VMware vCenter Server
Plugin: go.d.plugin Module: vsphere
Overview
This collector monitors hosts and vms performance statistics from vCenter servers.
Warning: The
vspherecollector cannot re-login and continue collecting metrics after a vCenter reboot. go.d.plugin needs to be restarted.
This collector is supported on all platforms.
This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration, including remote instances.
Default Behavior
Auto-Detection
This integration doesn't support auto-detection.
Limits
The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.
Performance Impact
The default update_every is 20 seconds, and it doesn't make sense to decrease the value.
VMware real-time statistics are generated at the 20-second specificity.
It is likely that 20 seconds is not enough for big installations and the value should be tuned.
To get a better view we recommend running the collector in debug mode and seeing how much time it will take to collect metrics.
Example (all not related debug lines were removed)
[ilyam@pc]$ ./go.d.plugin -d -m vsphere
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:94 discovering : starting resource discovering process
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:102 discovering : found 3 dcs, process took 49.329656ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:109 discovering : found 12 folders, process took 49.538688ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:116 discovering : found 3 clusters, process took 47.722692ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:123 discovering : found 2 hosts, process took 52.966995ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:130 discovering : found 2 vms, process took 49.832979ms
[ INFO ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:140 discovering : found 3 dcs, 12 folders, 3 clusters (2 dummy), 2 hosts, 3 vms, process took 249.655993ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] build.go:12 discovering : building : starting building resources process
[ INFO ] vsphere[vsphere] build.go:23 discovering : building : built 3/3 dcs, 12/12 folders, 3/3 clusters, 2/2 hosts, 3/3 vms, process took 63.3µs
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] hierarchy.go:10 discovering : hierarchy : start setting resources hierarchy process
[ INFO ] vsphere[vsphere] hierarchy.go:18 discovering : hierarchy : set 3/3 clusters, 2/2 hosts, 3/3 vms, process took 6.522µs
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] filter.go:24 discovering : filtering : starting filtering resources process
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] filter.go:45 discovering : filtering : removed 0 unmatched hosts
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] filter.go:56 discovering : filtering : removed 0 unmatched vms
[ INFO ] vsphere[vsphere] filter.go:29 discovering : filtering : filtered 0/2 hosts, 0/3 vms, process took 42.973µs
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] metric_lists.go:14 discovering : metric lists : starting resources metric lists collection process
[ INFO ] vsphere[vsphere] metric_lists.go:30 discovering : metric lists : collected metric lists for 2/2 hosts, 3/3 vms, process took 275.60764ms
[ INFO ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:74 discovering : discovered 2/2 hosts, 3/3 vms, the whole process took 525.614041ms
[ INFO ] vsphere[vsphere] discover.go:11 starting discovery process, will do discovery every 5m0s
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] collect.go:11 starting collection process
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] scrape.go:48 scraping : scraped metrics for 2/2 hosts, process took 96.257374ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] scrape.go:60 scraping : scraped metrics for 3/3 vms, process took 57.879697ms
[ DEBUG ] vsphere[vsphere] collect.go:23 metrics collected, process took 154.77997ms
There you can see that discovering took 525.614041ms, and collecting metrics took 154.77997ms. Discovering is a separate thread, it doesn't affect collecting.
update_every and timeout parameters should be adjusted based on these numbers.
Metrics
Metrics grouped by scope.
The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.
Per virtual machine
These metrics refer to the Virtual Machine.
Labels:
| Label | Description |
|---|---|
| datacenter | Datacenter name |
| cluster | Cluster name |
| host | Host name |
| vm | Virtual Machine name |
Metrics:
| Metric | Dimensions | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| vsphere.vm_cpu_utilization | used | percentage |
| vsphere.vm_mem_utilization | used | percentage |
| vsphere.vm_mem_usage | granted, consumed, active, shared | KiB |
| vsphere.vm_mem_swap_usage | swapped | KiB |
| vsphere.vm_mem_swap_io | in, out | KiB/s |
| vsphere.vm_disk_io | read, write | KiB/s |
| vsphere.vm_disk_max_latency | latency | milliseconds |
| vsphere.vm_net_traffic | received, sent | KiB/s |
| vsphere.vm_net_packets | received, sent | packets |
| vsphere.vm_net_drops | received, sent | packets |
| vsphere.vm_overall_status | green, red, yellow, gray | status |
| vsphere.vm_system_uptime | uptime | seconds |
Per host
These metrics refer to the ESXi host.
Labels:
| Label | Description |
|---|---|
| datacenter | Datacenter name |
| cluster | Cluster name |
| host | Host name |
Metrics:
| Metric | Dimensions | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| vsphere.host_cpu_utilization | used | percentage |
| vsphere.host_mem_utilization | used | percentage |
| vsphere.host_mem_usage | granted, consumed, active, shared, sharedcommon | KiB |
| vsphere.host_mem_swap_io | in, out | KiB/s |
| vsphere.host_disk_io | read, write | KiB/s |
| vsphere.host_disk_max_latency | latency | milliseconds |
| vsphere.host_net_traffic | received, sent | KiB/s |
| vsphere.host_net_packets | received, sent | packets |
| vsphere.host_net_drops | received, sent | packets |
| vsphere.host_net_errors | received, sent | errors |
| vsphere.host_overall_status | green, red, yellow, gray | status |
| vsphere.host_system_uptime | uptime | seconds |
Alerts
The following alerts are available:
| Alert name | On metric | Description |
|---|---|---|
| vsphere_vm_cpu_utilization | vsphere.vm_cpu_utilization | Virtual Machine CPU utilization |
| vsphere_vm_mem_usage | vsphere.vm_mem_utilization | Virtual Machine memory utilization |
| vsphere_host_cpu_utilization | vsphere.host_cpu_utilization | ESXi Host CPU utilization |
| vsphere_host_mem_utilization | vsphere.host_mem_utilization | ESXi Host memory utilization |
Setup
Prerequisites
No action required.
Configuration
File
The configuration file name for this integration is go.d/vsphere.conf.
You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the
Netdata config directory.
cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config go.d/vsphere.conf
Options
The following options can be defined globally: update_every, autodetection_retry.
Config options
| Name | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| update_every | Data collection frequency. | 20 | no |
| autodetection_retry | Recheck interval in seconds. Zero means no recheck will be scheduled. | 0 | no |
| url | vCenter server URL. | yes | |
| host_include | Hosts selector (filter). | no | |
| vm_include | Virtual machines selector (filter). | no | |
| discovery_interval | Hosts and VMs discovery interval. | 300 | no |
| timeout | HTTP request timeout. | 20 | no |
| username | Username for basic HTTP authentication. | no | |
| password | Password for basic HTTP authentication. | no | |
| proxy_url | Proxy URL. | no | |
| proxy_username | Username for proxy basic HTTP authentication. | no | |
| proxy_password | Password for proxy basic HTTP authentication. | no | |
| not_follow_redirects | Redirect handling policy. Controls whether the client follows redirects. | no | no |
| tls_skip_verify | Server certificate chain and hostname validation policy. Controls whether the client performs this check. | no | no |
| tls_ca | Certification authority that the client uses when verifying the server's certificates. | no | |
| tls_cert | Client TLS certificate. | no | |
| tls_key | Client TLS key. | no |
host_include
Metrics of hosts matching the selector will be collected.
Include pattern syntax: "/Datacenter pattern/Cluster pattern/Host pattern".
Match pattern syntax: simple patterns.
Syntax:
host_include:
- '/DC1/*' # select all hosts from datacenter DC1
- '/DC2/*/!Host2 *' # select all hosts from datacenter DC2 except HOST2
- '/DC3/Cluster3/*' # select all hosts from datacenter DC3 cluster Cluster3
vm_include
Metrics of VMs matching the selector will be collected.
Include pattern syntax: "/Datacenter pattern/Cluster pattern/Host pattern/VM pattern".
Match pattern syntax: simple patterns.
Syntax:
vm_include:
- '/DC1/*' # select all VMs from datacenter DC
- '/DC2/*/*/!VM2 *' # select all VMs from datacenter DC2 except VM2
- '/DC3/Cluster3/*' # select all VMs from datacenter DC3 cluster Cluster3
Examples
Basic
A basic example configuration.
jobs:
- name : vcenter1
url : https://203.0.113.1
username : [email protected]
password : somepassword
Multi-instance
Note: When you define multiple jobs, their names must be unique.
Collecting metrics from local and remote instances.
Config
jobs:
- name : vcenter1
url : https://203.0.113.1
username : [email protected]
password : somepassword
- name : vcenter2
url : https://203.0.113.10
username : [email protected]
password : somepassword
Troubleshooting
Debug Mode
Important: Debug mode is not supported for data collection jobs created via the UI using the Dyncfg feature.
To troubleshoot issues with the vsphere 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.ddirectory, usually at/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that's not the case on your system, opennetdata.confand look for thepluginssetting under[directories].cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/Switch to the
netdatauser.sudo -u netdata -sRun the
go.d.pluginto debug the collector:./go.d.plugin -d -m vsphere
Getting Logs
If you're encountering problems with the vsphere collector, follow these steps to retrieve logs and identify potential issues:
- Run the command specific to your system (systemd, non-systemd, or Docker container).
- Examine the output for any warnings or error messages that might indicate issues. These messages should provide clues about the root cause of the problem.
System with systemd
Use the following command to view logs generated since the last Netdata service restart:
journalctl _SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID="$(systemctl show --value --property=InvocationID netdata)" --namespace=netdata --grep vsphere
System without systemd
Locate the collector log file, typically at /var/log/netdata/collector.log, and use grep to filter for collector's name:
grep vsphere /var/log/netdata/collector.log
Note: This method shows logs from all restarts. Focus on the latest entries for troubleshooting current issues.
Docker Container
If your Netdata runs in a Docker container named "netdata" (replace if different), use this command:
docker logs netdata 2>&1 | grep vsphere
Do you have any feedback for this page? If so, you can open a new issue on our netdata/learn repository.