Ping collector

This module measures round-tripe time and packet loss by sending ping messages to network hosts.

Requirements

There are two operational modes:

• privileged (send raw ICMP ping, default). Requires CAP_NET_RAW capability or root privileges:

  Note: set automatically during Netdata installation.

  sudo setcap CAP_NET_RAW=eip <INSTALL_PREFIX>/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/go.d.plugin

• unprivileged (send UDP ping, Linux only). Requires configuring ping_group_range:

  sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ping_group_range="0 2147483647"

  To persist the change add net.ipv4.ping_group_range="0 2147483647" to /etc/sysctl.conf and execute sudo sysctl -p.

The mode can be changed in the module configuration file.

Metrics

All metrics have "ping." prefix.

Labels per scope:

• host: host.

Metric	Scope	Dimensions	Units
host_rtt	host	min, max, avg	milliseconds
host_std_dev_rtt	host	std_dev	milliseconds
host_packet_loss	host	loss	percentage
host_packets	host	received, sent	packets

Configuration

Edit the go.d/ping.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/ping.conf

Here is an example configuration:

jobs:
  - name: example
    hosts:
      - 192.0.2.0
      - 192.0.2.1
      - example.com
    packets: 5       # number of ping packets to send.
    interval: 200ms  # time to wait between sending ping packets.

For all available options please see module configuration file.

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot issues with the ping 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.

First, navigate to your plugins' directory, usually at /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that's not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the setting plugins directory. Once you're in the plugin's directory, switch to the netdata user.

cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/
sudo -u netdata -s

You can now run the go.d.plugin to debug the collector:

./go.d.plugin -d -m ping