Logstash integration with Collectd - aggregate

I have logstash and collectd set up such that collectd reports to logstash. This is working fine, except that I get a bunch of metrics for the same timestamp. Is there a way to get the data such that instead of {ts: x, type:metric1, value:value1, ...}, {ts: x, type:metric2, value:value2, ...} ..., I get something like {ts: x, type1:metric1, value1:value1, type2:metric2, value2:value2, ...}? In a sense, aggregate data for a particular metric per timestamp.

I have a feeling, that you might have a "multiline" filter configured in Logstash configuration file. Multiline filter actually takes all the values which were received in the same time and combines them. Try to turn it off and check what you will get.

Related

Combining multiple log lines from Loki in Grafana

I have stream of http logs (fastify pino format) via Loki that look like:
[2022-07-25T16:59:40.796Z] INFO: incoming request {"req":{"method":"GET","url":"/api/v1/teams/6vYE9rpOPl/members","hostname":"forge.flowforge.loc","remoteAddress":"10.1.106.162","remotePort":38422},"reqId":"req-t6"}
[2022-07-25T16:59:40.810Z] INFO: request completed {"res":{"statusCode":200},"responseTime":13.292339086532593,"reqId":"req-t6"}
I'd like to display average response time by path, but I'm struggling to work out how to combine the 2 log lines correlated by the reqId to get the url and responseTime together.
I can extract and parse the json for the 2 lines separately but not together.
I don't think it's doable with Loki alone. For that you would need either:
some kind of a join, which is not supported (see https://github.com/grafana/loki/issues/3567), or
some kind of a group-by/aggregation which is supported but in a very limited way (https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/logql/metric_queries/#log-range-aggregations)
One solution I can think of is using Grafana transformations:
use LogQL pattern and line_format to extract the JSON part from the logs, so that the line field becomes a valid JSON. Do not parse the JSON in LogQL: the extracted fields wouldn't be recognized by the Grafana transformations later on.
apply "extract fields" transformation in order to parse the JSON (the transformation is currently in an Alpha version)
add merge transformation
outer join by reqId
group by reqId
Grafana transformations are pretty powerful but a bit non-intuitive too, so the solution would require some experimenting. The debug transformation functionality might be helpful.

How to provide label_values in grafana variables with time range for prometheus data source?

I have used a variable in grafana which looks like this:
label_values(some_metric, service)
If the metric is not emitted by the data source at the current time the variable values are not available for the charts. The variable in my case is the release name and all the charts of grafana are dependent on this variable.
After the server I was monitoring crashed, this metric is not emitted. Even if I set a time range to match the time when metric was emitted, it has no impact as the query for the variable is not taking the time range into account.
In Prometheus I can see the values for the metric using the query:
some_metric[24h]
In grafana this is invalid:
label_values(some_metric[24h], service)
Also as per the documentation its invalid to provide $__range etc for label_values.
If I have to use the query_result instead how do I write the above invalid grafana query in correct way so that I get the same result as label_values?
Is there any other way to do this?
The data source is Prometheus.
I'd suggest query_result(count by (somelabel)(count_over_time(some_metric[$__range]))) and then use regular expressions to extract out the label value you want.
That I'm using count here isn't too important, it's more that I'm using an over_time function and then aggregating.
The most straightforward and lightweight solution is to use last_over_time function. For example, the following Grafana query template would return all the unique service label values for all the some_metric time series, which were available during the last 24 hours:
label_values(last_over_time(some_metric[24h]), service)

Pushing key/value pair data to graphite/grafana

We are trying to see if graphite will fit our use case. So we have a number of public parameters. Like key value pairs.
Say:
Data:
Caller:abc
Site:xyz
Http status: 400
6-7 more similar fields (key values pairs) .
Etc.
This data is continuously posted to use in a data report. What we want is to draw visualisations over this data.
We want graphs that will say things like how many 400s by sites etc. Which are the top sites or callers for whom there is 400.
Now we are wondering if this can be done with graphite.
But we have questions. Graphite store numerical values. So how will we represent this in graphite.
Something like this ?
Clicks.metric.status.400 1 currTime
Clicks.metric.site.xyz 1 currTime
Clicks.metric.caller.abc 1 currTime
Adding 1 as the numerical value to record the event.
Also how will we group the set of values together.
For eg this http status is for this site as it is one record.
In that case we need something like
Clicks.metric.status.{uuid1}.400 1 currTime
Clicks.metric.site.{uuid1}.xyz 1 currTime
Our aim is to then use grafana to have graphs on this data as in what are the top site which have are showing 400 status?
will this is ok ?
regards
Graphite accepts three types of data: plaintext, pickled, and AMQP.
The plaintext protocol is the most straightforward protocol supported
by Carbon.
The data sent must be in the following format: <metric path> <metric
value> <metric timestamp>. Carbon will then help translate this line
of text into a metric that the web interface and Whisper understand.
If you're new to graphite (which sounds like you are) plaintext is definitely the easiest to get going with.
As to how you'll be able to group metrics and perform operations on them, you have to remember that graphite doesn't natively store any of this for you. It stores timeseries metrics, and provides functions that manipulate that data for visual / reporting purposes. So when you send a metric, prod.host-abc.application-xyz.grpc.GetStatus.return-codes.400 1 1522353885, all you're doing is storing the value 1 for that specific metric at timestamp 1522353885. You can then use graphite functions to display that data, e.g.,: sumSeries(prod.*.application-xyz.grpc.GetStatus.return-codes.400) will produce a sum of all 400 error codes from all hosts.

IBM Cloudant DB - get historical data - best way?

I'm pretty confused concerning this hip thing called NoSQL, especially CloudantDB by Bluemix. As you know, this DB doesn't store the values chronologically. It's the programmer's task to sort the entries in case he wants the data to.. well.. be sorted.
What I try to achive is to simply get the last let's say 100 values a sensor has sent to Watson IoT (which saves everything in the connected CloudantDB) in an ORDERED way. In the end it would be nice to show them in a D3.css style kind of graph but that's another task. I first need the values in an ordered array.
What I tried so far: I used curl to get the data via PHP from https://averylongID-bluemix.cloudant.com/iotp_orgID_iotdb_2018-01-25/_all_docs?limit=20&include_docs=true';
What I get is an unsorted array of 20 row entries with random timestamps. The last 20 entries in the DB. But not in terms of timestamps.
My question is now: Do you know of a way to get the "last" 20 entries? Sorted by timestamp? I did a POST request with a JSON string where I wanted the data to be sorted by the timestamp, but that doesn't work, maybe because of the ISO timestamp string.
Do I really have to write a javascript or PHP script to get ALL the database entries and then look for the 20 or 100 last entries by parsing the timestamp, sorting the array again and then get the (now really) last entries? I can't believe that.
Many thanks in advance!
I finally found out how to get the data in a nice ordered way. The key is to use the _design api together with the _view api.
So a curl request with the following URL / attributes and a query string did the job:
https://alphanumerical_something-bluemix.cloudant.com/iotp_orgID_iotdb_2018-01-25/_design/iotp/_view/by-date?limit=120&q=name:%27timestamp%27
The curl result gets me the first (in terms of time) 120 entries. I just have to find out how to get the last entries, but that's already a pretty good result. I can now pass the data on to a nice JS chart and display it.
One option may be to include the timestamp as part of the ID. The _all_docs query returns documents in order by id.
If that approach does not work for you, you could look at creating a secondary index based on the timestamp field. One type of index is Cloudant Query:
https://console.bluemix.net/docs/services/Cloudant/api/cloudant_query.html#query
Cloudant query allows you to specify a sort argument:
https://console.bluemix.net/docs/services/Cloudant/api/cloudant_query.html#sort-syntax
Another approach that may be useful for you is the _changes api:
https://console.bluemix.net/docs/services/Cloudant/api/database.html#get-changes
The changes API allows you to receive a continuous feed of changes in your database. You could feed these changes into a D3 chart for example.

What is the role of Logstash Shipper and Logstash Indexer in ELK stack?

I have been studying online about ELK stack for my new project.
Although most of the tech blogs are about how to set ELK up.
Although I need more information to begin with.
What is Logstash ? Further, Logstash Shipper and Indexer.
What is Elasticsearch's role ?
Any leads will be appreciated too if not a proper answer.
I will try to explain the elk stack to you with an example.
Applications generate logs which all have the same format ( timestamp | loglevel | message ) on any machine in our cluster and write those logs to some file.
Filebeat (a logshipper from elk) tracks that file, gathers any updates to the file periodically and forwards them to logstash over the network. Unlike logstash Filebeat is a lightweight application that uses very little resources so I don't mind running it on every machine in the cluster. It notices when logstash is down and waits with tranferring data until logstash is running again (no logs are lost).
Logstash receives messages from all log shippers through the network and applies filters to the messages. In our case it splits up each entry into timestamp, loglevel and message. These are separate fields and can later be searched easily. Any messages that do not conform to that format will get a field: invalid logformat. These messages with fields are now forwarded to elastic search in a speed that elastic search can handle.
Elastic search stores all messages and indexes ( prepares for quick search) all the fields im the messages. It is our database.
We then use Kibana (also from elk) as a gui for accessing the logs. In kibana I can do something like: show me all logs from between 3-5 pm today with loglevel error whose message contains MyClass. Kibana will ask elasticsearch for the results and display them
I don't know, if this helps, but ... whatever... Let's take some really stupid example: I want to do statistics about squirrels in my neighborhood. Every squirrel has a name and we know what they look like. Each neighbor makes a log entry whenever he sees a squirrel eating a nut.
ElasticSearch is a document database that structures data in so called indices. It is able to save pieces (shards) of those indices redundantly on multiple servers and gives you great search functionalities. so you can access huge amounts of data very quickly.
Here we might have finished events that look like this:
{
"_index": "squirrels-2018",
"_id": "zr7zejfhs7fzfud",
"_version": 1,
"_source": {
"squirrel": "Bethany",
"neighbor": "A",
"#timestamp": "2018-10-26T15:22:35.613Z",
"meal": "hazelnut",
}
}
Logstash is the data collector and transformator. It's able to accept data from many different sources (files, databases, transport protocols, ...) with its input plugins. After using one of those input plugins all the data is stored in an Event object that can be manipulated with filters (add data, remove data, load additional data from other sources). When the data has the desired format, it can be distributed to many different outputs.
If neighbor A provides a MySQL database with the columns 'squirrel', 'time' and 'ate', but neighbor B likes to write CSVs with the columns 'name', 'nut' and 'when', we can use Logstash to accept both inputs. Then we rename the fields and parse the different datetime formats those neighbors might be using. If one of them likes to call Bethany 'Beth' we can change the data here to make it consistent. Eventually we send the result to ElasticSearch (and maybe other outputs as well).
Kibana is a visualization tool. It allows you to get an overview over your index structures and server status and create diagrams for your ElasticSearch data
Here we can do funny diagrams like 'Squirrel Sightings Per Minute' or 'Fattest Squirrel (based on nut intake)'