Netdata: Real-Time Performance Monitoring Tool for Linux Systems

Netdata is an enormously optimized Linux utility that presents real-time (per 2nd) efficiency monitoring for Linux techniques, applications, SNMP devices, etc. And shows full interactive charts that certainly renders all collected values over the web browser to investigate them. This article explains about how to find a real-time performance monitoring tool for Linux Systems.

Features

• It monitors total and per Core CPU usage, interrupts, softirqs and frequency.

• It monitors Memory, RAM, Swap and Kernel usage.

• It monitors Disk I/O (per disk: bandwidth, operations, backlog, utilisation, etc).

• It monitors Network interfaces including: bandwidth, packets, errors, drops, etc).

• It monitors Netfilter / iptables Linux firewall connections, events, errors, etc.

• It monitors processes (running, blocked, forks, active, etc).

• It monitors system Applications with the process tree (CPU, memory, swap, disk reads/writes, threads, etc).

• Apache and Nginx Status monitoring with mod_status.

• MySQL database monitoring: queries, updates, locks, issues, threads, etc.

• It monitors Postfix email server message queue.

• Squid proxy server bandwidth and requests monitoring.

• It monitors Hardware sensors (temperature, voltage, fans, power, humidity, etc).

• It monitors SNMP devices.

Earlier than you installing netdata utility, be certain you’ve these basic construct atmosphere packages mounted on the system, if not install it. Use the next command to put in general construct environment-

$ sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev gcc make git autoconf autogen automake pkg-config

The sample output should be like this –

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
gcc is already the newest version (4:5.3.1-1ubuntu1).
gcc set to manually installed.
make is already the newest version (4.1-6).
make set to manually installed.
pkg-config is already the newest version (0.29.1-0ubuntu1).
pkg-config set to manually installed.
The following additional packages will be installed:
autogen-doc autotools-dev git-man liberror-perl libopts25 libopts25-dev
libsigsegv2 m4
Suggested packages:
autoconf-archive gnu-standards autoconf-doc libtool git-daemon-run
| git-daemon-sysvinit git-doc git-el git-email git-gui gitk gitweb git-arch
git-cvs git-mediawiki git-svn
The following NEW packages will be installed:
autoconf autogen autogen-doc automake autotools-dev git git-man
liberror-perl libopts25 libopts25-dev libsigsegv2 m4 zlib1g-dev
0 upgraded, 13 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
Need to get 6,721 kB of archives.
After this operation, 35.2 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 libsigsegv2 amd64 2.10-4 [14.1 kB]
Get:2 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 m4 amd64 1.4.17-5 [195 kB]
Get:3 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 autoconf all 2.69-9 [321 kB]
Get:4 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 libopts25 amd64 1:5.18.7-3 [57.8 kB]
Get:5 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 libopts25-dev amd64 1:5.18.7-3 [93.0 kB]
Get:6 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 autogen amd64 1:5.18.7-3 [550 kB]
.................................................................................................

Clone the netdata repository from git and run the following command to install netdata installer script to build it.

$ sudo git clone https://github.com/firehol/netdata.git --depth=1

The sample output should be like this-

Cloning into 'netdata'...
remote: Counting objects: 253, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (241/241), done.
remote: Total 253 (delta 10), reused 137 (delta 1), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (253/253), 1.33 MiB | 471.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (10/10), done.
Checking connectivity... done.

Now enter into netdata directory and install netdata installer, using following commands-

$ cd netdata
$ sudo ./netdata-installer.sh

The sample output should be like this –

Welcome to netdata!
Nice to see you are giving it a try!
You are about to build and install netdata to your system.
It will be installed at these locations:

- the daemon at /usr/sbin/netdata
- config files at /etc/netdata
- web files at /usr/share/netdata
- plugins at /usr/libexec/netdata
- cache files at /var/cache/netdata
- log files at /var/log/netdata
- pid file at /var/run

This installer allows you to change the installation path.
Press Control-C and run the same command with --help for help.
Press ENTER to build and install netdata to your system >

:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Running command:

./autogen.sh

autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal --force -I m4
autoreconf: configure.ac: tracing
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Libtool
autoreconf: running: /usr/bin/autoconf --force
autoreconf: running: /usr/bin/autoheader --force
autoreconf: running: automake --add-missing --copy --force-missing
configure.ac:33: installing './compile'
configure.ac:32: installing './config.guess'
configure.ac:32: installing './config.sub'
configure.ac:31: installing './install-sh'
configure.ac:31: installing './missing'
src/Makefile.am: installing './depcomp'
autoreconf: Leaving directory `.'

:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Running the command:

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --with-zlib --with-math --with-user=netdata CFLAGS=-O3

checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles... no
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... mawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... yes
checking build system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking for suffix of executables...
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
checking whether gcc understands -c and -o together... yes
checking for style of include used by make... GNU
checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking pkg-config is at least version 0.9.0... yes
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /bin/grep
checking for egrep... /bin/grep -E
checking for ANSI C header files... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for memory.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking minix/config.h usability... no
checking minix/config.h presence... no
checking for minix/config.h... no
checking whether it is safe to define __EXTENSIONS__... yes
checking if compiler needs -Werror to reject unknown flags... no
checking for the pthreads library -lpthreads... no
checking whether pthreads work without any flags... no
checking whether pthreads work with -Kthread... no
checking whether pthreads work with -kthread... no
checking for the pthreads library -llthread... no
checking whether pthreads work with -pthread... yes
checking for joinable pthread attribute... PTHREAD_CREATE_JOINABLE
checking if more special flags are required for pthreads... no
checking for PTHREAD_PRIO_INHERIT... yes
checking for uint8_t... yes
checking for uint16_t... yes
checking for uint32_t... yes
checking for inline... inline
checking for sin in -lm... yes
checking for ZLIB... yes
checking that generated files are newer than configure... done
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating charts.d/Makefile
config.status: creating conf.d/Makefile
config.status: creating netdata.spec
config.status: creating node.d/Makefile
config.status: creating plugins.d/Makefile
config.status: creating src/Makefile
config.status: creating system/Makefile
config.status: creating web/Makefile
config.status: creating contrib/Makefile
.............................................

To start netdata, use the following command –

# /usr/sbin/netdata

Now open your favorite web browser and type the following url –

http://127.0.0.1:19999/

The sample output should be like this –

To stop the netdata, use the following command –

$ sudo killall netdata

You can also view the running configuration of netdata at any time, by using following url-

http://127.0.0.1:19999/netdata.conf

The sample output should be like this –

# NetData Configuration
# You can uncomment and change any of the options below.
# The value shown in the commented settings, is the default value.
# global netdata configuration

[global]
# config directory = /etc/netdata
# plugins directory = /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d
# web files directory = /usr/share/netdata/web
# cache directory = /var/cache/netdata
# log directory = /var/log/netdata
# host access prefix =
# debug flags = 0x00000000
# memory deduplication (ksm) = yes
# debug log = /var/log/netdata/debug.log
# error log = /var/log/netdata/error.log
# errors flood protection period = 1200
# errors to trigger flood protection = 200
# access log = /var/log/netdata/access.log
# memory mode = save
# hostname = linux
# history = 3600
# update every = 1
# pthread stack size = 8388608
# run as user = netdata
# web files owner = netdata
# web files group = netdata
# http port listen backlog = 100
# port = 19999
# ip version = any
# bind socket to IP = *
# disconnect idle web clients after seconds = 60
# enable web responses gzip compression = yes

[plugins]
# tc = yes
# idlejitter = yes
# proc = yes
# cgroups = yes
# checks = no
# plugins directory = /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d
# enable running new plugins = yes
# check for new plugins every = 60
# apps = yes
# charts.d = yes
# node.d = yes


# per plugin configuration

[plugin:tc]
# script to run to get tc values = /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/tc-qos-helper.sh
# enable new interfaces detected at runtime = yes
# cleanup unused classes every = 60

[plugin:idlejitter]
# loop time in ms = 20

To update the netdata, use the following commands –

# cd /path/to/netdata.git
# git pull
# ./netdata-installer.sh

Congratulations! Now, you know “Netdata – A Real-Time Performance Monitoring Tool for Linux Systems”. We’ll learn more about these types of commands in our next Linux post. Keep reading!