# vmagent
`vmagent` is a tiny but mighty agent which helps you collect metrics from various sources
and store them in [VictoriaMetrics](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics)
or any other Prometheus-compatible storage systems that support the `remote_write` protocol.
## Motivation
While VictoriaMetrics provides an efficient solution to store and observe metrics, our users needed something fast
and RAM friendly to scrape metrics from Prometheus-compatible exporters into VictoriaMetrics.
Also, we found that our user's infrastructure are like snowflakes in that no two are alike. Therefore we decided to add more flexibility
to `vmagent` such as the ability to push metrics instead of pulling them. We did our best and will continue to improve vmagent.
## Features
* 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 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.
* Accepts data via all ingestion protocols supported by VictoriaMetrics:
* Influx line protocol via `http://: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).
* Prometheus remote write protocol via `http://:8429/api/v1/write`.
* JSON lines import protocol via `http://: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://:8429/api/v1/import/native`. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-import-data-in-native-format).
* Data in Prometheus exposition format. 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://:8429/api/v1/import/csv`. See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/Single-server-VictoriaMetrics.html#how-to-import-csv-data).
* Can replicate collected metrics simultaneously to multiple remote storage systems.
* Works smoothly in environments with unstable connections to remote storage. If the remote storage is unavailable, the collected metrics
are buffered at `-remoteWrite.tmpDataPath`. The buffered metrics are sent to remote storage as soon as the connection
to the remote storage is repaired. The maximum disk usage for the buffer can be limited with `-remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL`.
* Uses lower amounts of RAM, CPU, disk IO and network bandwidth compared with Prometheus.
* 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 and high churn rate issues by limiting the number of unique time series sent to remote storage systems. See [these docs](#cardinality-limiter).
## Quick Start
Please download `vmutils-*` archive from [releases page](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/releases), unpack it
and configure the following flags to the `vmagent` binary in order to start scraping Prometheus targets:
* `-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.
Example command line:
```
/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.config=/path/to/prometheus.yml -remoteWrite.url=https://victoria-metrics-host:8428/api/v1/write
```
If you only need to collect Influx data, then the following command is sufficient:
```
/path/to/vmagent -remoteWrite.url=https://victoria-metrics-host:8428/api/v1/write
```
Then send Influx 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` is also available in [docker images](https://hub.docker.com/r/victoriametrics/vmagent/tags).
Pass `-help` to `vmagent` in order to see [the full list of supported command-line flags with their descriptions](#advanced-usage).
## Configuration update
`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.
## Use cases
### IoT and Edge monitoring
`vmagent` can run and collect metrics in IoT and industrial networks with unreliable or scheduled connections to their remote storage.
It buffers the collected data in local files until the connection to remote storage becomes available and then sends the buffered
data to the remote storage. It re-tries sending the data to remote storage until any errors are resolved.
The maximum buffer size can be limited with `-remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL`.
`vmagent` works on various architectures from the IoT world - 32-bit arm, 64-bit arm, ppc64, 386, amd64.
See [the corresponding Makefile rules](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/blob/master/app/vmagent/Makefile) for details.
### Drop-in replacement for Prometheus
If you use Prometheus only for scraping metrics from various targets and forwarding those metrics to remote storage
then `vmagent` can replace Prometheus. Typically, `vmagent` requires lower amounts of RAM, CPU and network bandwidth compared with Prometheus.
See [these docs](#how-to-collect-metrics-in-prometheus-format) for details.
### Replication and high availability
`vmagent` replicates the collected metrics among multiple remote storage instances configured via `-remoteWrite.url` args.
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.
### Relabeling and filtering
`vmagent` can add, remove or update labels on the collected data before sending it to the remote storage. Additionally,
it can remove unwanted samples via Prometheus-like relabeling before sending the collected data to remote storage.
Please see [these docs](#relabeling) for details.
### Splitting data streams among multiple systems
`vmagent` supports splitting the collected data between muliple destinations with the help of `-remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig`,
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`.
### Prometheus remote_write proxy
`vmagent` can be used as a proxy for Prometheus data sent via Prometheus `remote_write` protocol. It can accept data via the `remote_write` API
at the`/api/v1/write` endpoint. Then apply relabeling and filtering and proxy it to another `remote_write` system .
The `vmagent` can be configured to encrypt the incoming `remote_write` requests with `-tls*` command-line flags.
Also, Basic Auth can be enabled for the incoming `remote_write` requests with `-httpAuth.*` command-line flags.
### remote_write for clustered version
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 `://:8480/insert//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//...` 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//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.
## How to collect metrics in Prometheus format
Specify the path to `prometheus.yml` file via `-promscrape.config` command-line flag. `vmagent` takes into account the following
sections from [Prometheus config file](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/):
* `global`
* `scrape_configs`
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
* `kubernetes_sd_configs` - for scraping targets in Kubernetes (k8s).
See [kubernetes_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#kubernetes_sd_config) for details.
* `ec2_sd_configs` - is for scraping targets in Amazon EC2.
See [ec2_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#ec2_sd_config) for details.
`vmagent` doesn't support the `profile` config param yet.
* `gce_sd_configs` - is for scraping targets in Google Compute Engine (GCE).
See [gce_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#gce_sd_config) for details.
`vmagent` provides the following additional functionality for `gce_sd_config`:
* if `project` arg is missing then `vmagent` uses the project for the instance where it runs;
* if `zone` arg is missing then `vmagent` uses the zone for the instance where it runs;
* if `zone` arg is equal to `"*"`, then `vmagent` discovers all the zones for the given project;
* `zone` may contain an arbitrary number of zones, i.e. `zone: [us-east1-a, us-east1-b]`.
* `consul_sd_configs` - is for scraping the targets registered in Consul.
See [consul_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#consul_sd_config) for details.
* `dns_sd_configs` - is for scraping targets discovered from DNS records (SRV, A and AAAA).
See [dns_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#dns_sd_config) for details.
* `openstack_sd_configs` - is for scraping OpenStack targets.
See [openstack_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#openstack_sd_config) for details.
[OpenStack identity API v3](https://docs.openstack.org/api-ref/identity/v3/) is supported only.
* `docker_sd_configs` - is for scraping Docker targets.
See [docker_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#docker_sd_config) for details.
* `dockerswarm_sd_configs` - is for scraping Docker Swarm targets.
See [dockerswarm_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#dockerswarm_sd_config) for details.
* `eureka_sd_configs` - is for scraping targets registered in [Netflix Eureka](https://github.com/Netflix/eureka).
See [eureka_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#eureka_sd_config) for details.
* `digitalocean_sd_configs` is for scraping targerts registered in [DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/)
See [digitalocean_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#digitalocean_sd_config) for details.
* `http_sd_configs` is for scraping targerts registered in http service discovery.
See [http_sd_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#http_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`.
`vmagent` also support the following additional options in `scrape_configs` section:
* `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).
Note that `vmagent` doesn't support `refresh_interval` option for these scrape configs. Use the corresponding `-promscrape.*CheckInterval`
command-line flag instead. For example, `-promscrape.consulSDCheckInterval=60s` sets `refresh_interval` for all the `consul_sd_configs`
entries to 60s. Run `vmagent -help` in order to see default values for the `-promscrape.*CheckInterval` flags.
The file pointed by `-promscrape.config` may contain `%{ENV_VAR}` placeholders which are substituted by the corresponding `ENV_VAR` environment variable values.
## Adding labels to metrics
Labels can be added to metrics by the following mechanisms:
* 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):
```
/path/to/vmagent -remoteWrite.label=datacenter=foobar ...
```
## Relabeling
`vmagent` supports [Prometheus relabeling](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#relabel_config).
and also provides the following actions:
* `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.
* `drop_if_equal`: drops the entry if all the label values from `source_labels` are equal.
The relabeling can be defined in the following places:
* 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`.
You can read more about relabeling in the following articles:
* [How to use Relabeling in Prometheus and VictoriaMetrics](https://valyala.medium.com/how-to-use-relabeling-in-prometheus-and-victoriametrics-8b90fc22c4b2)
* [Life of a label](https://www.robustperception.io/life-of-a-label)
* [Discarding targets and timeseries with relabeling](https://www.robustperception.io/relabelling-can-discard-targets-timeseries-and-alerts)
* [Dropping labels at scrape time](https://www.robustperception.io/dropping-metrics-at-scrape-time-with-prometheus)
* [Extracting labels from legacy metric names](https://www.robustperception.io/extracting-labels-from-legacy-metric-names)
* [relabel_configs vs metric_relabel_configs](https://www.robustperception.io/relabel_configs-vs-metric_relabel_configs)
## Stream parsing mode
By default `vmagent` reads the full response 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 may be enabled either globally for all of the scrape targets by passing `-promscrape.streamParse` command-line flag or on a per-scrape target basis with `stream_parse: true` option. For example:
```yml
scrape_configs:
- job_name: 'big-federate'
stream_parse: true
static_configs:
- targets:
- big-prometeus1
- big-prometeus2
honor_labels: true
metrics_path: /federate
params:
'match[]': ['{__name__!=""}']
```
Note that `sample_limit` option doesn't prevent from data push to remote storage if stream parsing is enabled because the parsed data is pushed to remote storage as soon as it is parsed.
## Scraping big number of targets
A single `vmagent` instance can scrape tens of thousands of scrape targets. Sometimes this isn't enough due to limitations on CPU, network, RAM, etc.
In this case scrape targets can be split among multiple `vmagent` instances (aka `vmagent` horizontal scaling, sharding and clustering).
Each `vmagent` instance in the cluster must use identical `-promscrape.config` files with distinct `-promscrape.cluster.memberNum` values.
The flag value must be in the range `0 ... N-1`, where `N` is the number of `vmagent` instances in the cluster.
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:
```
/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=0 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...
/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=1 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...
```
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:
```
/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=3 -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=0 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...
/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=3 -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=1 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...
/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=3 -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=2 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...
```
If each target is scraped by multiple `vmagent` instances, then data deduplication must be enabled at remote storage pointed by `-remoteWrite.url`.
See [these docs](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#deduplication) for details.
## Scraping targets via a proxy
`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
target scraping via https proxy at `https://proxy-addr:1234`:
```yml
scrape_configs:
- job_name: foo
proxy_url: https://proxy-addr:1234
```
Proxy can be configured with the following optional settings:
* `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).
For example:
```yml
scrape_configs:
- job_name: foo
proxy_url: https://proxy-addr:1234
proxy_basic_auth:
username: foobar
password: secret
proxy_tls_config:
insecure_skip_verify: true
cert_file: /path/to/cert
key_file: /path/to/key
ca_file: /path/to/ca
server_name: real-server-name
```
## Cardinality limiter
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.
The exceeded limits can be [monitored](#monitoring) with the following metrics:
* `vmagent_hourly_series_limit_rows_dropped_total` - the number of metrics dropped due to exceeded hourly limit on the number of unique time series.
* `vmagent_daily_series_limit_rows_dropped_total` - the number of metrics dropped due to exceeded daily limit on the number of unique time series.
These limits are approximate, so `vmagent` can underflow/overflow the limit by a small percentage (usually less than 1%).
## Monitoring
`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.
If you have suggestions for improvements or have found a bug - please open an issue on github or add a review to the dashboard.
`vmagent` also exports the status for various targets at the following handlers:
* `http://vmagent-host:8429/targets`. This handler returns human-readable status for every active target.
This page is easy to query from the command line with `wget`, `curl` or similar tools.
It accepts optional `show_original_labels=1` query arg which shows the original labels per each target before applying the relabeling.
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.
## Troubleshooting
* We recommend you [set up the official Grafana dashboard](#monitoring) in order to monitor the state of `vmagent'.
* We recommend you increase the maximum number of open files in the system (`ulimit -n`) when scraping a big number of targets,
as `vmagent` establishes at least a single TCP connection per target.
* If `vmagent` uses too big amounts of memory, then the following options can help:
* Enabling stream parsing. See [these docs](#stream-parsing-mode).
* 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.
* When `vmagent` scrapes many unreliable targets, it can flood the error log with scrape errors. These errors can be suppressed
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`
and `http://vmagent-host:8429/api/v1/targets`.
* The `/api/v1/targets` page could be useful for debugging relabeling process for scrape 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.
* If `vmagent` scrapes a big number of targets then the `-promscrape.dropOriginalLabels` command-line option may be passed to `vmagent` in order to reduce memory usage.
This option drops `"discoveredLabels"` and `"droppedTargets"` lists at `/api/v1/targets` page, which may result in reduced debuggability for improperly configured per-target relabeling.
* If `vmagent` scrapes targets with millions of metrics per target (for example, when scraping [federation endpoints](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/federation/)),
we recommend enabling [stream parsing mode](#stream-parsing-mode) in order to reduce memory usage during scraping.
* We recommend you increase `-remoteWrite.queues` if `vmagent_remotewrite_pending_data_bytes` metric exported at `http://vmagent-host:8429/metrics` page grows constantly.
* 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.
* `vmagent` buffers scraped data at the `-remoteWrite.tmpDataPath` directory until it is sent to `-remoteWrite.url`.
The directory can grow large when remote storage is unavailable for extended periods of time and if `-remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL` isn't set.
If you don't want to send all the data from the directory to remote storage then simply stop `vmagent` and delete the directory.
* By default `vmagent` masks `-remoteWrite.url` with `secret-url` values in logs and at `/metrics` page because
the url may contain sensitive information such as auth tokens or passwords.
Pass `-remoteWrite.showURL` command-line flag when starting `vmagent` in order to see all the valid urls.
* By default `vmagent` evenly spreads scrape load in time. If a particular scrape target must be scraped at the beginning of some interval,
then `scrape_align_interval` option must be used. For example, the following config aligns hourly scrapes to the beginning of hour:
```yml
scrape_configs:
- job_name: foo
scrape_interval: 1h
scrape_align_interval: 1h
```
* 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:
```yml
scrape_configs:
- job_name: foo
scrape_interval: 1m
scrape_offset: 10s
```
* 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 following relabeling rule may be added to `relabel_configs` section in order to filter out pods with unneeded ports:
```yml
- action: keep_if_equal
source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_prometheus_io_port, __meta_kubernetes_pod_container_port_number]
```
The following relabeling rule may be added to `relabel_configs` section in order to filter out init container pods:
```yml
- action: drop
source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_init]
regex: true
```
## How to build from sources
We recommend using [binary releases](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/releases) - `vmagent` is located in the `vmutils-*` archives .
### Development build
1. [Install Go](https://golang.org/doc/install). The minimum supported version is Go 1.16.
2. Run `make vmagent` from the root folder of [the repository](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics).
It builds the `vmagent` binary and puts it into the `bin` folder.
### Production build
1. [Install docker](https://docs.docker.com/install/).
2. Run `make vmagent-prod` from the root folder of [the repository](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics).
It builds `vmagent-prod` binary and puts it into the `bin` folder.
### Building docker images
Run `make package-vmagent`. It builds `victoriametrics/vmagent:` docker image locally.
`` is an auto-generated image tag, which depends on source code in [the repository](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics).
The `` may be manually set via `PKG_TAG=foobar make package-vmagent`.
The base docker image is [alpine](https://hub.docker.com/_/alpine) but it is possible to use any other base image
by setting it via `` environment variable. For example, the following command builds the image on top of [scratch](https://hub.docker.com/_/scratch) image:
```bash
ROOT_IMAGE=scratch make package-vmagent
```
### ARM build
ARM build may run on Raspberry Pi or on [energy-efficient ARM servers](https://blog.cloudflare.com/arm-takes-wing/).
### Development ARM build
1. [Install Go](https://golang.org/doc/install). The minimum supported version is Go 1.16.
2. Run `make vmagent-arm` or `make vmagent-arm64` from the root folder of [the repository](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics)
It builds `vmagent-arm` or `vmagent-arm64` binary respectively and puts it into the `bin` folder.
### Production ARM build
1. [Install docker](https://docs.docker.com/install/).
2. Run `make vmagent-arm-prod` or `make vmagent-arm64-prod` from the root folder of [the repository](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics).
It builds `vmagent-arm-prod` or `vmagent-arm64-prod` binary respectively and puts it into the `bin` folder.
## Profiling
`vmagent` provides handlers for collecting the following [Go profiles](https://blog.golang.org/profiling-go-programs):
* Memory profile can be collected with the following command:
```bash
curl -s http://:8429/debug/pprof/heap > mem.pprof
```
* CPU profile can be collected with the following command:
```bash
curl -s http://:8429/debug/pprof/profile > cpu.pprof
```
The command for collecting CPU profile waits for 30 seconds before returning.
The collected profiles may be analyzed with [go tool pprof](https://github.com/google/pprof).
## Advanced usage
`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:
```
./vmagent -help
vmagent collects metrics data via popular data ingestion protocols and routes them to VictoriaMetrics.
See the docs at https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html .
-csvTrimTimestamp duration
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)
-dryRun
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
-enableTCP6
Whether to enable IPv6 for listening and dialing. By default only IPv4 TCP and UDP is used
-envflag.enable
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
-envflag.prefix string
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)
-http.connTimeout duration
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)
-http.disableResponseCompression
Disable compression of HTTP responses to save CPU resources. By default compression is enabled to save network bandwidth
-http.idleConnTimeout duration
Timeout for incoming idle http connections (default 1m0s)
-http.maxGracefulShutdownDuration duration
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)
-http.pathPrefix string
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
-http.shutdownDelay duration
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
-httpAuth.password string
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")
-import.maxLineLen size
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)
-influx.databaseNames array
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
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-influx.maxLineSize size
The maximum size in bytes for a single Influx line during parsing
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 262144)
-influxListenAddr string
TCP and UDP address to listen for Influx 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://:8429/write
-influxMeasurementFieldSeparator string
Separator for '{measurement}{separator}{field_name}' metric name when inserted via Influx line protocol (default "_")
-influxSkipMeasurement
Uses '{field_name}' as a metric name while ignoring '{measurement}' and '-influxMeasurementFieldSeparator'
-influxSkipSingleField
Uses '{measurement}' instead of '{measurement}{separator}{field_name}' for metic name if Influx line contains only a single field
-influxTrimTimestamp duration
Trim timestamps for Influx 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)
-insert.maxQueueDuration duration
The maximum duration for waiting in the queue for insert requests due to -maxConcurrentInserts (default 1m0s)
-loggerDisableTimestamps
Whether to disable writing timestamps in logs
-loggerErrorsPerSecondLimit int
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
-loggerFormat string
Format for logs. Possible values: default, json (default "default")
-loggerLevel string
Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
-loggerOutput string
Output for the logs. Supported values: stderr, stdout (default "stderr")
-loggerTimezone string
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")
-loggerWarnsPerSecondLimit int
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
-maxConcurrentInserts int
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)
-maxInsertRequestSize size
The maximum size in bytes of a single Prometheus remote_write API request
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 33554432)
-memory.allowedBytes size
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
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 0)
-memory.allowedPercent float
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)
-metricsAuthKey string
Auth key for /metrics. It overrides httpAuth settings
-opentsdbHTTPListenAddr string
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)
-opentsdbhttp.maxInsertRequestSize size
The maximum size of OpenTSDB HTTP put request
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 33554432)
-opentsdbhttpTrimTimestamp duration
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)
-pprofAuthKey string
Auth key for /debug/pprof. It overrides httpAuth settings
-promscrape.cluster.memberNum int
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
-promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor int
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)
-promscrape.config string
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
-promscrape.config.dryRun
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
-promscrape.consul.waitTime duration
Wait time used by Consul service discovery. Default value is used if not set
-promscrape.consulSDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.digitaloceanSDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.disableCompression
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
-promscrape.disableKeepAlive
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
-promscrape.discovery.concurrency int
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)
-promscrape.dnsSDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.dockerSDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.dockerswarmSDCheckInterval duration
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
-promscrape.ec2SDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.eurekaSDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.gceSDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.httpSDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.kubernetes.apiServerTimeout duration
How frequently to reload the full state from Kuberntes API server (default 30m0s)
-promscrape.kubernetesSDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.maxDroppedTargets int
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)
-promscrape.maxScrapeSize size
The maximum size of scrape response in bytes to process from Prometheus targets. Bigger responses are rejected
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 16777216)
-promscrape.openstackSDCheckInterval duration
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)
-promscrape.streamParse
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
-promscrape.suppressDuplicateScrapeTargetErrors
Whether to suppress 'duplicate scrape target' errors; see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#troubleshooting for details
-promscrape.suppressScrapeErrors
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
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.basicAuth.passwordFile array
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.
-remoteWrite.basicAuth.username array
Optional basic auth username 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.bearerToken array
Optional bearer auth token 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.bearerTokenFile array
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.
-remoteWrite.flushInterval duration
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)
-remoteWrite.label array
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
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.maxBlockSize size
The maximum size in bytes of unpacked request to send to remote storage. It shouldn't exceed -maxInsertRequestSize from VictoriaMetrics
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 8388608)
-remoteWrite.maxDailySeries int
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 also -remoteWrite.maxHourlySeries
-remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL size
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
Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 0)
-remoteWrite.maxHourlySeries int
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 also -remoteWrite.maxDailySeries
-remoteWrite.multitenantURL array
Base path for multitenant remote storage URL to write data to. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#multitenancy for details. Example url: http://: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.
-remoteWrite.oauth2.clientID array
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.
-remoteWrite.proxyURL array
Optional proxy URL for writing data to -remoteWrite.url. Supported proxies: http, https, socks5. Example: -remoteWrite.proxyURL=socks5://proxy:1234
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.queues int
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 if 2 * numberOfAvailableCPUs (default 8)
-remoteWrite.rateLimit array
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.
-remoteWrite.relabelConfig string
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
-remoteWrite.relabelDebug
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
-remoteWrite.roundDigits array
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
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.tlsCertFile array
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
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.tlsInsecureSkipVerify array
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
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.tlsServerName array
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
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.tmpDataPath string
Path to directory where temporary data for remote write component is stored. See also -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL (default "vmagent-remotewrite-data")
-remoteWrite.url array
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://:8428/api/v1/write . Pass multiple -remoteWrite.url flags in order to replicate data to multiple remote storage systems. See also -remoteWrite.multitenantURL
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig array
Optional path to relabel config for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
-remoteWrite.urlRelabelDebug array
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.
-sortLabels
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
-tls
Whether to enable TLS (aka HTTPS) for incoming requests. -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set
-tlsCertFile string
Path to file with TLS certificate. Used only if -tls is set. Prefer ECDSA certs instead of RSA certs as RSA certs are slower
-tlsKeyFile string
Path to file with TLS key. Used only if -tls is set
-version
Show VictoriaMetrics version
```