StatsD Embedded into CollectD

embedded StatsD in CollectD
Since version 5.4, CollectD implements the StatsD network protocol. This means that you might not need to run two separate processes anymore.

About StatsD in CollectD

StatsD and CollectD are complementary monitoring solutions:

Stats is an event counter/aggregation service. Simply send events to this external service to monitor your own code. The aggregated events are periodically sent to a database.
CollectD is a statistics collection daemon. It periodically polls various sources, such as your OS, CPU, RAM, and network, but also many databases and software.

StatsD is also “embedded” into CollectD since v5.4 with the StatsD plugin. CollectD can now act as a StatsD process.

Requirements

CollectD installed
Tutorial: How to install CollectD on Debian / Ubuntu
Tutorial: How to install CollectD On CentOS / Fedora

Install StatsD Plugin for CollectD

Edit the CollectD configuration file usually located at /opt/collectd/etc/collectd.conf

Uncomment or add StatsD plugin and configuration:

LoadPlugin statsd

  Host "0.0.0.0"
  Port "8125"
  DeleteSets     true

LoadPlugin statsd

Host "0.0.0.0"

Port "8125"

DeleteSets true

Don’t forget to restart CollectD:

$ 
$ service collectd restart
$

$ service collectd restart

Host “0.0.0.0”: Listen to any IP. Change to “127.0.0.1” to only allow localhost to send metrics.
port 8125: Where StatsD metrics will be received.
DeleteSets true: The values of type sets metrics will not be sent if they didn’t change since the last interval.

Read more about StatsD plugin configuration.

Calling CollectD StatsD

Many StatsD client libraries exist in various programming languages. Pick your favorite and call StatsD on port 8125. It’s also possible to call the plugin from the command line:

$
$ echo "my.own.metric:1|c" | nc -w 1 -u 127.0.0.1 8125
$ echo "my.own.metric:4|c" | nc -w 1 -u 127.0.0.1 8125
$

$ echo "my.own.metric:1|c" | nc -w 1 -u 127.0.0.1 8125

$ echo "my.own.metric:4|c" | nc -w 1 -u 127.0.0.1 8125

If, like us, your CollectD sends its metrics to InfluxDB, you should see the values in your database.

Calling both commands:

Within the interval will result in an aggregate value of 5
Out of the interval will result in two values: 4 and 1

influxdb statsd aggregated

Conclusion

StatsD is a very clever idea implemented in simple software. It behavior was replicated in 730 lines of C.

This Plugin is stable and was able to achieve 50k events per second on commodity hardware. If you already run CollectD and don’t need to run StatsD at scale it is highly recommended that you use this plugin to save yourself the pain of running both services.

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