Example collector

Plugin: python.d.plugin Module: example

Overview

Example collector that generates some random numbers as metrics.

If you want to write your own collector, read our writing a new Python module tutorial.

The get_data() function uses random.randint() to generate a random number which will be collected as a metric.

This collector is supported on all platforms.

This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration, including remote instances.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

This integration doesn’t support auto-detection.

Limits

The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.

Performance Impact

The default configuration for this integration is not expected to impose a significant performance impact on the system.

Setup

Prerequisites

No action required.

Configuration

File

The configuration file name for this integration is python.d/example.conf.

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 python.d/example.conf

Options

There are 2 sections:

Global variables
One or more JOBS that can define multiple different instances to monitor.

The following options can be defined globally: priority, penalty, autodetection_retry, update_every, but can also be defined per JOB to override the global values.

Additionally, the following collapsed table contains all the options that can be configured inside a JOB definition.

Every configuration JOB starts with a job_name value which will appear in the dashboard, unless a name parameter is specified.

Name	Description	Default	Required
num_lines	The number of lines to create.	4	False
lower	The lower bound of numbers to randomly sample from.	0	False
upper	The upper bound of numbers to randomly sample from.	100	False
update_every	Sets the default data collection frequency.	1	False
priority	Controls the order of charts at the netdata dashboard.	60000	False
autodetection_retry	Sets the job re-check interval in seconds.	0	False
penalty	Indicates whether to apply penalty to update_every in case of failures.	yes	False
name	Job name. This value will overwrite the `job_name` value. JOBS with the same name are mutually exclusive. Only one of them will be allowed running at any time. This allows autodetection to try several alternatives and pick the one that works.		False

Examples

Basic

A basic example configuration.

four_lines:
    name: "Four Lines"
    update_every: 1
    priority: 60000
    penalty: yes
    autodetection_retry: 0
    num_lines: 4
    lower: 0
    upper: 100

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.

Per Example collector instance

These metrics refer to the entire monitored application.

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric	Dimensions	Unit
example.random	random	number

Alerts

There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.

Troubleshooting

Debug Mode

To troubleshoot issues with the example collector, run the python.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 python.d.plugin to debug the collector:
```
./python.d.plugin example debug trace
```

Industry

Technology

Use cases