Cloud, then clicking on Connect Nodes on any of the prompts from the UI.

  • --claim-token: Specify a unique claiming token associated with your Space in Netdata Cloud to be used to connect to the node after the install.
  • --claim-rooms: Specify a comma-separated list of tokens for each Room this node should appear in.
  • --claim-proxy: Specify a proxy to use when connecting to the Cloud in the form of http://[user:pass@]host:ip for an HTTP(S) proxy. See connecting through a proxy for details.
  • --claim-url: Specify a URL to use when connecting to the Cloud. Defaults to https://app.netdata.cloud.

For example:

curl https://get.netdata.cloud/kickstart.sh > /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh && sh /tmp/netdata-kickstart.sh --install-prefix /usr/local/ --claim-token TOKEN --claim-rooms ROOM1,ROOM2 --claim-url https://app.netdata.cloud

The Netdata Agent is installed under /usr/local/netdata on your machine. Your machine will also show up as a node in your Netdata Cloud.

If you experience issues while connecting your node, follow the steps in our Troubleshoot documentation.

Install Netdata via Homebrew​

For macOS Intel​

To install Netdata and all its dependencies, run Homebrew using the following command:

brew install netdata

Homebrew will place your Netdata configuration directory at /usr/local/etc/netdata/.

Use the edit-config script and the files in this directory to configure Netdata. For reference, you can find stock configuration files at /usr/local/Cellar/netdata/{NETDATA_VERSION}/lib/netdata/conf.d/.

For Apple Silicon​

To install Netdata and all its dependencies, run Homebrew using the following command:

brew install netdata

Homebrew will place your Netdata configuration directory at /opt/homebrew/etc/netdata/.

Use the edit-config script and the files in this directory to configure Netdata. For reference, you can find stock configuration files at /opt/homebrew/Cellar/netdata/{NETDATA_VERSION}/lib/netdata/conf.d/.

Install Netdata from source​

We don't recommend installing Netdata from source on macOS, as it can be difficult to configure and install dependencies manually.

  1. Open your terminal of choice and install the Xcode development packages:

    xcode-select --install

  2. Click Install on the Software Update popup window that appears.

  3. Use the same terminal session to install some of Netdata's prerequisites using Homebrew. If you don't want to use Netdata Cloud, you can omit cmake.

    brew install ossp-uuid autoconf automake pkg-config libuv lz4 json-c openssl libtool cmake

  4. Download Netdata from our GitHub repository:

    git clone https://github.com/netdata/netdata.git --recursive

  5. cd into the newly-created directory and then start the installer script:

    cd netdata/
    sudo ./netdata-installer.sh --install-prefix /usr/local

Your Netdata configuration directory will be at /usr/local/netdata/. Your stock configuration directory will be at /usr/local/lib/netdata/conf.d/. The installer will also install a startup plist to start Netdata when your macOS system boots.


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