This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org:
---
Title       : 	Set up a Collectd server with web frontend
Author      : 	Remy van Elst
Date        : 	09-04-2013
URL         : 	https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Collectd_server_setup_tutorial_with_web_frontend.html
Format      : 	Markdown/HTML
---



This tutorial shows you how to set up a collectd server. It also shows you how
to set up the collectd-web frontend, an interactive gui for collectd and has it
all firewalled. What is collectd? collectd gathers statistics about the system
it is running on and stores this information. Those statistics can then be used
to find current performance bottlenecks (i.e. performance analysis) and predict
future system load (i.e. capacity planning). Or if you just want pretty graphs
of your private server and are fed up with some homegrown solution you're at the
right place, too ;). A collectd server is able to receive data from collectd
clients.

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[The collectd client tutorial can be found here][2].

We will first set up Collectd on the server, and configure it to listen on the
network. Then we will enable the web GUI, and use NGINX to reverse proxy it.
_Collectd client configuration is not handled by this tutorial._ This tutorial
is tested on Debian 6, Debian 7, Ubuntu 10.04 and Ubuntu 12.04. However, the
configuration works on any other distro.

#### Installing Collectd

First install all the required packages:

    
    
    sudo apt-get install collectd librrds-perl libconfig-general-perl libhtml-parser-perl libregexp-common-perl liburi-perl libjson-perl restartd python nginx
    

The collectd web interface has a few perl dependencies. Restartd will be used to
make sure the webinterface is running, and NGINX will be used to proxy the
webinterface to the outside.

#### Configuring Collectd as a network server

Open your favorite editor and edit the `/etc/collectd/collectd.conf` file. Read
it, then remove it all and make sure it looks like the below config file:

    
    
    ## /etc/collectd/collectd.conf 
    
    Hostname $HOSTNAME$
    FQDNLookup false
    ## This can be higher if you have a more powerfull box
    Interval 30
    ## This can be higher if you have a more powerfull box
    ReadThreads 1
    LoadPlugin syslog
    <Plugin syslog>
            LogLevel info
    </Plugin>
    
    LoadPlugin cpu
    LoadPlugin df
    LoadPlugin disk
    LoadPlugin entropy
    LoadPlugin interface
    LoadPlugin irq
    LoadPlugin load
    LoadPlugin memory
    LoadPlugin processes
    LoadPlugin rrdtool
    LoadPlugin swap
    LoadPlugin users
    LoadPlugin network
    
    ## Server config
    <Plugin "network">
      # Can also be "*" "25826" to listen on 0.0.0.0
      Listen "$EXTERNAL_IPV4$" "25826"
      Listen "$EXTERNAL_IPV6$" "25826"
      ReportStats true
      SecurityLevel None 
    </Plugin>
    
    ## Extra Plugins
    ## remove to disable
    LoadPlugin nginx
    LoadPlugin iptables
    LoadPlugin uptime
    LoadPlugin dns
    LoadPlugin ping
    
    
    <Plugin rrdtool>
            DataDir "/var/lib/collectd/rrd"
    </Plugin>
    
    Include "/etc/collectd/filters.conf"
    Include "/etc/collectd/plugins.conf"
    Include "/etc/collectd/thresholds.conf"
    

The configuration file is relatively simple. Make sure to replace $VARIABLE$ by
the correct on for your server. You load plugins via `"LoadPlugin $name"`. The
network part is important, this defines the server. Collectd supports both IPv4
and IPv6, I have a few IPv6 IP's in the listen part, and "0.0.0.0" as IPv4
address. _Make sure the file has a blank newline at the end. If it has not,
collectd will fail to start/run correctly_.

#### Configure collectd plugins

Now create the following file: `/etc/collectd/plugins.conf`, it doesn't exist by
default. This will house the plugin config. Add the following content to it, but
make sure it matches your LoadPlugin settings above. If you don't have the ping
plugin, you also don't need the config for it.

    
    
    ## /etc/collectd/plugins.conf 
    
    ## Static Plugins (every host has them)
    <Plugin swap>
           ReportByDevice false
    </Plugin>
    
    
    ## Dynamic Plugins (loaded by Ansible based on options)
    <Plugin nginx>
           URL "http://127.0.0.1/nginx_status"
    </Plugin>
    
    <Plugin ntpd>
           Host "localhost"
           Port 123
           ReverseLookups false
    </Plugin>
    
    <Plugin ping>
           Host "google.com"
    </Plugin>
    
    <Plugin sensors>
           SensorConfigFile "/etc/sensors3.conf"
           Sensor "it8712-isa-0290/temperature-temp1"
           Sensor "it8712-isa-0290/fanspeed-fan3"
           Sensor "it8712-isa-0290/voltage-in8"
           IgnoreSelected false
    </Plugin>
    
    <Plugin write_graphite>
           <Carbon>
                   Host "$GRAPHITE_HOST$"
                   Port "2003"
                   Prefix "collectd"
                   Postfix "collectd"
                   StoreRates false
                   AlwaysAppendDS false
                   EscapeCharacter "_"
           </Carbon>
    </Plugin>
    

Collectd server is now set up in "server" mode. To test it we restart the
service:

    
    
    /etc/init.d/collectd restart
    

And then check the `/var/lib/collectd/rrd/` folder and you should see some files
and folders (rrd libraries). If not then your collectd is setup wrong, see
syslog for more info.

#### Set up the web frontend

Clone the git repository to your home directory, or any other folder, but
remember the path:

    
    
    git://github.com/RaymiiOrg/collectd-web.git
    

Move into the folder and start the app:

    
    
    cd collectd-web
    python runserver.py
    

You should now be able to go to "localhost:8888" on the host and see the web
interface. If you need to test it from the outside, use an ssh tunnel:

    
    
    ssh -t -t -L 8888:localhost:8888 USER@SERVER.COM
    

You can now view the app in your local web browser via `http://localhost:8888`

#### Set up restartd

We will use restartd to make sure the app works even after reboot or when it
crashes. This could also be done with a nice init script, but this works the
easiest way.

Edit `/etc/restartd.conf` and make sure it has the following in it:

    
    
    collectd-web ".*runserver.py" "su $USER -l -c 'pushd /home/$USER/collectd-web/ &amp;&amp; /usr/bin/python /home/$USER/collectd-web/runserver.py' >> /var/log/$USER-collectd-server.log" "/bin/echo 'collectd-server running' >> /var/log/$USER-collectd-server.log"
    

Make sure you change $USER to the username which has the application, and check
if the paths are correct. If so then restart restartd:

    
    
    /etc/init.d/restartd restart
    

(Funny isn't that? Restarting restartd?)

#### Use NGINX as a reverse proxy

If you want to make your collectd publicly available the you should follow this
part. If you don't want that and you find the SSH port forwarding tunnel works
for you, then use that.

Add the following to your NGINX configuration to set it up as reverse proxy for
the collectd server:

# It should be in a server {} block.

    
    
    location /collectd {
        rewrite ^/collectd(/.*)$ $1 break;
        proxy_pass  http://127.0.0.1:8888/;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;
        proxy_redirect    off;
    }
    

Restart NGINX:

    
    
    /etc/init.d/nginx configtest
    /etc/init.d/nginx restart
    

Now you can reach the collectd at http://your-server/collectd.

#### Configuring the firewall

You should only allow hosts you set up to connect and send data to collectd.
Collectd supports authentication and singing, but I've had performance issues
with that on <512MB VPS servers, so that's why I firewall. The following
`iptables` and `ip6tables` rules should be added for all the hosts, so change
the IP address every time:

    
    
    /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p udp -s 1.2.3.4 --dport 25826 -j ACCEPT
    /sbin/ip6tables -A INPUT -p udp -s fe80::feda:6cc1 --dport 25826 -j ACCEPT
    

If you have set up all the collectd client IP addresses in iptables, close the
gate:

    
    
    /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p -udp --dport 25826 -j REJECT --reject-with udp-reset
    /sbin/ip6tables -A INPUT -p -udp --dport 25826 -j REJECT --reject-with udp-reset
    

Now you have a fully working collectd server set up.

   [1]: https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=7435ae6b8212
   [2]: https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Collectd_client_setup_tutorial.html

---

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