statsender

statsender collects and sends out various PostgreSQL server statistics. It was designed to work together with pgmeter to provide end-to-end monitoring of distributed PostgreSQL databases.

Install

1. Download the latest release for your system.
2. Unzip the downloaded zip archive, containing a single binary called statsender (Linux) or statsender.exe (Windows).
3. (Optional) add statsender binary to PATH. (Linux instructions) (Windows instructions)
4. Verify the installation by executing statsender in a terminal. You should see output like this:

Usage:                                                                        
  statsender [command]                                                        
                                                                              
Available Commands:                                                           
  collector   Manage collectors                                               
  datasource  Manage datasources                                              
  help        Help about any command                                          
  init        Initializes the application config                              
  run         Runs the application in detached mode                           
  sender      Manage senders                                                  
  try         Tests the application                                           
                                                                              
Flags:                                                                        
  -c, --config string   sets configuration directory location (default "conf")
  -h, --help            help for statsender                                   
  -v, --verbose         verbose output                                        
      --version         version for statsender                                
                                                                              
Use "statsender [command] --help" for more information about a command.

Try it out!

This is a simplest use case: you have a local PostgreSQL server running on default port, with enabled pg_stat_statements, and pgmeter is running somewhere, with default configuration.

1. Run statsender init to generate first, default configuration files and examples. By default, they'll appear in a new directory ./conf

2. Define your DB connection: statsender datasource add <login>:<password>@localhost/<database>?sslmode=disable

   Remember to use superuser or restricted monitoring user credentials.

3. Define the web location of pgmeter: statsender sender add http <pgmeter_endpoint>

4. Test the connection: statsender try

   You should see something like:

   [INFO] reading configuration...                     
   [OK] configuration structure is valid               
                                                       
   [INFO] testing collectors...                        
   (...)                                        
   [OK] collector structure is valid                   
                                                       
   [INFO] testing datasources...                       
   (...)         
   [OK] datasource structure is valid                  
                                                       
   [INFO] testing senders...                           
   [OK] sender structure is valid                      
                                                       
   [INFO] Test complete! Looks like you are good to go!
   

5. Run: statsender run to start collecting statistics in the background. Default log directory is ./logs

6. Congratulations! If you want to learn some more detailed stuff now, see the next section.

Detailed configuration

statsender is based around three main concepts: datasources, collectors and senders:

• datasource defines from where to collect statistics
• collector defines what to collect from the datasource
• sender defines where to send the collected statistics

In most cases, you'll be fine with the default collector setup - however, you'll need to define datasources and senders by yourself, either editing configuration files by hand, or using the CLI.

statsender uses HCL (Hashicorp Configuration Language) as its primary configuration language. However, the equivalent JSON structure will also be accepted. To read the configuration, all the .hcl and .json files in the given configuration directory (default is ./conf) are parsed - so you can split your config into as many files as you want.

Pro tip: cd conf and see the configuration files generated by statsender init. They provide many examples how to customize the statsender. Feel free to experiment with them. Running statsender try allows you to see the result without any consequences.

Datasources

Datasources define from where to collect statistics. You can define more than one datasource, for example if you run many databases on a single machine. If you really want, you can also define remote datasources, on different machines (but remember that you won't get system stats from them).

CLI

statsender datasource add <DSN> [<tags>]

• DSN: [postgresql://]login:password@host[:port]/dbname[?param1=value1&...]
• optional tags provided as flags --tag key1=value1 --tag key2=value2 ...

Examples:

• statsender datasource add user:pass@localhost/testdb
• statsender datasource add postgresql://user:pass@localhost:6432/testdb
• statsender datasource add user:pass@10.0.3.13/proddb?sslmode=disable --tag env=prod --tag iteration=v1

Example HCL block

datasource {
  host = "10.0.3.13"
  port = 5432
  username = "user"
  password = "pass"
  dbname = "proddb"
  sslmode = "disable"
  tags = {
    env = "prod",
    iteration = "v1"
  }
}

Senders

Senders define where to send the collected statistics. There is console sender (used for debugging) and http sender (to send statistics to pgmeter). You can define any number of senders.

CLI

statsender sender add <type> [<spec>]

• type: console or http
• spec:
  • if console, then none
  • if http, then full address of a target: http[s]://host[:port][/endpoint]

Examples:

• statsender sender add console
• statsender sender add http 10.0.1.1:8080/stats
• statsender sender add http 10.0.1.1:8080/stats --retries 5 --delay 60

Example HCL blocks

console {}

http {
  target = "http://10.0.1.1:8080/stats"
  retryDelay = 60
  maxRetries = 5
}

Collectors

Collectors defines what to collect from the datasource. There is probably no need to change anything in this section. However, if you want, see the reference of all possible collectors, CLI below and examples in ./conf/_collectors.hcl

CLI

statsender collector enable <type> enables a collector.

statsender collector disable <type> disables a collector.

statsender collector schedule <type> <cron> changes the cron schedule of a collector.

• type: full name of a collector (see reference)
• cron: (quoted) string representing desired cron expression

Examples:

• statsender collector enable cpu
• statsender collector disable pg_stat_statements
• statsender collector schedule pg_stat_user_indexes @hourly
• statsender collector schedule pg_stat_user_indexes '0 0 * * * *'

Example HCL blocks

system {
  cpu {
    cron    = "*/5 * * * * *"
    enabled = true
  }
}

postgres {
  pg_stat_statements {
    cron    = "@hourly"
    enabled = false
  }
  pg_stat_user_indexes {
    cron    = "0 0 * * * *"
    enabled = true
  }
}

Automated provisioning

Out-of-the-box solutions

At the moment, there are no out-of-the-box solutions like ansible plugins, puppet modules or docker images available. Fortunately, setup process can be easily scripted:

Example bash script

curl -s https://github.com/vynaloze/statsender/releases/latest/download/statsender_linux_x86_64.zip
unzip statsender_linux_x86_64.zip
./statsender init
./statsender datasource add ...
./statsender sender add http ...
./statsender run

Wiki pages

• Enable pg_stat_statements
• Set restricted monitoring user
• Full CLI reference
• Collector reference

License

The library is licensed under the MIT License.