Start, stop, or restart the Netdata Agent

When you install the Netdata Agent, the daemon is configured to start at boot and stop and restart/shutdown.

You will most often need to restart the Agent to load new or editing configuration files. Health configuration files are the only exception, as they can be reloaded without restarting the entire Agent.

Stopping or restarting the Netdata Agent will cause gaps in stored metrics until the netdata process initiates collectors and the database engine.

Using systemctl, service, or init.d

This is the recommended way to start, stop, or restart the Netdata daemon.

• To start Netdata, run sudo systemctl start netdata.
• To stop Netdata, run sudo systemctl stop netdata.
• To restart Netdata, run sudo systemctl restart netdata.

If the above commands fail, or you know that you're using a non-systemd system, try using the service command:

• service: sudo service netdata start, sudo service netdata stop, sudo service netdata restart

Using netdata

Use the netdata command, typically located at /usr/sbin/netdata, to start the Netdata daemon.

sudo netdata

If you start the daemon this way, close it with sudo killall netdata.

Using netdatacli

The Netdata Agent also comes with a CLI tool capable of performing shutdowns. Start the Agent back up using your preferred method listed above.

sudo netdatacli shutdown-agent

Netdata MSI installations

Netdata provides an installer for Windows using WSL, on those installations by using a Windows terminal (e.g. the Command prompt or Windows Powershell) you can:

• Start Netdata, by running start-netdata
• Stop Netdata, by running stop-netdata
• Restart Netdata, by running restart-netdata

Reload health configuration

You do not need to restart the Netdata Agent between changes to health configuration files, such as specific health entities. Instead, use netdatacli and the reload-health option to prevent gaps in metrics collection.

sudo netdatacli reload-health

If netdatacli doesn't work on your system, send a SIGUSR2 signal to the daemon, which reloads health configuration without restarting the entire process.

killall -USR2 netdata

Force stop stalled or unresponsive netdata processes

In rare cases, the Netdata Agent may stall or not properly close sockets, preventing a new process from starting. In these cases, try the following three commands:

sudo systemctl stop netdata
sudo killall netdata
ps aux| grep netdata

The output of ps aux should show no netdata or associated processes running. You can now start the Netdata Agent again with service netdata start, or the appropriate method for your system.

Starting Netdata at boot

In the system directory you can find scripts and configurations for the various distros.

systemd

The installer already installs netdata.service if it detects a systemd system.

To install netdata.service by hand, run:

# stop Netdata
killall netdata

# copy netdata.service to systemd
cp system/netdata.service /etc/systemd/system/

# let systemd know there is a new service
systemctl daemon-reload

# enable Netdata at boot
systemctl enable netdata

# start Netdata
systemctl start netdata

init.d

In the system directory you can find netdata-lsb. Copy it to the proper place according to your distribution documentation. For Ubuntu, this can be done via running the following commands as root.

# copy the Netdata startup file to /etc/init.d
cp system/netdata-lsb /etc/init.d/netdata

# make sure it is executable
chmod +x /etc/init.d/netdata

# enable it
update-rc.d netdata defaults

openrc (gentoo)

In the system directory you can find netdata-openrc. Copy it to the proper place according to your distribution documentation.

CentOS / Red Hat Enterprise Linux

For older versions of RHEL/CentOS that don't have systemd, an init script is included in the system directory. This can be installed by running the following commands as root.

# copy the Netdata startup file to /etc/init.d
cp system/netdata-init-d /etc/init.d/netdata

# make sure it is executable
chmod +x /etc/init.d/netdata

# enable it
chkconfig --add netdata

There have been some recent work on the init script, see PR https://github.com/netdata/netdata/pull/403

other systems

You can start Netdata by running it from /etc/rc.local or equivalent.