Consul

Plugin: go.d.plugin Module: consul

Overview

This collector monitors key metrics of Consul Agents: transaction timings, leadership changes, memory usage and more.

It periodically sends HTTP requests to Consul REST API.

Used endpoints:

• /operator/autopilot/health
• /agent/checks
• /agent/self
• /agent/metrics
• /coordinate/nodes

This collector is supported on all platforms.

This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration, including remote instances.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

This collector discovers instances running on the local host, that provide metrics on port 8500.

On startup, it tries to collect metrics from:

• http://localhost:8500
• http://127.0.0.1:8500

Limits

The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.

Performance Impact

The default configuration for this integration is not expected to impose a significant performance impact on the system.

Setup

You can configure the consul collector in two ways:

:::important

UI configuration requires paid Netdata Cloud plan.

:::

Prerequisites

Enable Prometheus telemetry

Enable telemetry on your Consul Agent, by increasing the value of prometheus_retention_time from 0.

Add required ACLs to Token

Required only if authentication is enabled.

Configuration

Options

The following options can be defined globally: update_every, autodetection_retry.

via UI

Configure the consul collector from the Netdata web interface:

1. Go to Nodes.
2. Select the node where you want the consul data-collection job to run and click the :gear: (Configure this node). That node will run the data collection.
3. The Collectors → Jobs view opens by default.
4. In the Search box, type consul (or scroll the list) to locate the consul collector.
5. Click the + next to the consul collector to add a new job.
6. Fill in the job fields, then click Test to verify the configuration and Submit to save.
   • Test runs the job with the provided settings and shows whether data can be collected.
   • If it fails, an error message appears with details (for example, connection refused, timeout, or command execution errors), so you can adjust and retest.

via File

The configuration file name for this integration is go.d/consul.conf.

The file format is YAML. Generally, the structure is:

update_every: 1
autodetection_retry: 0
jobs:
  - name: some_name1
  - name: some_name2

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config go.d/consul.conf

Examples

Basic

An example configuration.

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: http://127.0.0.1:8500
    acl_token: "ec15675e-2999-d789-832e-8c4794daa8d7"

Basic HTTP auth

Local server with basic HTTP authentication.

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: http://127.0.0.1:8500
    acl_token: "ec15675e-2999-d789-832e-8c4794daa8d7"
    username: foo
    password: bar

Multi-instance

Note: When you define multiple jobs, their names must be unique.

Collecting metrics from local and remote instances.

jobs:
  - name: local
    url: http://127.0.0.1:8500
    acl_token: "ec15675e-2999-d789-832e-8c4794daa8d7"

  - name: remote
    url: http://203.0.113.10:8500
    acl_token: "ada7f751-f654-8872-7f93-498e799158b6"

Metrics

Metrics grouped by scope.

The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.

The set of metrics depends on the Consul Agent mode.

Per Consul instance

These metrics refer to the entire monitored application.

This scope has no labels.

Metrics:

Per node check

Metrics about checks on Node level.

Labels:

Metrics:

Per service check

Metrics about checks at a Service level.

Labels:

Metrics:

Alerts

The following alerts are available:

Troubleshooting

Debug Mode

Important: Debug mode is not supported for data collection jobs created via the UI using the Dyncfg feature.

To troubleshoot issues with the consul collector, run the go.d.plugin with the debug option enabled. The output should give you clues as to why the collector isn’t working.

• Navigate to the plugins.d directory, usually at /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that’s not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the plugins setting under [directories].

  cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/
  

• Switch to the netdata user.

  sudo -u netdata -s
  

• Run the go.d.plugin to debug the collector:

  ./go.d.plugin -d -m consul
  

  To debug a specific job:

  ./go.d.plugin -d -m consul -j jobName
  

Getting Logs

If you’re encountering problems with the consul collector, follow these steps to retrieve logs and identify potential issues:

• Run the command specific to your system (systemd, non-systemd, or Docker container).
• Examine the output for any warnings or error messages that might indicate issues. These messages should provide clues about the root cause of the problem.

System with systemd

Use the following command to view logs generated since the last Netdata service restart:

journalctl _SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID="$(systemctl show --value --property=InvocationID netdata)" --namespace=netdata --grep consul

System without systemd

Locate the collector log file, typically at /var/log/netdata/collector.log, and use grep to filter for collector’s name:

grep consul /var/log/netdata/collector.log

Note: This method shows logs from all restarts. Focus on the latest entries for troubleshooting current issues.

Docker Container

If your Netdata runs in a Docker container named “netdata” (replace if different), use this command:

docker logs netdata 2>&1 | grep consul