[Nagiosplug-devel] RFC: Performance data guidelines

[Hoogendijk, Peter]

Ton,

We are in the process of developing a plugin to check information
collected by another datacollection system. Based on the 'Performance
Data' chapter in the Nagios documentation, we decided on comma-separated
'name=value' pairs. As we want to be able to transparently support the
names and values used by the other system, both the name and the value
part can optionally be quoted (with either single or double quotes). The
result is:

	Plugin Output|name1=value1, 'name 2'=value2, name3='11"',
name4="Peter's PC"

To check our procedures for processing the performance data, I also
modified the check_ping plugin. It now reports:

	PING OK - Packet loss = 0%, RTA = 1.96 ms|"Packet loss"=0%
RTA="1.96 ms"

The problem we are facing with this format is indeed the interpretation
by RRD (or in our case the script that's feeding RRD), so we are open
for suggestions. Your proposed guideline at least seems to help us find
the right direction.

Peter.


-----Original Message-----
From: Voon, Ton [mailto:Ton.Voon at egg.com] 
Sent: dinsdag 8 juli 2003 12:58
To: 'nagiosplug-devel at lists.sourceforge.net'
Subject: [Nagiosplug-devel] RFC: Performance data guidelines


Hi!

One of the features required for 1.4 is performance data. I would like
to write up the guidelines for this, but wanted confirmation if this is
the right way to go, so any comments would be appreciated.

I think perf data should have/be:

- short labels
- generic and common labels across plugins if possible
- comma separated, no spaces. Regex format: [a-z0-9]+=[0-9]?\.?[0-9]+
- redundant data removed (eg, if check_disk returns pct and number
(free), can calculate used bytes)

My suggestion for labels are:

Name ; Units ; printf format ; Details
time ; seconds ; %.3f ; time taken to do a specific check (eg DNS query,
HTTP request, ping RTA) pct ; percent ; %.3f ; percentage (free rather
than used if applicable) (eg total disk, total swap, ping percent loss)
number ; must be bytes if applicable ; %d ; a given number of things
(free rather than used if applicable) (eg processes, users, bytes used
such as total disk or total swap) numberf ; float ; %.3f ; a given
number of things that may be fractional (eg, load average, average bytes
transmitted) counter ; a continuous counter (must be bytes if
applicable) ; %d ; a continuous counter (eg bytes transmitted on an
interface) load1 ; load ; %.2f ; load average over 1 min load5 ; load ;
%.2f ; load average over 5 min load15 ; load ; %.2f ; load average over
15 min

Contentious points:
- loadx. Not really keen on these, but don't seem to fit into any other
labels, unless we only return load5 and use numberf
- taking free values rather than used. This is consistent with the
output for check_disk and check_swap. Looking at graphs, I guess you
want to see it nearer zero which is your definite limit, rather than
continuously increasing
- maybe numberf is not required, but we say that number could be
fractional. I think this maybe better as RRD doesn't care whether values
are integers or not
- too reductionalist? Would you prefer labels that describe the measure?
I think the labels should be generic and the plugin describes the
context

As an example, the patches submitted on SF for check_ping had perf
labels of rta and loss, but I think these should be time and pct
respectively. I think this makes it easier for something like RRD to
work out what type of value it is to draw the graphs. Why the returned
values are bad is then up to interpretation (and that is the key to any
performance analysis!).

Ton


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