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Integrate Telegraf with Tiger Cloud

Ingest metrics and events from databases, systems, and IoT sensors

Telegraf is a server-based agent that collects and sends metrics and events from databases, systems, and IoT sensors. Telegraf is an open-source, plugin-driven tool for the collection and output of data.

To view metrics gathered by Telegraf and stored in a hypertable in a Tiger Cloud service:

Prerequisites for this integration guide

To follow these steps, you'll need:

Section titled “Link Telegraf to your service”

To create a Telegraf configuration that exports data to a hypertable in your service:

  1. Set up your service connection string

    This variable holds the connection information for the target Tiger Cloud service.

    In the terminal on the source machine, set the following:

    Terminal window
    export TARGET=postgres://tsdbadmin:<PASSWORD>@<HOST>:<PORT>/tsdb?sslmode=require

    See where to find your connection details.

  2. Generate a Telegraf configuration file

    In the terminal, run the following:

    Terminal window
    telegraf --input-filter=cpu --output-filter=postgresql config > telegraf.conf

    telegraf.conf configures a CPU input plugin that samples various metrics about CPU usage, and the PostgreSQL output plugin. telegraf.conf also includes all available input, output, processor, and aggregator plugins. These are commented out by default.

  3. Test the configuration
    Terminal window
    telegraf --config telegraf.conf --test

    You see an output similar to the following:

    Terminal window
    2022-11-28T12:53:44Z I! Starting Telegraf 1.24.3
    2022-11-28T12:53:44Z I! Available plugins: 208 inputs, 9 aggregators, 26 processors, 20 parsers, 57 outputs
    2022-11-28T12:53:44Z I! Loaded inputs: cpu
    2022-11-28T12:53:44Z I! Loaded aggregators:
    2022-11-28T12:53:44Z I! Loaded processors:
    2022-11-28T12:53:44Z W! Outputs are not used in testing mode!
    2022-11-28T12:53:44Z I! Tags enabled: host=localhost
    > cpu,cpu=cpu0,host=localhost usage_guest=0,usage_guest_nice=0,usage_idle=90.00000000087311,usage_iowait=0,usage_irq=0,usage_nice=0,usage_softirq=0,usage_steal=0,usage_system=6.000000000040018,usage_user=3.999999999996362 1669640025000000000
    > cpu,cpu=cpu1,host=localhost usage_guest=0,usage_guest_nice=0,usage_idle=92.15686274495818,usage_iowait=0,usage_irq=0,usage_nice=0,usage_softirq=0,usage_steal=0,usage_system=5.882352941192206,usage_user=1.9607843136712912 1669640025000000000
    > cpu,cpu=cpu2,host=localhost usage_guest=0,usage_guest_nice=0,usage_idle=91.99999999982538,usage_iowait=0,usage_irq=0,usage_nice=0,usage_softirq=0,usage_steal=0,usage_system=3.999999999996362,usage_user=3.999999999996362 1669640025000000000
  4. Configure the PostgreSQL output plugin

    1. In telegraf.conf, in the [[outputs.postgresql]] section, set connection to the value of $TARGET.

      Terminal window
      connection = "<VALUE OF $TARGET>"

    2. Use hypertables when Telegraf creates a new table. In the section that begins with the comment ## Templated statements to execute when creating a new table, add the following template:

      Terminal window
      ## Templated statements to execute when creating a new table.
      create_templates = [
        '''CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS {{ .table }} ({{ .columns }}) WITH (tsdb.hypertable, tsdb.chunk_interval='1 week')''',
      ]

View the metrics collected by Telegraf

Section titled “View the metrics collected by Telegraf”

This section shows you how to generate system metrics using Telegraf, then connect to your service and query the metrics hypertable.

  1. Collect system metrics using Telegraf

    Run the following command for 30 seconds:

    Terminal window
    telegraf --config telegraf.conf

    Telegraf uses loaded inputs cpu and outputs postgresql along with global tags, the intervals when the agent collects data from the inputs, and flushes to the outputs.

  2. View the metrics

    1. Connect to your Tiger Cloud service:

      Terminal window
      psql $TARGET

    2. View the metrics collected in the cpu table in tsdb:

      SELECT*FROM cpu;

      You see something like:

      time         |    cpu    |               host               | usage_guest | usage_guest_nice |    usage_idle     | usage_iowait | usage_irq | usage_nice | usage_softirq | usage_steal |    usage_system     |     usage_user
      ---------------------+-----------+----------------------------------+-------------+------------------+-------------------+--------------+-----------+------------+---------------+-------------+---------------------+---------------------
      2022-12-05 12:25:20 | cpu0      | hostname |           0 |                0 | 83.08605341237833 |            0 |         0 |          0 |             0 |           0 |   6.824925815961274 |  10.089020771444481
      2022-12-05 12:25:20 | cpu1      | hostname |           0 |                0 | 84.27299703278959 |            0 |         0 |          0 |             0 |           0 |   5.934718100814769 |   9.792284866395647
      2022-12-05 12:25:20 | cpu2      | hostname |           0 |                0 | 87.53709198848934 |            0 |         0 |          0 |             0 |           0 |   4.747774480755411 |   7.715133531241037
      2022-12-05 12:25:20 | cpu3      | hostname|           0 |                0 | 86.68639053296472 |            0 |         0 |          0 |             0 |           0 |    4.43786982253345 |   8.875739645039992
      2022-12-05 12:25:20 | cpu4      | hostname |           0 |                0 | 96.15384615371369 |            0 |         0 |          0 |             0 |           0 |  1.1834319526667423 |  2.6627218934917614

      To view the average usage per CPU core, use SELECT cpu, avg(usage_user) FROM cpu GROUP BY cpu;.

For more information about the options that you can configure in Telegraf, see the PostgreSQL output plugin.