* Can be used as a drop-in replacement for Prometheus for scraping targets such as [node_exporter](https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter). See [Quick Start](#quick-start) for details.
* Can read data from Kafka. See [these docs](#reading-metrics-from-kafka).
* Can write data to Kafka. See [these docs](#writing-metrics-to-kafka).
* Can add, remove and modify labels (aka tags) via Prometheus relabeling. Can filter data before sending it to remote storage. See [these docs](#relabeling) for details.
* InfluxDB line protocol via `http://<vmagent>:8429/write`. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-send-data-from-influxdb-compatible-agents-such-as-telegraf).
* Graphite plaintext protocol if `-graphiteListenAddr` command-line flag is set. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-send-data-from-graphite-compatible-agents-such-as-statsd).
* OpenTSDB telnet and http protocols if `-opentsdbListenAddr` command-line flag is set. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-send-data-from-opentsdb-compatible-agents).
* JSON lines import protocol via `http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import`. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-import-data-in-json-line-format).
* Native data import protocol via `http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import/native`. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-import-data-in-native-format).
* Prometheus exposition format via `http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import/prometheus`. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-import-data-in-prometheus-exposition-format) for details.
* Arbitrary CSV data via `http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import/csv`. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-import-csv-data).
* Scrape targets can be spread among multiple `vmagent` instances when big number of targets must be scraped. See [these docs](#scraping-big-number-of-targets).
* Can efficiently scrape targets that expose millions of time series such as [/federate endpoint in Prometheus](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/federation/). See [these docs](#stream-parsing-mode).
* Can deal with [high cardinality](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/FAQ.html#what-is-high-cardinality) and [high churn rate](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/FAQ.html#what-is-high-churn-rate) issues by limiting the number of unique time series at scrape time and before sending them to remote storage systems. See [these docs](#cardinality-limiter).
*`-promscrape.config` with the path to Prometheus config file (usually located at `/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml`)
*`-remoteWrite.url` with the remote storage endpoint such as VictoriaMetrics, the `-remoteWrite.url` argument can be specified multiple times to replicate data concurrently to an arbitrary number of remote storage systems.
Then send InfluxDB data to `http://vmagent-host:8429`. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-send-data-from-influxdb-compatible-agents-such-as-telegraf) for more details.
`vmagent` should be restarted in order to update config options set via command-line args.
`vmagent` supports multiple approaches for reloading configs from updated config files such as `-promscrape.config`, `-remoteWrite.relabelConfig` and `-remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig`:
* Sending `SUGHUP` signal to `vmagent` process:
```bash
kill -SIGHUP `pidof vmagent`
```
* Sending HTTP request to `http://vmagent:8429/-/reload` endpoint.
There is also `-promscrape.configCheckInterval` command-line option, which can be used for automatic reloading configs from updated `-promscrape.config` file.
If a single remote storage instance temporarily is out of service, then the collected data remains available in another remote storage instance.
`vmagent` buffers the collected data in files at `-remoteWrite.tmpDataPath` until the remote storage becomes available again and then it sends the buffered data to the remote storage in order to prevent data gaps.
which is applied independently for each configured `-remoteWrite.url` destination. For example, it is possible to replicate or split
data among long-term remote storage, short-term remote storage and a real-time analytical system [built on top of Kafka](https://github.com/Telefonica/prometheus-kafka-adapter).
Note that each destination can receive it's own subset of the collected data due to per-destination relabeling via `-remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig`.
While `vmagent` can accept data in several supported protocols (OpenTSDB, Influx, Prometheus, Graphite) and scrape data from various targets, writes are always peformed in Promethes remote_write protocol. Therefore for the [clustered version](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html), `-remoteWrite.url` the command-line flag should be configured as `<schema>://<vminsert-host>:8480/insert/<accountID>/prometheus/api/v1/write` according to [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html#url-format). There is also support for multitenant writes. See [these docs](#multitenancy).
## Multitenancy
By default `vmagent` collects the data without tenant identifiers and routes it to the configured `-remoteWrite.url`. But it can accept multitenant data if `-remoteWrite.multitenantURL` is set. In this case it accepts multitenant data at `http://vmagent:8429/insert/<accountID>/...` in the same way as cluster version of VictoriaMetrics does according to [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Cluster-VictoriaMetrics.html#url-format) and routes it to `<-remoteWrite.multitenantURL>/insert/<accountID>/prometheus/api/v1/write`. If multiple `-remoteWrite.multitenantURL` command-line options are set, then `vmagent` replicates the collected data across all the configured urls. This allows using a single `vmagent` instance in front of VictoriaMetrics clusters for processing the data from all the tenants.
All other sections are ignored, including the [remote_write](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#remote_write) section.
Use `-remoteWrite.*` command-line flag instead for configuring remote write settings.
The following scrape types in [scrape_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#scrape_config) section are supported:
*`static_configs` - is for scraping statically defined targets. See [these docs](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#static_config) for details.
*`file_sd_configs` - is for scraping targets defined in external files (aka file-based service discover).
See [these docs](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#file_sd_config) for details
Please file feature requests to [our issue tracker](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues) if you need other service discovery mechanisms to be supported by `vmagent`.
*`disable_compression: true` - to disable response compression on a per-job basis. By default `vmagent` requests compressed responses from scrape targets
to save network bandwidth.
*`disable_keepalive: true` - to disable [HTTP keep-alive connections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_persistent_connection) on a per-job basis.
By default, `vmagent` uses keep-alive connections to scrape targets to reduce overhead on connection re-establishing.
*`stream_parse: true` - for scraping targets in a streaming manner. This may be useful for targets exporting big number of metrics. See [these docs](#stream-parsing-mode).
*`scrape_align_interval: duration` - for aligning scrapes to the given interval instead of using random offset in the range `[0 ... scrape_interval]` for scraping each target. The random offset helps spreading scrapes evenly in time.
*`scrape_offset: duration` - for specifying the exact offset for scraping instead of using random offset in the range `[0 ... scrape_interval]`.
*`relabel_debug: true` - for enabling debug logging during relabeling of the discovered targets. See [these docs](#relabeling).
*`metric_relabel_debug: true` - for enabling debug logging during relabeling of the scraped metrics. See [these docs](#relabeling).
The file pointed by `-promscrape.config` may contain `%{ENV_VAR}` placeholders which are substituted by the corresponding `ENV_VAR` environment variable values.
`vmagent` supports loading scrape configs from multiple files specified in the `scrape_config_files` section of `-promscrape.config` file. For example, the following `-promscrape.config` instructs `vmagent` loading scrape configs from all the `*.yml` files under `configs` directory plus a `single_scrape_config.yml` file:
```yml
scrape_config_files:
- configs/*.yml
- single_scrape_config.yml
```
Every referred file can contain arbitrary number of any [supported scrape configs](#how-to-collect-metrics-in-prometheus-format). There is no need in specifying top-level `scrape_configs` section in these files. For example:
```yml
- job_name: foo
static_configs:
- targets: ["vmagent:8429"]
- job_name: bar
kubernetes_sd_configs:
- role: pod
```
`vmagent` dynamically reloads these files on `SIGHUP` signal or on the request to `http://vmagent:8429/-/reload`.
* The `global -> external_labels` section in `-promscrape.config` file. These labels are added only to metrics scraped from targets configured in the `-promscrape.config` file. They aren't added to metrics collected via other [data ingestion protocols](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#how-to-import-time-series-data).
* The `-remoteWrite.label` command-line flag. These labels are added to all the collected metrics before sending them to `-remoteWrite.url`. For example, the following command will start `vmagent`, which will add `{datacenter="foobar"}` label to all the metrics pushed to all the configured remote storage systems (all the `-remoteWrite.url` flag values):
They provide the following additional actions on top of actions from the [Prometheus relabeling](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#relabel_config):
*`replace_all`: replaces all of the occurences of `regex` in the values of `source_labels` with the `replacement` and stores the results in the `target_label`.
*`labelmap_all`: replaces all of the occurences of `regex` in all the label names with the `replacement`.
*`keep_if_equal`: keeps the entry if all the label values from `source_labels` are equal.
*`keep_metrics`: keeps all the metrics with names matching the given `regex`.
*`drop_metrics`: drops all the metrics with names matching the given `regex`.
The `regex` value can be split into multiple lines for improved readability and maintainability. These lines are automatically joined with `|` char when parsed. For example, the following configs are equivalent:
* At the `scrape_config -> relabel_configs` section in `-promscrape.config` file. This relabeling is applied to target labels. This relabeling can be debugged by passing `relabel_debug: true` option to the corresponding `scrape_config` section. In this case `vmagent` logs target labels before and after the relabeling and then drops the logged target.
* At the `scrape_config -> metric_relabel_configs` section in `-promscrape.config` file. This relabeling is applied to all the scraped metrics in the given `scrape_config`. This relabeling can be debugged by passing `metric_relabel_debug: true` option to the corresponding `scrape_config` section. In this case `vmagent` logs metrics before and after the relabeling and then drops the logged metrics.
* At the `-remoteWrite.relabelConfig` file. This relabeling is aplied to all the collected metrics before sending them to remote storage. This relabeling can be debugged by passing `-remoteWrite.relabelDebug` command-line option to `vmagent`. In this case `vmagent` logs metrics before and after the relabeling and then drops all the logged metrics instead of sending them to remote storage.
* At the `-remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig` files. This relabeling is applied to metrics before sending them to the corresponding `-remoteWrite.url`. This relabeling can be debugged by passing `-remoteWrite.urlRelabelDebug` command-line options to `vmagent`. In this case `vmagent` logs metrics before and after the relabeling and then drops all the logged metrics instead of sending them to the corresponding `-remoteWrite.url`.
* [How to use Relabeling in Prometheus and VictoriaMetrics](https://valyala.medium.com/how-to-use-relabeling-in-prometheus-and-victoriametrics-8b90fc22c4b2)
Prometheus staleness markers' tracking needs additional memory, since it must store the previous response body per each scrape target in order to compare it to the current response body. The memory usage may be reduced by passing `-promscrape.noStaleMarkers` command-line flag to `vmagent`. This disables staleness tracking. This also disables tracking the number of new time series per each scrape with the auto-generated `scrape_series_added` metric. See [these docs](https://prometheus.io/docs/concepts/jobs_instances/#automatically-generated-labels-and-time-series) for details.
By default `vmagent` reads the full response body from scrape target into memory, then parses it, applies [relabeling](#relabeling) and then pushes the resulting metrics to the configured `-remoteWrite.url`. This mode works good for the majority of cases when the scrape target exposes small number of metrics (e.g. less than 10 thousand). But this mode may take big amounts of memory when the scrape target exposes big number of metrics. In this case it is recommended enabling stream parsing mode. When this mode is enabled, then `vmagent` reads response from scrape target in chunks, then immediately processes every chunk and pushes the processed metrics to remote storage. This allows saving memory when scraping targets that expose millions of metrics.
Stream parsing mode is automatically enabled for scrape targets returning response bodies with sizes bigger than the `-promscrape.minResponseSizeForStreamParse` command-line flag value. Additionally, the stream parsing mode can be explicitly enabled in the following places:
- Via `-promscrape.streamParse` command-line flag. In this case all the scrape targets defined in the file pointed by `-promscrape.config` are scraped in stream parsing mode.
- Via `stream_parse: true` option at `scrape_configs` section. In this case all the scrape targets defined in this section are scraped in stream parsing mode.
- Via `__stream_parse__=true` label, which can be set via [relabeling](#relabeling) at `relabel_configs` section. In this case stream parsing mode is enabled for the corresponding scrape targets. Typical use case: to set the label via [Kubernetes annotations](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/working-with-objects/annotations/) for targets exposing big number of metrics.
Note that `sample_limit` and `series_limit` options cannot be used in stream parsing mode because the parsed data is pushed to remote storage as soon as it is parsed.
The number of `vmagent` instances in the cluster must be passed to `-promscrape.cluster.membersCount` command-line flag. For example, the following commands
spread scrape targets among a cluster of two `vmagent` instances:
By default each scrape target is scraped only by a single `vmagent` instance in the cluster. If there is a need for replicating scrape targets among multiple `vmagent` instances,
then `-promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor` command-line flag must be set to the desired number of replicas. For example, the following commands
start a cluster of three `vmagent` instances, where each target is scraped by two `vmagent` instances:
`vmagent` supports scraping targets via http, https and socks5 proxies. Proxy address must be specified in `proxy_url` option. For example, the following scrape config instructs
*`proxy_authorization` for generic token authorization. See [Prometheus docs for details on authorization section](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#scrape_config)
*`proxy_bearer_token` and `proxy_bearer_token_file` for Bearer token authorization
*`proxy_basic_auth` for Basic authorization. See [these docs](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#scrape_config).
*`proxy_tls_config` for TLS config. See [these docs](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#tls_config).
By default `vmagent` doesn't limit the number of time series each scrape target can expose. The limit can be enforced in the following places:
- Via `-promscrape.seriesLimitPerTarget` command-line option. This limit is applied individually to all the scrape targets defined in the file pointed by `-promscrape.config`.
- Via `series_limit` config option at `scrape_config` section. This limit is applied individually to all the scrape targets defined in the given `scrape_config`.
- Via `__series_limit__` label, which can be set with [relabeling](#relabeling) at `relabel_configs` section. This limit is applied to the corresponding scrape targets. Typical use case: to set the limit via [Kubernetes annotations](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/working-with-objects/annotations/) for targets, which may expose too high number of time series.
All the scraped metrics are dropped for time series exceeding the given limit. The exceeded limit can be [monitored](#monitoring) via `promscrape_series_limit_rows_dropped_total` metric.
By default `vmagent` doesn't limit the number of time series written to remote storage systems specified at `-remoteWrite.url`. The limit can be enforced by setting the following command-line flags:
*`-remoteWrite.maxHourlySeries` - limits the number of unique time series `vmagent` can write to remote storage systems during the last hour. Useful for limiting the number of active time series.
*`-remoteWrite.maxDailySeries` - limits the number of unique time series `vmagent` can write to remote storage systems during the last day. Useful for limiting daily churn rate.
Both limits can be set simultaneously. If any of these limits is reached, then samples for new time series are dropped instead of sending them to remote storage systems. A sample of dropped series is put in the log with `WARNING` level.
`vmagent` exports various metrics in Prometheus exposition format at `http://vmagent-host:8429/metrics` page. We recommend setting up regular scraping of this page
either through `vmagent` itself or by Prometheus so that the exported metrics may be analyzed later.
Use official [Grafana dashboard](https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/12683) for `vmagent` state overview. Graphs on this dashboard contain useful hints - hover the `i` icon at the top left corner of each graph in order to read it.
This information may be useful for debugging target relabeling.
*`http://vmagent-host:8429/api/v1/targets`. This handler returns data compatible with [the corresponding page from Prometheus API](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/querying/api/#targets).
*`http://vmagent-host:8429/ready`. This handler returns http 200 status code when `vmagent` finishes it's initialization for all service_discovery configs.
It may be useful to perform `vmagent` rolling update without any scrape loss.
* Reducing the number of output queues with `-remoteWrite.queues` command-line option.
* Reducing the amounts of RAM vmagent can use for in-memory buffering with `-memory.allowedPercent` or `-memory.allowedBytes` command-line option. Another option is to reduce memory limits in Docker and/or Kuberntes if `vmagent` runs under these systems.
* Reducing the number of CPU cores vmagent can use by passing `GOMAXPROCS=N` environment variable to `vmagent`, where `N` is the desired limit on CPU cores. Another option is to reduce CPU limits in Docker or Kubernetes if `vmagent` runs under these systems.
* Passing `-promscrape.dropOriginalLabels` command-line option to `vmagent`, so it drops `"discoveredLabels"` and `"droppedTargets"` lists at `/api/v1/targets` page. This reduces memory usage when scraping big number of targets at the cost of reduced debuggability for improperly configured per-target relabeling.
by passing `-promscrape.suppressScrapeErrors` command-line flag to `vmagent`. The most recent scrape error per each target can be observed at `http://vmagent-host:8429/targets`
This page contains original labels for targets dropped during relabeling (see "droppedTargets" section in the page output). By default the `-promscrape.maxDroppedTargets` targets are shown here. If your setup drops more targets during relabeling, then increase `-promscrape.maxDroppedTargets` command-line flag value to see all the dropped targets. Note that tracking each dropped target requires up to 10Kb of RAM. Therefore big values for `-promscrape.maxDroppedTargets` may result in increased memory usage if a big number of scrape targets are dropped during relabeling.
* We recommend you increase `-remoteWrite.queues` if `vmagent_remotewrite_pending_data_bytes` metric exported at `http://vmagent-host:8429/metrics` page grows constantly. It is also recommended increasing `-remoteWrite.maxBlockSize` and `-remoteWrite.maxRowsPerBlock` command-line options in this case. This can improve data ingestion performance to the configured remote storage systems at the cost of higher memory usage.
* If you see gaps in the data pushed by `vmagent` to remote storage when `-remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL` is set, try increasing `-remoteWrite.queues`. Such gaps may appear because `vmagent` cannot keep up with sending the collected data to remote storage. Therefore it starts dropping the buffered data if the on-disk buffer size exceeds `-remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL`.
*`vmagent` drops data blocks if remote storage replies with `400 Bad Request` and `409 Conflict` HTTP responses. The number of dropped blocks can be monitored via `vmagent_remotewrite_packets_dropped_total` metric exported at [/metrics page](#monitoring).
* Use `-remoteWrite.queues=1` when `-remoteWrite.url` points to remote storage, which doesn't accept out-of-order samples (aka data backfilling). Such storage systems include Prometheus, Cortex and Thanos, which typically emit `out of order sample` errors. The best solution is to use remote storage with [backfilling support](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#backfilling).
* By default `vmagent` evenly spreads scrape load in time. If a particular scrape target must be scraped at specific offset, then `scrape_offset` option must be used.
For example, the following config instructs `vmagent` to scrape the target at 10 seconds of every minute:
* If you see `skipping duplicate scrape target with identical labels` errors when scraping Kubernetes pods, then it is likely these pods listen to multiple ports
or they use an init container. These errors can either be fixed or suppressed with the `-promscrape.suppressDuplicateScrapeTargetErrors` command-line flag.
See the available options below if you prefer fixing the root cause of the error:
The enterprise version of vmagent is available for evaluation at [releases](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/releases) page in `vmutils-*-enteprise.tar.gz` archives and in [docker images](https://hub.docker.com/r/victoriametrics/vmagent/tags) with tags containing `enterprise` suffix.
### Reading metrics from Kafka
[Enterprise version](https://victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html) of `vmagent` can read metrics in various formats from Kafka messages. These formats can be configured with `-kafka.consumer.topic.defaultFormat` or `-kafka.consumer.topic.format` command-line options. The following formats are supported:
*`promremotewrite` - [Prometheus remote_write](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#remote_write). Messages in this format can be sent by vmagent - see [these docs](#writing-metrics-to-kafka).
*`influx` - [InfluxDB line protocol format](https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v1.7/write_protocols/line_protocol_tutorial/).
*`prometheus` - [Prometheus text exposition format](https://github.com/prometheus/docs/blob/master/content/docs/instrumenting/exposition_formats.md#text-based-format) and [OpenMetrics format](https://github.com/OpenObservability/OpenMetrics/blob/master/specification/OpenMetrics.md).
*`jsonline` - [JSON line format](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#how-to-import-data-in-json-line-format).
Every Kafka message may contain multiple lines in `influx`, `prometheus`, `graphite` and `jsonline` format delimited by `\n`.
`vmagent` consumes messages from Kafka topics specified by `-kafka.consumer.topic` command-line flag. Multiple topics can be specified by passing multiple `-kafka.consumer.topic` command-line flags to `vmagent`.
`vmagent` consumes messages from Kafka brokers specified by `-kafka.consumer.topic.brokers` command-line flag. Multiple brokers can be specified per each `-kafka.consumer.topic` by passing a list of brokers delimited by `;`. For example, `-kafka.consumer.topic.brokers=host1:9092;host2:9092`.
The following command starts `vmagent`, which reads metrics in InfluxDB line protocol format from Kafka broker at `localhost:9092` from the topic `metrics-by-telegraf` and sends them to remote storage at `http://localhost:8428/api/v1/write`:
These command-line flags are available only in [enterprise](https://victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html) version of `vmagent`, which can be downloaded for evaluation from [releases](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/releases) page (see `vmutils-*-enteprise.tar.gz` archives) and from [docker images](https://hub.docker.com/r/victoriametrics/vmagent/tags) with tags containing `enterprise` suffix.
```
-kafka.consumer.topic array
Kafka topic names for data consumption.
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
Optional basic auth password for -kafka.consumer.topic. Must be used in conjunction with any supported auth methods for kafka client, specified by flag -kafka.consumer.topic.options='security.protocol=SASL_SSL;sasl.mechanisms=PLAIN'
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-kafka.consumer.topic.basicAuth.username array
Optional basic auth username for -kafka.consumer.topic. Must be used in conjunction with any supported auth methods for kafka client, specified by flag -kafka.consumer.topic.options='security.protocol=SASL_SSL;sasl.mechanisms=PLAIN'
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-kafka.consumer.topic.brokers array
List of brokers to connect for given topic, e.g. -kafka.consumer.topic.broker=host-1:9092;host-2:9092
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
Expected data format in the topic if -kafka.consumer.topic.format is skipped. (default "promremotewrite")
-kafka.consumer.topic.format array
data format for corresponding kafka topic. Valid formats: influx, prometheus, promremotewrite, graphite, jsonline
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-kafka.consumer.topic.groupID array
Defines group.id for topic
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-kafka.consumer.topic.isGzipped array
Enables gzip setting for topic messages payload. Only prometheus, jsonline and influx formats accept gzipped messages.
Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-kafka.consumer.topic.options array
Optional key=value;key1=value2 settings for topic consumer. See full configuration options at https://github.com/edenhill/librdkafka/blob/master/CONFIGURATION.md.
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
[Enterprise version](https://victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html) of `vmagent` writes data to Kafka with `at-least-once` semantics if `-remoteWrite.url` contains e.g. Kafka url. For example, if `vmagent` is started with `-remoteWrite.url=kafka://localhost:9092/?topic=prom-rw`, then it would send Prometheus remote_write messages to Kafka bootstrap server at `localhost:9092` with the topic `prom-rw`. These messages can be read later from Kafka by another `vmagent` - see [these docs](#reading-metrics-from-kafka) for details.
Additional Kafka options can be passed as query params to `-remoteWrite.url`. For instance, `kafka://localhost:9092/?topic=prom-rw&client.id=my-favorite-id` sets `client.id` Kafka option to `my-favorite-id`. The full list of Kafka options is available [here](https://github.com/edenhill/librdkafka/blob/master/CONFIGURATION.md).
#### Kafka broker authorization and authentication
by setting it via `<ROOT_IMAGE>` environment variable. For example, the following command builds the image on top of [scratch](https://hub.docker.com/_/scratch) image:
2. Run `make vmagent-arm-prod` or `make vmagent-arm64-prod` from the root folder of [the repository](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics).
`vmagent` can be fine-tuned with various command-line flags. Run `./vmagent -help` in order to see the full list of these flags with their desciptions and default values:
Trim timestamps when importing csv data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1ms. Higher duration (i.e. 1s) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1ms)
Whether to check only config files without running vmagent. The following files are checked: -promscrape.config, -remoteWrite.relabelConfig, -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig . Unknown config entries are allowed in -promscrape.config by default. This can be changed with -promscrape.config.strictParse
Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables additionally to command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from command line if this flag isn't set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#environment-variables for more details
Prefix for environment variables if -envflag.enable is set
-fs.disableMmap
Whether to use pread() instead of mmap() for reading data files. By default mmap() is used for 64-bit arches and pread() is used for 32-bit arches, since they cannot read data files bigger than 2^32 bytes in memory. mmap() is usually faster for reading small data chunks than pread()
-graphiteListenAddr string
TCP and UDP address to listen for Graphite plaintext data. Usually :2003 must be set. Doesn't work if empty
-graphiteTrimTimestamp duration
Trim timestamps for Graphite data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1s. Higher duration (i.e. 1m) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1s)
Incoming http connections are closed after the configured timeout. This may help to spread the incoming load among a cluster of services behind a load balancer. Please note that the real timeout may be bigger by up to 10% as a protection against the thundering herd problem (default 2m0s)
The maximum duration for a graceful shutdown of the HTTP server. A highly loaded server may require increased value for a graceful shutdown (default 7s)
An optional prefix to add to all the paths handled by http server. For example, if '-http.pathPrefix=/foo/bar' is set, then all the http requests will be handled on '/foo/bar/*' paths. This may be useful for proxied requests. See https://www.robustperception.io/using-external-urls-and-proxies-with-prometheus
Optional delay before http server shutdown. During this delay, the server returns non-OK responses from /health page, so load balancers can route new requests to other servers
Password for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if -httpAuth.username is empty
-httpAuth.username string
Username for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if empty. See also -httpAuth.password
-httpListenAddr string
TCP address to listen for http connections. Set this flag to empty value in order to disable listening on any port. This mode may be useful for running multiple vmagent instances on the same server. Note that /targets and /metrics pages aren't available if -httpListenAddr='' (default ":8429")
The maximum length in bytes of a single line accepted by /api/v1/import; the line length can be limited with 'max_rows_per_line' query arg passed to /api/v1/export
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 104857600)
Comma-separated list of database names to return from /query and /influx/query API. This can be needed for accepting data from Telegraf plugins such as https://github.com/fangli/fluent-plugin-influxdb
TCP and UDP address to listen for InfluxDB line protocol data. Usually :8189 must be set. Doesn't work if empty. This flag isn't needed when ingesting data over HTTP - just send it to http://<vmagent>:8429/write
Trim timestamps for InfluxDB line protocol data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1ms. Higher duration (i.e. 1s) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1ms)
Per-second limit on the number of ERROR messages. If more than the given number of errors are emitted per second, the remaining errors are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
Timezone to use for timestamps in logs. Timezone must be a valid IANA Time Zone. For example: America/New_York, Europe/Berlin, Etc/GMT+3 or Local (default "UTC")
Per-second limit on the number of WARN messages. If more than the given number of warns are emitted per second, then the remaining warns are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
The maximum number of concurrent inserts. Default value should work for most cases, since it minimizes the overhead for concurrent inserts. This option is tigthly coupled with -insert.maxQueueDuration (default 16)
Allowed size of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. This option overrides -memory.allowedPercent if set to a non-zero value. Too low a value may increase the cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
Allowed percent of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. See also -memory.allowedBytes. Too low a value may increase cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
TCP address to listen for OpentTSDB HTTP put requests. Usually :4242 must be set. Doesn't work if empty
-opentsdbListenAddr string
TCP and UDP address to listen for OpentTSDB metrics. Telnet put messages and HTTP /api/put messages are simultaneously served on TCP port. Usually :4242 must be set. Doesn't work if empty
-opentsdbTrimTimestamp duration
Trim timestamps for OpenTSDB 'telnet put' data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1s. Higher duration (i.e. 1m) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1s)
Trim timestamps for OpenTSDB HTTP data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1ms. Higher duration (i.e. 1s) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1ms)
The number of number in the cluster of scrapers. It must be an unique value in the range 0 ... promscrape.cluster.membersCount-1 across scrapers in the cluster
-promscrape.cluster.membersCount int
The number of members in a cluster of scrapers. Each member must have an unique -promscrape.cluster.memberNum in the range 0 ... promscrape.cluster.membersCount-1 . Each member then scrapes roughly 1/N of all the targets. By default cluster scraping is disabled, i.e. a single scraper scrapes all the targets
The number of members in the cluster, which scrape the same targets. If the replication factor is greater than 2, then the deduplication must be enabled at remote storage side. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#deduplication (default 1)
Optional path to Prometheus config file with 'scrape_configs' section containing targets to scrape. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#how-to-scrape-prometheus-exporters-such-as-node-exporter for details
Checks -promscrape.config file for errors and unsupported fields and then exits. Returns non-zero exit code on parsing errors and emits these errors to stderr. See also -promscrape.config.strictParse command-line flag. Pass -loggerLevel=ERROR if you don't need to see info messages in the output.
-promscrape.config.strictParse
Whether to allow only supported fields in -promscrape.config . By default unsupported fields are silently skipped
-promscrape.configCheckInterval duration
Interval for checking for changes in '-promscrape.config' file. By default the checking is disabled. Send SIGHUP signal in order to force config check for changes
Interval for checking for changes in Consul. This works only if consul_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#consul_sd_config for details (default 30s)
Interval for checking for changes in digital ocean. This works only if digitalocean_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#digitalocean_sd_config for details (default 1m0s)
Whether to disable sending 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' request headers to all the scrape targets. This may reduce CPU usage on scrape targets at the cost of higher network bandwidth utilization. It is possible to set 'disable_compression: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control
Whether to disable HTTP keep-alive connections when scraping all the targets. This may be useful when targets has no support for HTTP keep-alive connection. It is possible to set 'disable_keepalive: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control. Note that disabling HTTP keep-alive may increase load on both vmagent and scrape targets
The maximum number of concurrent requests to Prometheus autodiscovery API (Consul, Kubernetes, etc.) (default 100)
-promscrape.discovery.concurrentWaitTime duration
The maximum duration for waiting to perform API requests if more than -promscrape.discovery.concurrency requests are simultaneously performed (default 1m0s)
Interval for checking for changes in dns. This works only if dns_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#dns_sd_config for details (default 30s)
Interval for checking for changes in docker. This works only if docker_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#docker_sd_config for details (default 30s)
Interval for checking for changes in dockerswarm. This works only if dockerswarm_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#dockerswarm_sd_config for details (default 30s)
-promscrape.dropOriginalLabels
Whether to drop original labels for scrape targets at /targets and /api/v1/targets pages. This may be needed for reducing memory usage when original labels for big number of scrape targets occupy big amounts of memory. Note that this reduces debuggability for improper per-target relabeling configs
Interval for checking for changes in ec2. This works only if ec2_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#ec2_sd_config for details (default 1m0s)
Interval for checking for changes in eureka. This works only if eureka_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#eureka_sd_config for details (default 30s)
-promscrape.fileSDCheckInterval duration
Interval for checking for changes in 'file_sd_config'. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#file_sd_config for details (default 30s)
Interval for checking for changes in gce. This works only if gce_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#gce_sd_config for details (default 1m0s)
Interval for checking for changes in http endpoint service discovery. This works only if http_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#http_sd_config for details (default 1m0s)
Interval for checking for changes in Kubernetes API server. This works only if kubernetes_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#kubernetes_sd_config for details (default 30s)
The maximum number of droppedTargets to show at /api/v1/targets page. Increase this value if your setup drops more scrape targets during relabeling and you need investigating labels for all the dropped targets. Note that the increased number of tracked dropped targets may result in increased memory usage (default 1000)
The minimum target response size for automatic switching to stream parsing mode, which can reduce memory usage. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#stream-parsing-mode
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 1000000)
Whether to disable sending Prometheus stale markers for metrics when scrape target disappears. This option may reduce memory usage if stale markers aren't needed for your setup. This option also disables populating the scrape_series_added metric. See https://prometheus.io/docs/concepts/jobs_instances/#automatically-generated-labels-and-time-series
Interval for checking for changes in openstack API server. This works only if openstack_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#openstack_sd_config for details (default 30s)
Optional limit on the number of unique time series a single scrape target can expose. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#cardinality-limiter for more info
Whether to enable stream parsing for metrics obtained from scrape targets. This may be useful for reducing memory usage when millions of metrics are exposed per each scrape target. It is posible to set 'stream_parse: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control
Whether to suppress scrape errors logging. The last error for each target is always available at '/targets' page even if scrape errors logging is suppressed
-remoteWrite.basicAuth.password array
Optional basic auth password to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Optional path to basic auth password to use for -remoteWrite.url. The file is re-read every second. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
Optional basic auth username to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Optional bearer auth token to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Optional path to bearer token file to use for -remoteWrite.url. The token is re-read from the file every second. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
Interval for flushing the data to remote storage. This option takes effect only when less than 10K data points per second are pushed to -remoteWrite.url (default 1s)
Optional label in the form 'name=value' to add to all the metrics before sending them to -remoteWrite.url. Pass multiple -remoteWrite.label flags in order to add multiple labels to metrics before sending them to remote storage
The maximum block size to send to remote storage. Bigger blocks may improve performance at the cost of the increased memory usage. See also -remoteWrite.maxRowsPerBlock
The maximum number of unique series vmagent can send to remote storage systems during the last 24 hours. Excess series are logged and dropped. This can be useful for limiting series churn rate. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#cardinality-limiter
The maximum file-based buffer size in bytes at -remoteWrite.tmpDataPath for each -remoteWrite.url. When buffer size reaches the configured maximum, then old data is dropped when adding new data to the buffer. Buffered data is stored in ~500MB chunks, so the minimum practical value for this flag is 500000000. Disk usage is unlimited if the value is set to 0
The maximum number of unique series vmagent can send to remote storage systems during the last hour. Excess series are logged and dropped. This can be useful for limiting series cardinality. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#cardinality-limiter
The maximum number of samples to send in each block to remote storage. Higher number may improve performance at the cost of the increased memory usage. See also -remoteWrite.maxBlockSize (default 10000)
Base path for multitenant remote storage URL to write data to. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#multitenancy for details. Example url: http://<vminsert>:8480 . Pass multiple -remoteWrite.multitenantURL flags in order to replicate data to multiple remote storage systems. See also -remoteWrite.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
Optional OAuth2 clientID to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.oauth2.clientSecret array
Optional OAuth2 clientSecret to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.oauth2.clientSecretFile array
Optional OAuth2 clientSecretFile to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.oauth2.scopes array
Optional OAuth2 scopes to use for -remoteWrite.url. Scopes must be delimited by ';'. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.oauth2.tokenUrl array
Optional OAuth2 tokenURL to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
The number of concurrent queues to each -remoteWrite.url. Set more queues if default number of queues isn't enough for sending high volume of collected data to remote storage. Default value is 2 * numberOfAvailableCPUs (default 8)
Optional rate limit in bytes per second for data sent to -remoteWrite.url. By default the rate limit is disabled. It can be useful for limiting load on remote storage when big amounts of buffered data is sent after temporary unavailability of the remote storage
Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
Optional path to file with relabel_config entries. These entries are applied to all the metrics before sending them to -remoteWrite.url. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#relabeling for details
Whether to log metrics before and after relabeling with -remoteWrite.relabelConfig. If the -remoteWrite.relabelDebug is enabled, then the metrics aren't sent to remote storage. This is useful for debugging the relabeling configs
Round metric values to this number of decimal digits after the point before writing them to remote storage. Examples: -remoteWrite.roundDigits=2 would round 1.236 to 1.24, while -remoteWrite.roundDigits=-1 would round 126.78 to 130. By default digits rounding is disabled. Set it to 100 for disabling it for a particular remote storage. This option may be used for improving data compression for the stored metrics
Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.sendTimeout array
Timeout for sending a single block of data to -remoteWrite.url
Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.showURL
Whether to show -remoteWrite.url in the exported metrics. It is hidden by default, since it can contain sensitive info such as auth key
-remoteWrite.significantFigures array
The number of significant figures to leave in metric values before writing them to remote storage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_figures . Zero value saves all the significant figures. This option may be used for improving data compression for the stored metrics. See also -remoteWrite.roundDigits
Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.tlsCAFile array
Optional path to TLS CA file to use for verifying connections to -remoteWrite.url. By default system CA is used. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Optional path to client-side TLS certificate file to use when connecting to -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Whether to skip tls verification when connecting to -remoteWrite.url
Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.tlsKeyFile array
Optional path to client-side TLS certificate key to use when connecting to -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Optional TLS server name to use for connections to -remoteWrite.url. By default the server name from -remoteWrite.url is used. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Path to directory where temporary data for remote write component is stored. See also -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL (default "vmagent-remotewrite-data")
Remote storage URL to write data to. It must support Prometheus remote_write API. It is recommended using VictoriaMetrics as remote storage. Example url: http://<victoriametrics-host>:8428/api/v1/write . Pass multiple -remoteWrite.url flags in order to replicate data to multiple remote storage systems. See also -remoteWrite.multitenantURL
Whether to log metrics before and after relabeling with -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig. If the -remoteWrite.urlRelabelDebug is enabled, then the metrics aren't sent to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. This is useful for debugging the relabeling configs
Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
Whether to sort labels for incoming samples before writing them to all the configured remote storage systems. This may be needed for reducing memory usage at remote storage when the order of labels in incoming samples is random. For example, if m{k1="v1",k2="v2"} may be sent as m{k2="v2",k1="v1"}Enabled sorting for labels can slow down ingestion performance a bit
