eBPF Processes

Plugin: ebpf.plugin Module: processes

Overview

Monitor calls for function creating tasks (threads and processes) inside Linux kernel.

Attach tracing (kprobe or tracepoint, and trampoline) to internal kernel functions.

This collector is only supported on the following platforms:

• Linux

This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration, including remote instances.

The plugin needs setuid because it loads data inside kernel. Netada sets necessary permission during installation time.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

The plugin checks kernel compilation flags (CONFIG_KPROBES, CONFIG_BPF, CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL, CONFIG_BPF_JIT), files inside debugfs, and presence of BTF files to decide which eBPF program will be attached.

Limits

The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.

Performance Impact

This thread will add overhead every time that an internal kernel function monitored by this thread is called.

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 eBPF Processes instance

These metrics show total number of calls to functions inside kernel.

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric	Dimensions	Unit
system.process_thread	process	calls/s
system.process_status	process, zombie	difference
system.exit	process	calls/s
system.task_error	task	calls/s

Per apps

These Metrics show grouped information per apps group.

Labels:

Label	Description
app_group	The name of the group defined in the configuration.

Metrics:

Metric	Dimensions	Unit
app.process_create	calls	calls/s
app.thread_create	call	calls/s
app.task_exit	call	calls/s
app.task_close	call	calls/s
app.task_error	app	calls/s

Per cgroup

These Metrics show grouped information per cgroup/service.

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric	Dimensions	Unit
cgroup.process_create	process	calls/s
cgroup.thread_create	thread	calls/s
cgroup.task_exit	exit	calls/s
cgroup.task_close	process	calls/s
cgroup.task_error	process	calls/s
services.process_create	a dimension per systemd service	calls/s
services.thread_create	a dimension per systemd service	calls/s
services.task_close	a dimension per systemd service	calls/s
services.task_exit	a dimension per systemd service	calls/s
services.task_error	a dimension per systemd service	calls/s

Alerts

There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.

Setup

Prerequisites

Compile kernel

Check if your kernel was compiled with necessary options (CONFIG_KPROBES, CONFIG_BPF, CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL, CONFIG_BPF_JIT) in /proc/config.gz or inside /boot/config file. Some cited names can be different accoring preferences of Linux distributions. When you do not have options set, it is necessary to get the kernel source code from https://kernel.org or a kernel package from your distribution, this last is preferred. The kernel compilation has a well definedd pattern, but distributions can deliver their configuration files with different names.

Now follow steps:

1. Copy the configuration file to /usr/src/linux/.config.
2. Select the necessary options: make oldconfig
3. Compile your kernel image: make bzImage
4. Compile your modules: make modules
5. Copy your new kernel image for boot loader directory
6. Install the new modules: make modules_install
7. Generate an initial ramdisk image (initrd) if it is necessary.
8. Update your boot loader

Debug Filesystem

This thread needs to attach a tracepoint to monitor when a process schedule an exit event. To allow this specific feaure, it is necessary to mount debugfs (mount -t debugfs none /sys/kernel/debug/).

Configuration

File

The configuration file name for this integration is ebpf.d/process.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 ebpf.d/process.conf

Options

All options are defined inside section [global].

Config options

Name	Description	Default	Required
update every	Data collection frequency.	5	no
ebpf load mode	Define whether plugin will monitor the call (entry) for the functions or it will also monitor the return (return).	entry	no
apps	Enable or disable integration with apps.plugin	no	no
cgroups	Enable or disable integration with cgroup.plugin	no	no
pid table size	Number of elements stored inside hash tables used to monitor calls per PID.	32768	no
ebpf type format	Define the file type to load an eBPF program. Three options are available: legacy (Attach only kprobe), co-re (Plugin tries to use trampoline when available), and auto (plugin check OS configuration before to load).	auto	no
ebpf co-re tracing	Select the attach method used by plugin when co-re is defined in previous option. Two options are available: trampoline (Option with lowest overhead), and probe (the same of legacy code). This plugin will always try to attach a tracepoint, so option here will impact only function used to monitor task (thread and process) creation.	trampoline	no
maps per core	Define how plugin will load their hash maps. When enabled (yes) plugin will load one hash table per core, instead to have centralized information.	yes	no
lifetime	Set default lifetime for thread when enabled by cloud.	300	no

Examples

There are no configuration examples.