NGINX collector

Overview

NGINX is a web server which can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy and HTTP cache.

This collector monitors one or more NGINX servers, depending on your configuration.

Collected 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.

global

These metrics refer to the entire monitored application.

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric	Dimensions	Unit
nginx.connections	active	connections
nginx.connections_status	reading, writing, idle	connections
nginx.connections_accepted_handled	accepted, handled	connections/s
nginx.requests	requests	requests/s

Setup

Prerequisites

Enable status support

Configure ngx_http_stub_status_module.

Configuration

File

The configuration file name is go.d/nginx.conf.

The file format is YAML. Generally, the format is:

update_every: 1
autodetection_retry: 0
jobs:
  - name: some_name1
  - name: some_name1

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/nginx.conf

Options

The following options can be defined globally: update_every, autodetection_retry.

Config options

Name	Description	Default	Required
update_every	Data collection frequency.	1
autodetection_retry	Re-check interval in seconds. Zero means not to schedule re-check.	0
url	Server URL.	http://127.0.0.1/stub_status	yes
timeout	HTTP request timeout.	1
username	Username for basic HTTP authentication.
password	Password for basic HTTP authentication.
proxy_url	Proxy URL.
proxy_username	Username for proxy basic HTTP authentication.
proxy_password	Password for proxy basic HTTP authentication.
method	HTTP request method.	GET
body	HTTP request body.
headers	HTTP request headers.
not_follow_redirects	Redirect handling policy. Controls whether the client follows redirects.	no
tls_skip_verify	Server certificate chain and hostname validation policy. Controls whether the client performs this check.	no
tls_ca	Certification authority that the client uses when verifying the server's certificates.
tls_cert	Client TLS certificate.
tls_key	Client TLS key.

Examples

Basic

A basic example configuration.

Config

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: http://127.0.0.1/stub_status

HTTP authentication

Basic HTTP authentication.

Config

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: http://127.0.0.1/stub_status
    username: username
    password: password

HTTPS with self-signed certificate

NGINX with enabled HTTPS and self-signed certificate.

Config

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: http://127.0.0.1/stub_status
    tls_skip_verify: yes

Multi-instance

Note: When you define multiple jobs, their names must be unique.

Collecting metrics from local and remote instances.

Config

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: http://127.0.0.1/stub_status

  - name: remote
    url: http://192.0.2.1/stub_status

Troubleshooting

Debug mode

To troubleshoot issues with the nginx 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 nginx