Knowledgebase

Telegraf is an open-source, powerful agent for collecting and reporting metrics from various systems, applications, and IoT devices. It is often used as part of the TICK stack (Telegraf, InfluxDB, Chronograf, Kapacitor) to monitor, collect, and visualize data in real time. By installing Telegraf on your VPS, you can gather valuable system metrics such as CPU usage, memory usage, disk activity, and network statistics, among others. This data can then be sent to an InfluxDB database for long-term storage and analysis.

In this guide, we will walk you through how to install and configure Telegraf on a VPS for system monitoring.

Step 1: Set Up Your VPS

1. Choose a VPS

   • For system monitoring, your VPS doesn’t need too much power, but make sure it has enough CPU, RAM, and disk space to run Telegraf alongside other services. A minimum of 1 GB of RAM should be sufficient for basic monitoring tasks.

2. Access Your VPS via SSH

   • After creating your VPS, access it through SSH:
      

     ssh username@your-vps-ip

3. Update the System

   • Ensure your system is up-to-date before installing Telegraf:
      

     sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2: Install Telegraf on Ubuntu VPS

Telegraf is available as a package for various Linux distributions. Below are the steps to install it on an Ubuntu VPS (we’ll use Ubuntu 20.04 LTS as an example).

1. Add the InfluxData Repository

   • Telegraf is developed by InfluxData, and you need to add its official repository for installation.
      

     sudo apt install -y software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository ppa:influxdata/influxdb sudo apt update

2. Install Telegraf

   • Now that the repository is added, you can install Telegraf using apt:
      

     sudo apt install telegraf -y

3. Start Telegraf Service

   • After installation, the Telegraf service should start automatically. If it doesn’t, start it manually with:
      

     sudo systemctl start telegraf

4. Enable Telegraf to Start on Boot

   • To ensure Telegraf starts every time the VPS reboots, enable it:
      

     sudo systemctl enable telegraf

Step 3: Verify Telegraf Installation

1. Check the Telegraf Service Status

   • Ensure Telegraf is running properly by checking its service status:
      

     sudo systemctl status telegraf
   • The output should indicate that Telegraf is active and running.

2. Verify Telegraf is Collecting Data

   • You can check whether Telegraf is collecting metrics by viewing its log output:
      

     sudo tail -f /var/log/telegraf/telegraf.log

Step 4: Configure Telegraf for System Monitoring

Telegraf collects system metrics by using input plugins. The configuration file, usually located at /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf, defines what data Telegraf should collect and where it should send the collected data.

1. Locate the Telegraf Configuration File

   • The default Telegraf configuration file is located at:
      

     /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

2. Edit the Configuration File

   • Open the file in your preferred text editor (e.g., nano):
      

     sudo nano /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

3. Configure Input Plugins

   • Telegraf comes with many pre-configured input plugins. To monitor basic system metrics like CPU, memory, disk, and network statistics, you need to ensure the relevant sections are enabled.
   • Look for sections like the following and uncomment (remove the #) to enable the plugins:
     • CPU Monitoring
        

       [[inputs.cpu]] percpu = true totalcpu = true fielddrop = ["time_*"]
     • Memory Monitoring
        

       [[inputs.mem]]
     • Disk Monitoring
        

       [[inputs.disk]] ignore_fs = ["tmpfs", "devtmpfs"]
     • Network Monitoring
        

       [[inputs.net]]

4. Configure Output Plugins

   • By default, Telegraf will send the collected metrics to InfluxDB. If you want to send metrics to an InfluxDB instance, ensure the [outputs.influxdb] section is configured properly:
      

     [[outputs.influxdb]] urls = ["http://localhost:8086"] database = "telegraf" username = "telegraf" password = "metrics_password"
   • Replace the urls, database, username, and password with your own InfluxDB server details.

Step 5: Restart Telegraf

After configuring Telegraf, you need to restart the service to apply the changes:

Step 6: Verify Data Collection and Visualization

Once Telegraf is configured and restarted, it will begin collecting system metrics. To ensure the data is being sent to InfluxDB and can be visualized:

1. Access InfluxDB

   • You need to ensure InfluxDB is running on your VPS (you can follow a guide to install and configure InfluxDB if it is not installed already).
   • Connect to your InfluxDB instance using the Influx CLI or a web-based dashboard like Chronograf.

2. View Metrics in InfluxDB

   • To verify that metrics are being collected, log into the InfluxDB CLI:
      

     influx
   • List available databases:
      

     SHOW DATABASES;
   • Select the telegraf database:
      

     USE telegraf;
   • Check if any measurements are available:
      

     SHOW MEASUREMENTS;

Step 7: Use Grafana for Visualization (Optional)

For better visualization and monitoring of the collected metrics, it’s recommended to use Grafana, a powerful open-source analytics and visualization platform that integrates seamlessly with InfluxDB.

1. Install Grafana

   • To install Grafana, follow the official Grafana installation guide.

2. Connect Grafana to InfluxDB

   • Once Grafana is installed, configure it to use InfluxDB as a data source. Navigate to Configuration → Data Sources in the Grafana dashboard and select InfluxDB as the source.
   • Provide the connection details (URL, database name, username, and password) for your InfluxDB instance.

3. Create Dashboards

   • Use Grafana’s powerful dashboard features to create custom views and charts for visualizing system metrics collected by Telegraf, such as CPU usage, memory usage, disk space, and network traffic.

Step 8: Maintain Telegraf and Monitor Performance

1. Monitor Telegraf Logs

   • To ensure Telegraf is running smoothly, periodically check the Telegraf logs for any errors or issues:
      

     sudo tail -f /var/log/telegraf/telegraf.log

2. Update Telegraf

   • Keep Telegraf up-to-date with the latest improvements and bug fixes:
      

     sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade telegraf -y

Conclusion

Telegraf is a versatile and easy-to-use tool for monitoring the performance of your VPS. By installing and configuring Telegraf, you can collect valuable metrics on CPU, memory, disk, and network performance. Combined with InfluxDB and Grafana, you have a powerful, customizable monitoring stack that can help you track the health and performance of your system in real-time.

For more advanced monitoring setups, you can explore additional input plugins for Telegraf (such as for databases, web servers, or cloud services) and fine-tune the configuration to suit your needs.