Collectd

Collectd

This article relies on the following:

Accessing web interface / command-line interface
Managing configs / packages / services / logs

Introduction

collectd is a small daemon which collects system information periodically and provides mechanisms to store the values in a variety of ways.

Installation

Web interface instructions

Install the packagee luci-app-statistics.
Configure collectd using the tools in Statistics → Setup section of the LuCI web interface.

By default, collectd saves its RRD data in /tmp/rrd which is a RAM-based directory, so its contents will be lost when the device reboots. To save the data across power failure/restarts, consider adding an external USB Drive and then configuring collectd to save the data to that new storage. Do this using the Output plugins → RRDTool tab in LuCI, configure the Storage directory, or the DataDir command of the <Plugin rrdtool> section of the collectd configuration file at /etc/collectd.conf.

Command-line instructions

opkg update
opkg install collectd
vi /etc/collectd.conf
/etc/init.d/collectd restart

Examples

Minimal

# /etc/collectd.conf
BaseDir "/var/lib/collectd"
PIDFile "/var/run/collectd.pid"
Interval 30
ReadThreads 2

Simple

opkg update
opkg install collectd-mod-rrdtool collectd-mod-processes collectd-mod-interface
 
# /etc/collectd.conf
BaseDir "/var/run/collectd"
Include "/etc/collectd/conf.d"
PIDFile "/var/run/collectd.pid"
PluginDir "/usr/lib/collectd"
TypesDB "/usr/share/collectd/types.db"
Interval 30
ReadThreads 2
 
LoadPlugin cpu
LoadPlugin interface
LoadPlugin load
LoadPlugin memory
LoadPlugin processes
LoadPlugin rrdtool
LoadPlugin uptime
 
<Plugin interface>
	IgnoreSelected false
	Interface eth0
	Interface eth1
	Interface eth2
</Plugin>
 
<Plugin processes>
	Process uhttpd
	Process dnsmasq
	Process dropbear
</Plugin>
 
<Plugin rrdtool>
	DataDir "/tmp/rrd"
	RRARows 100
	RRASingle true
	RRATimespan 3600
	RRATimespan 86400
	RRATimespan 604800
	RRATimespan 2678400
	RRATimespan 31622400
</Plugin>

Advanced

opkg update
opkg install collectd-mod-rrdtool collectd-mod-iptables collectd-mod-netlink
 
# /etc/collectd.conf
BaseDir "/var/lib/collectd"
PIDFile "/var/run/collectd.pid"
Interval 30
ReadThreads 2
 
LoadPlugin iptables
LoadPlugin netlink
LoadPlugin rrdtool
 
# Use only iptables filter
<Plugin iptables>
	chain mangle TC_USER1
	chain mangle TC_USER2
	chain mangle TC_USER3
</Plugin>
 
<Plugin netlink>
	VerboseInterface pppoe-dsl
	QDisc "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:0"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:1"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:10"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:101"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:102"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:103"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:20"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:201"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:202"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:203"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:30"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:301"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:302"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:303"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:40"
	Class "pppoe-dsl" "hfsc-1:50"
</Plugin>
 
<Plugin rrdtool>
	DataDir "/mnt/storage/rrd"
	CacheTimeout 120
	CacheFlush 900
</Plugin>

Ping check

A simple ping check by IP address.

opkg update
opkg install luci-app-statistics collectd-mod-ping
uci set luci_statistics.collectd_network.enable="1"
uci set luci_statistics.collectd_ping.enable="1"
uci set luci_statistics.collectd_ping.Hosts="8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4"
uci commit luci_statistics
/etc/init.d/luci_statistics restart
/etc/init.d/collectd restart
/etc/init.d/rpcd restart

Ping check by domain name. Note that collectd always prefers IPv6 if not specified otherwise.

uci set luci_statistics.collectd_ping.Hosts="openwrt.org"
uci set luci_statistics.collectd_ping.AddressFamily="ipv4"
uci commit luci_statistics
/etc/init.d/luci_statistics restart

Navigate to LuCI → Statistics → Graphs → Ping to see visualization results.

Graphs and visualization

collectd is strictly a statistics collection service and does not provide any way to visualize the gathered data. To enable visualization of the gathered data, install and configure the packages luci-app-statistics and collectd-mod-rrdtool. The statistics gathered by collectd should then be viewable in the LuCI web interface.

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