Collect Host Metrics for the Host Metrics App

Last updated
Save as PDF
Share
1. Share
2. Tweet
3. Share

This procedure explains how to collect metrics from a host machine and ingest them into Sumo Logic for metrics visualization.

Metric Types

Available metrics include:

CPU
Memory
TCP
Network
Disk

Host metrics are gathered by the open-source SIGAR library.

Prerequisites/Requirements

The Setup Wizard is the recommended method to begin streaming data for host metrics. The wizard also installs the Sumo Logic App for host metrics.

The following sections describe manual setup.

Configure a Collector

Configure an Installed Collector. Collectors can be installed on Linux, Windows, or Mac OS hosts.

Configure a Source

Configure a Host Metrics Source. Choose Add Source and select Host Metrics as the source type.
Configure the Source Fields as follows:
1. Name. Required. Description is optional. The source name is stored in a searchable field called _sourceName.
2. Source Host. Enter the host name of the machine from which the metrics will be collected.
3. Source Category. Required. The Source Category metadata field is a fundamental building block to organize and label Sources. For details see Best Practices.
4. Scan Interval. Select the frequency for the Source to scan for hostmetrics data. Selecting a short interval will increase the message volume and could cause your deployment to incur additional charges. The default is 1 minute.
5. Metrics. Select check boxes for the metrics to collect. By default, all CPU and memory metrics are collected. Select the top level check box to select all metrics in that category. A blue checkmark icon indicates that the category is selected. To select individual metrics, click the right-facing arrow to expand the category and select the individual metrics. The icon changes to , as shown below.
Click Save.

Available Metrics

The following tables list the available host metrics.

CPU Metrics

Metric	Units	Description
CPU_User	%	Total system cpu user time
CPU_Sys	%	Total system cpu kernel time
CPU_Nice	%	Total system cpu nice time
CPU_Idle	%	Total system cpu idle time
CPU_IOWait	%	Total system cpu IO wait time
CPU_Irq	%	Total system cpu time servicing interrupts
CPU_SoftIrq	%	Total system cpu time servicing softirqs
CPU_Stolen	%	Total system cpu involuntary wait time
CPU_LoadAvg_1min*	Average	System load average for past 1 minute
CPU_LoadAvg_5min*	Average	System load average for past 5 minutes
CPU_LoadAvg_15min*	Average	System load average for past 15 minutes

Memory Metrics

Metric	Units	Description
Mem_Total	Bytes	Total amount of physical RAM
Mem_Free	Bytes	The amount of physical RAM left unused by the system
Mem_Used	Bytes	Total used system memory, calculated as `MemTotal - MemFree`
Mem_ActualFree	Bytes	Actual total free system memory calculated as: `Mem_Free + Buffers + Cached` Where `Buffers` = The amount of physical RAM used for file buffers `Cached` = The amount of physical RAM used as cache memory
Mem_ActualUsed	Bytes	Actual total used system memory
Mem_UsedPercent	%	Percent total used system memory
Mem_FreePercent	%	Percent total free system memory
Mem_PhysicalRam	Bytes	System random access memory

TCP Metrics

Metric	Units	Description
TCP_InboundTotal	Count	TCP inbound connection count
TCP_OutboundTotal	Count	TCP outbound connection count
TCP_Established	Count	TCP established connection count
TCP_Listen	Count	TCP listen connection count
TCP_Idle	Count	TCP idle connection count
TCP_Closing	Count	TCP closing connection count
TCP_CloseWait	Count	TCP close_wait connection count
TCP_Close	Count	TCP close connection count
TCP_TimeWait	Count	TCP time_wait connection count

Networking Metrics

These have one additional dimension:

Interface: Name of the network interface (example: eth0)

Networking metrics are cumulative, so you can use the rate operator to display these metrics as a rate per second

Example: metric=Net_InBytes Interface=eth0 | rate

Metric	Units	Description
Net_InPackets	Packets	Number of received packets
Net_OutPackets	Packets	Number of sent packets
Net_InBytes	Bytes	Number of received bytes
Net_OutBytes	Bytes	Number of sent bytes

Disk Metrics

Disk metrics have two additional dimensions:

DevName: Device name, such as the mount name (example: udev)
DirName: Directory name, such as the mount directory (example: /dev)

Disk_Reads, Disk_Writes, Disk_ReadBytes, and Disk_WriteBytes are cumulative, so you can use the rate operator to display these metrics as a rate per second.

Example: metric=Disk_WriteBytes | rate

Metric	Units	Description
Disk_Reads	Operations	Number of physical disk reads
Disk_ReadBytes	Bytes	Number of physical disk bytes read
Disk_Writes	Operations	Number of physical disk writes
Disk_WriteBytes	Bytes	Number of physical disk bytes written
Disk_Queue	Operations	Number of disk queue operations
Disk_InodesAvailable*	Nodes	Number of free file nodes
Disk_Used	Bytes	Total used bytes on filesystem
Disk_UsedPercent	%	Percentage of filesystem space used
Disk_Available	Bytes	Total available bytes on filesystem

Disk_InodesAvailable is not available on Windows platform

Time Intervals

The time interval determines how frequently the Source is scanned for metrics data. The Web Application supports pre-specified time intervals (10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, and 5 minutes).

You can also specify a time interval in JSON by using the interval parameter, as follows:

"interval" : 60000

The JSON parameter is in milliseconds. We recommend 60 seconds (60000 ms) or longer granularity. Specifying a shorter interval will increase the message volume and could cause your deployment to incur additional charges.

AWS Metadata

Collectors running on AWS EC2 instances can optionally collect AWS Metadata such as EC2 tags to make it easier to search for Host Metrics. For more information, see AWS Metadata Source for Metrics.

Only one AWS Metadata Source for Metrics is required to collect EC2 tags from multiple hosts.