eBPF Filesystem icon

eBPF Filesystem

eBPF Filesystem

Plugin: ebpf.plugin Module: filesystem

Overview

Monitor latency for main actions on filesystem like I/O events.

Attach tracing (kprobe, trampoline) to internal kernel functions according options used to compile kernel.

This collector is only supported on the following platforms:

  • Linux

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

The plugin needs setuid because it loads data inside kernel. Netada sets necessary permission during installation time.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

The plugin checks kernel compilation flags (CONFIG_KPROBES, CONFIG_BPF, CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL, CONFIG_BPF_JIT), files inside debugfs, and presence of BTF files to decide which eBPF program will be attached.

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

Compile kernel

Check if your kernel was compiled with necessary options (CONFIG_KPROBES, CONFIG_BPF, CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL, CONFIG_BPF_JIT) in /proc/config.gz or inside /boot/config file. Some cited names can be different accoring preferences of Linux distributions. When you do not have options set, it is necessary to get the kernel source code from https://kernel.org or a kernel package from your distribution, this last is preferred. The kernel compilation has a well definedd pattern, but distributions can deliver their configuration files with different names.

Now follow steps:

  1. Copy the configuration file to /usr/src/linux/.config.
  2. Select the necessary options: make oldconfig
  3. Compile your kernel image: make bzImage
  4. Compile your modules: make modules
  5. Copy your new kernel image for boot loader directory
  6. Install the new modules: make modules_install
  7. Generate an initial ramdisk image (initrd) if it is necessary.
  8. Update your boot loader

Configuration

File

The configuration file name for this integration is ebpf.d/filesystem.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 ebpf.d/filesystem.conf

Options

This configuration file have two different sections. The [global] overwrites default options, while [filesystem] allow user to select the filesystems to monitor.

Name Description Default Required
update every Data collection frequency. 5 no
ebpf load mode Define whether plugin will monitor the call (entry) for the functions or it will also monitor the return (return). entry no
lifetime Set default lifetime for thread when enabled by cloud. 300 no
btrfsdist Enable or disable latency monitoring for functions associated with btrfs filesystem. yes no
ext4dist Enable or disable latency monitoring for functions associated with ext4 filesystem. yes no
nfsdist Enable or disable latency monitoring for functions associated with nfs filesystem. yes no
xfsdist Enable or disable latency monitoring for functions associated with xfs filesystem. yes no
zfsdist Enable or disable latency monitoring for functions associated with zfs filesystem. yes no

Examples

There are no configuration examples.

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 filesystem

Latency charts associate with filesystem actions.

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric Dimensions Unit
filesystem.read_latency latency period calls/s
filesystem.open_latency latency period calls/s
filesystem.sync_latency latency period calls/s

Per iilesystem

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric Dimensions Unit
filesystem.write_latency latency period calls/s

Per eBPF Filesystem instance

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Metric Dimensions Unit
filesystem.attributte_latency latency period calls/s

Alerts

There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.

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