vCenter Server Appliance collector
Overview
The vCenter Server Appliance
is a preconfigured Linux virtual machine, which is optimized for running VMware vCenter Server® and the associated
services on Linux.
This collector
monitors health statistics from one or
more vCenter Server Appliance 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.
See health statuses
Overall System Health:
| Numeric |
Text |
Description |
-1 |
unknown |
Module failed to decode status. |
0 |
green |
All components in the appliance are healthy. |
1 |
yellow |
One or more components in the appliance might become overloaded soon. |
2 |
orange |
One or more components in the appliance might be degraded. |
3 |
red |
One or more components in the appliance might be in an unusable status and the appliance might become unresponsive soon. |
4 |
gray |
No health data is available. |
Components Health:
| Numeric |
Text |
Description |
-1 |
unknown |
Module failed to decode status. |
0 |
green |
The component is healthy. |
1 |
yellow |
The component is healthy, but may have some problems. |
2 |
orange |
The component is degraded, and may have serious problems. |
3 |
red |
The component is unavailable, or will stop functioning soon. |
4 |
gray |
No health data is available. |
Software Updates Health:
| Numeric |
Text |
Description |
-1 |
unknown |
Module failed to decode status. |
0 |
green |
No updates available. |
2 |
orange |
Non-security patches might be available. |
3 |
red |
Security patches might be available. |
4 |
gray |
An error retrieving information on software updates. |
This scope has no labels.
Metrics:
| Metric |
Dimensions |
Unit |
| vcsa.system_health |
system |
status |
| vcsa.components_health |
applmgmt, database_storage, mem, storage, swap |
status |
| vcsa.software_updates_health |
software_packages |
status |
Setup
Prerequisites
No action required.
Configuration
File
The configuration file name is go.d/vcsa.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/vcsa.conf
Options
The following options can be defined globally: update_every, autodetection_retry.
Config options
| Name |
Description |
Default |
Required |
| update_every |
Data collection frequency. |
5 |
|
| autodetection_retry |
Re-check interval in seconds. Zero means not to schedule re-check. |
0 |
|
| url |
Server URL. |
|
yes |
| timeout |
HTTP request timeout. |
1 |
|
| username |
Username for basic HTTP authentication. |
|
yes |
| password |
Password for basic HTTP authentication. |
|
yes |
| 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
An example configuration.
Config
jobs:
- name: vcsa1
url: https://203.0.113.1
username: admin@vsphere.local
password: password
Multi-instance
Note: When you define multiple jobs, their names must be unique.
Two instances.
Config
jobs:
- name: vcsa1
url: https://203.0.113.1
username: admin@vsphere.local
password: password
- name: vcsa2
url: https://203.0.113.10
username: admin@vsphere.local
password: password
Troubleshooting
Debug mode
To troubleshoot issues with the vcsa 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 vcsa