VictoriaMetrics/app/vmagent

vmagent

vmagent is a tiny agent which helps you collect metrics from various sources, relabel and filter the collected metrics and store them in VictoriaMetrics or any other storage systems via Prometheus remote_write protocol or via VictoriaMetrics remote_write protocol.

See Quick Start for details.

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 accept metrics via popular push protocols additionally to discovering Prometheus-compatible targets and scraping metrics from them.

Features

• Can be used as a drop-in replacement for Prometheus for discovering and scraping targets such as node_exporter. Note that single-node VictoriaMetrics can also discover and scrape Prometheus-compatible targets in the same way as vmagent does - see these docs.
• Can add, remove and modify labels (aka tags) via Prometheus relabeling. Can filter data before sending it to remote storage. See these docs for details.
• Can accept data via all the ingestion protocols supported by VictoriaMetrics - see these docs.
• Can aggregate incoming samples by time and by labels before sending them to remote storage - see these docs.
• Can replicate collected metrics simultaneously to multiple Prometheus-compatible remote storage systems - see these docs.
• Can save egress network bandwidth usage costs when VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol is used for sending the data to VictoriaMetrics.
• 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 than Prometheus.
• Scrape targets can be spread among multiple vmagent instances when big number of targets must be scraped. See these docs.
• Can load scrape configs from multiple files. See these docs.
• Can efficiently scrape targets that expose millions of time series such as /federate endpoint in Prometheus. See these docs.
• Can deal with high cardinality and 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.
• Can write collected metrics to multiple tenants. See these docs.
• Can read data from Kafka. See these docs.
• Can write data to Kafka. See these docs.

Quick Start

Please download vmutils-* archive from releases page ( vmagent is also available in docker images), unpack it and pass the following flags to the vmagent binary in order to start scraping Prometheus-compatible targets and sending the data to the Prometheus-compatible remote storage:

• -promscrape.config with the path to Prometheus config file (usually located at /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml). The path can point either to local file or to http url. vmagent doesn't support some sections of Prometheus config file, so you may need either to delete these sections or to run vmagent with -promscrape.config.strictParse=false command-line flag. In this case vmagent ignores unsupported sections. See the list of unsupported sections.
• -remoteWrite.url with Prometheus-compatible remote storage endpoint such as VictoriaMetrics, where to send the data to.

Example command for writing the data received via supported push-based protocols to single-node VictoriaMetrics located at victoria-metrics-host:8428:

/path/to/vmagent -remoteWrite.url=https://victoria-metrics-host:8428/api/v1/write

See these docs if you need writing the data to VictoriaMetrics cluster.

Example command for scraping Prometheus targets and writing the data to single-node VictoriaMetrics:

/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.config=/path/to/prometheus.yml -remoteWrite.url=https://victoria-metrics-host:8428/api/v1/write

See how to scrape Prometheus-compatible targets for more details.

If you use single-node VictoriaMetrics, then you can discover and scrape Prometheus-compatible targets directly from VictoriaMetrics without the need to use vmagent - see these docs.

vmagent can save network bandwidth usage costs under high load when VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol is used.

See troubleshooting docs if you encounter common issues with vmagent.

See various use cases for vmagent.

Pass -help to vmagent in order to see the full list of supported command-line flags with their descriptions.

How to push data to vmagent

vmagent supports the same set of push-based data ingestion protocols as VictoriaMetrics does additionally to pull-based Prometheus-compatible targets' scraping:

• DataDog "submit metrics" API. See these docs.
• InfluxDB line protocol via http://<vmagent>:8429/write. See these docs.
• Graphite plaintext protocol if -graphiteListenAddr command-line flag is set. See these docs.
• OpenTelemetry http API. See these docs.
• NewRelic API. See these docs.
• OpenTSDB telnet and http protocols if -opentsdbListenAddr command-line flag is set. See these docs.
• Prometheus remote write protocol via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/write.
• JSON lines import protocol via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import. See these docs.
• Native data import protocol via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import/native. See these docs.
• Prometheus exposition format via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import/prometheus. See these docs for details.
• Arbitrary CSV data via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import/csv. See these docs.

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, -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig and -remoteWrite.streamAggr.config:

• Sending SIGHUP signal to vmagent process:

  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 environments 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 errors are resolved. The maximum on-disk size for the buffered metrics can be limited with -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL.

vmagent works on various architectures from the IoT world - 32-bit arm, 64-bit arm, ppc64, 386, amd64.

The vmagent can save network bandwidth usage costs by using VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol.

Drop-in replacement for Prometheus

If you use Prometheus only for scraping metrics from various targets and forwarding these 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 for details.

Statsd alternative

vmagent can be used as an alternative to statsd when stream aggregation is enabled. See these docs for details.

Flexible metrics relay

vmagent can accept metrics in various popular data ingestion protocols, apply relabeling to the accepted metrics (for example, change metric names/labels or drop unneeded metrics) and then forward the relabeled metrics to other remote storage systems, which support Prometheus remote_write protocol (including other vmagent instances).

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.

VictoriaMetrics cluster already supports replication, so there is no need in specifying multiple -remoteWrite.url flags when writing data to the same cluster. See these docs.

Sharding among remote storages

By default vmagent replicates data among remote storage systems enumerated via -remoteWrite.url command-line flag. If the -remoteWrite.shardByURL command-line flag is set, then vmagent spreads evenly the outgoing time series among all the remote storage systems enumerated via -remoteWrite.url. Note that samples for the same time series are routed to the same remote storage system if -remoteWrite.shardByURL flag is specified. This allows building scalable data processing pipelines when a single remote storage cannot keep up with the data ingestion workload. For example, this allows building horizontally scalable stream aggregation by routing outgoing samples for the same time series of counter and histogram types from top-level vmagent instances to the same second-level vmagent instance, so they are aggregated properly.

If -remoteWrite.shardByURL command-line flag is set, then all the metric labels are used for even sharding among remote storage systems specified in -remoteWrite.url. Sometimes it may be needed to use only a particular set of labels for sharding. For example, it may be needed to route all the metrics with the same instance label to the same -remoteWrite.url. In this case you can specify comma-separated list of these labels in the -remoteWrite.shardByURL.labels command-line flag. For example, -remoteWrite.shardByURL.labels=instance,__name__ would shard metrics with the same name and instance label to the same -remoteWrite.url.

See also how to scrape big number of targets.

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 for details.

Splitting data streams among multiple systems

vmagent supports splitting the collected data between multiple 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. Note that each destination can receive its 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 performed in Prometheus remote_write protocol. Therefore, for the clustered version, the -remoteWrite.url command-line flag should be configured as <schema>://<vminsert-host>:8480/insert/<accountID>/prometheus/api/v1/write according to these docs. There is also support for multitenant writes. See these docs.

VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol

vmagent supports sending data to the configured -remoteWrite.url either via Prometheus remote write protocol or via VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol.

VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol provides the following benefits comparing to Prometheus remote write protocol:

• Reduced network bandwidth usage by 2x-5x. This allows saving network bandwidth usage costs when vmagent and the configured remote storage systems are located in different datacenters, availability zones or regions.

• Reduced disk read/write IO and disk space usage at vmagent when the remote storage is temporarily unavailable. In this case vmagent buffers the incoming data to disk using the VictoriaMetrics remote write format. This reduces disk read/write IO and disk space usage by 2x-5x comparing to Prometheus remote write format.

vmagent automatically switches to VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol when it sends data to VictoriaMetrics components such as other vmagent instances, single-node VictoriaMetrics or vminsert at cluster version. It is possible to force switch to VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol by specifying -remoteWrite.forceVMProto command-line flag for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. It is possible to tune the compression level for VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol with -remoteWrite.vmProtoCompressLevel command-line flag. Bigger values reduce network usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. Negative values reduce CPU usage at the cost of higher network usage.

vmagent automatically switches to Prometheus remote write protocol when it sends data to old versions of VictoriaMetrics components or to other Prometheus-compatible remote storage systems. It is possible to force switch to Prometheus remote write protocol by specifying -remoteWrite.forcePromProto command-line flag for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url.

Multitenancy

By default vmagent collects the data without tenant identifiers and routes it to the configured -remoteWrite.url.

VictoriaMetrics cluster supports writing data to multiple tenants specified via special labels - see these docs. This allows specifying tenant ids via relabeling and writing multitenant data to a single -remoteWrite.url=http://<vminsert-addr>/insert/multitenant/prometheus/api/v1/write.

vmagent can accept data from the same multitenant endpoints as vminsert from VictoriaMetrics cluster does according to these docs and route the accepted data to the corresponding tenants in VictoriaMetrics cluster pointed by the -remoteWrite.multitenantURL command-line flag. For example, if -remoteWrite.multitenantURL is set to http://vminsert-service, then vmagent would accept multitenant data at http://vmagent:8429/insert/<accountID>/... endpoints in the same way as VictoriaMetrics cluster does and route it to http://vminsert-service/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 multiple VictoriaMetrics clusters.

If -remoteWrite.multitenantURL command-line flag is set and vmagent is configured to scrape Prometheus-compatible targets (e.g. if -promscrape.config command-line flag is set) then vmagent reads tenantID from __tenant_id__ label for the discovered targets and routes all the metrics from this target to the given __tenant_id__, e.g. to the url <-remoteWrite.multitenantURL>/insert/<__tenant_id__>/prometheus/api/v1/write.

For example, the following relabeling rule instructs sending metrics to tenantID defined in the prometheus.io/tenant annotation of Kubernetes pod deployment:

scrape_configs:
- kubernetes_sd_configs:
  - role: pod
  relabel_configs:
  - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_prometheus_io_tenant]
    target_label: __tenant_id__

If the target has no associated __tenant_id__ label, then its' metrics are routed to zero tenantID, e.g. to <-remoteWrite.multitenantURL>/insert/0/prometheus/api/v1/write.

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:

• global
• scrape_configs

All other sections are ignored, including the remote_write section. Use -remoteWrite.* command-line flag instead for configuring remote write settings. See the list of unsupported config sections.

The file pointed by -promscrape.config may contain %{ENV_VAR} placeholders which are substituted by the corresponding ENV_VAR environment variable values.

See the list of supported service discovery types for Prometheus scrape targets.

scrape_config enhancements

vmagent supports the following additional options in scrape_configs section:

• headers - a list of HTTP headers to send to scrape target with each scrape request. This can be used when the scrape target needs custom authorization and authentication. For example:

scrape_configs:
- job_name: custom_headers
  headers:
  - "TenantID: abc"
  - "My-Auth: TopSecret"

• disable_compression: true for disabling response compression on a per-job basis. By default, vmagent requests compressed responses from scrape targets for saving network bandwidth.
• disable_keepalive: true for disabling HTTP keep-alive connections on a per-job basis. By default, vmagent uses keep-alive connections to scrape targets for reducing overhead on connection re-establishing.
• series_limit: N for limiting the number of unique time series a single scrape target can expose. See these docs.
• stream_parse: true for scraping targets in a streaming manner. This may be useful when targets export big number of metrics. See these docs.
• 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 to spread 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].

See scrape_configs docs for more details on all the supported options.

Loading scrape configs from multiple files

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, from single_scrape_config.yml local file and from https://config-server/scrape_config.yml url:

scrape_config_files:
- configs/*.yml
- single_scrape_config.yml
- https://config-server/scrape_config.yml

Every referred file can contain arbitrary number of supported scrape configs. There is no need in specifying top-level scrape_configs section in these files. For example:

- job_name: foo
  static_configs:
  - targets: ["vmagent:8429"]
- job_name: bar
  kubernetes_sd_configs:
  - role: pod

vmagent is able to dynamically reload these files - see these docs.

Unsupported Prometheus config sections

vmagent doesn't support the following sections in Prometheus config file passed to -promscrape.config command-line flag:

• remote_write. This section is substituted with various -remoteWrite* command-line flags. See the full list of flags. The remote_write section isn't supported in order to reduce possible confusion when vmagent is used for accepting incoming metrics via supported push protocols. In this case the -promscrape.config file isn't needed.
• remote_read. This section isn't supported at all, since vmagent doesn't provide Prometheus querying API. It is expected that the querying API is provided by the remote storage specified via -remoteWrite.url such as VictoriaMetrics. See Prometheus querying API docs for VictoriaMetrics.
• rule_files and alerting. These sections are supported by vmalert.

The list of supported service discovery types is available here.

Additionally, vmagent doesn't support refresh_interval option at service discovery sections. This option is substituted with -promscrape.*CheckInterval command-line options, which are specific per each service discovery type. See the full list of command-line flags for vmagent.

Adding labels to metrics

Extra labels can be added to metrics collected by vmagent via 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.

• 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 starts vmagent, which adds {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 ...
  

• Via relabeling. See these docs.

Automatically generated metrics

vmagent automatically generates the following metrics per each scrape of every Prometheus-compatible target and attaches instance, job and other target-specific labels to these metrics:

• up - this metric exposes 1 value on successful scrape and 0 value on unsuccessful scrape. This allows monitoring failing scrapes with the following MetricsQL query:

  up == 0
  

• scrape_duration_seconds - the duration of the scrape for the given target. This allows monitoring slow scrapes. For example, the following MetricsQL query returns scrapes, which take more than 1.5 seconds to complete:

  scrape_duration_seconds > 1.5
  

• scrape_timeout_seconds - the configured timeout for the current scrape target (aka scrape_timeout). This allows detecting targets with scrape durations close to the configured scrape timeout. For example, the following MetricsQL query returns targets (identified by instance label), which take more than 80% of the configured scrape_timeout during scrapes:

  scrape_duration_seconds / scrape_timeout_seconds > 0.8
  

• scrape_samples_scraped - the number of samples (aka metrics) parsed per each scrape. This allows detecting targets, which expose too many metrics. For example, the following MetricsQL query returns targets, which expose more than 10000 metrics:

  scrape_samples_scraped > 10000
  

• scrape_samples_limit - the configured limit on the number of metrics the given target can expose. The limit can be set via sample_limit option at scrape_configs. This metric is exposed only if the sample_limit is set. This allows detecting targets, which expose too many metrics compared to the configured sample_limit. For example, the following query returns targets (identified by instance label), which expose more than 80% metrics compared to the configed sample_limit:

  scrape_samples_scraped / scrape_samples_limit > 0.8
  

• scrape_samples_post_metric_relabeling - the number of samples (aka metrics) left after applying metric-level relabeling from metric_relabel_configs section (see relabeling docs for more details). This allows detecting targets with too many metrics after the relabeling. For example, the following MetricsQL query returns targets with more than 10000 metrics after the relabeling:

  scrape_samples_post_metric_relabeling > 10000
  

• scrape_series_added - an approximate number of new series the given target generates during the current scrape. This metric allows detecting targets (identified by instance label), which lead to high churn rate. For example, the following MetricsQL query returns targets, which generate more than 1000 new series during the last hour:

  sum_over_time(scrape_series_added[1h]) > 1000
  

  vmagent sets scrape_series_added to zero when it runs with -promscrape.noStaleMarkers command-line option or when it scrapes target with no_stale_markers: true option, e.g. when staleness markers are disabled.

• scrape_series_limit - the limit on the number of unique time series the given target can expose according to these docs. This metric is exposed only if the series limit is set.

• scrape_series_current - the number of unique series the given target exposed so far. This metric is exposed only if the series limit is set according to these docs. This metric allows alerting when the number of exposed series by the given target reaches the limit. For example, the following query would alert when the target exposes more than 90% of unique series compared to the configured limit.

  scrape_series_current / scrape_series_limit > 0.9
  

• scrape_series_limit_samples_dropped - exposes the number of dropped samples during the scrape because of the exceeded limit on the number of unique series. This metric is exposed only if the series limit is set according to these docs. This metric allows alerting when scraped samples are dropped because of the exceeded limit. For example, the following query alerts when at least a single sample is dropped because of the exceeded limit during the last hour:

  sum_over_time(scrape_series_limit_samples_dropped[1h]) > 0
  

If the target exports metrics with names clashing with the automatically generated metric names, then vmagent automatically adds exported_ prefix to these metric names, so they don't clash with automatically generated metric names.

Relabeling

VictoriaMetrics components support Prometheus-compatible relabeling with additional enhancements. The relabeling can be defined in the following places processed by vmagent:

• At the scrape_config -> relabel_configs section in -promscrape.config file. This relabeling is used for modifying labels in discovered targets and for dropping unneeded targets. See relabeling cookbook for details.

  This relabeling can be debugged by clicking the debug link at the corresponding target on the http://vmagent:8429/targets page or on the http://vmagent:8429/service-discovery page. See these docs for details. The link is unavailable if vmagent runs with -promscrape.dropOriginalLabels command-line flag.

• At the scrape_config -> metric_relabel_configs section in -promscrape.config file. This relabeling is used for modifying labels in scraped metrics and for dropping unneeded metrics. See relabeling cookbook for details.

  This relabeling can be debugged via http://vmagent:8429/metric-relabel-debug page. See these docs for details.

• At the -remoteWrite.relabelConfig file. This relabeling is used for modifying labels for all the collected metrics (including metrics obtained via push-based protocols) and for dropping unneeded metrics before sending them to all the configured -remoteWrite.url addresses.

  This relabeling can be debugged via http://vmagent:8429/metric-relabel-debug page. See these docs for details.

• At the -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig files. This relabeling is used for modifying labels for metrics and for dropping unneeded metrics before sending them to the particular -remoteWrite.url.

  This relabeling can be debugged via http://vmagent:8429/metric-relabel-debug page. See these docs for details.

All the files with relabeling configs can contain special placeholders in the form %{ENV_VAR}, which are replaced by the corresponding environment variable values.

Streaming aggregation, if configured, is pefrormed after applying all the relabeling stages mentioned above.

The following articles contain useful information about Prometheus relabeling:

• Cookbook for common relabeling tasks
• How to use Relabeling in Prometheus and VictoriaMetrics
• Life of a label
• Discarding targets and timeseries with relabeling
• Dropping labels at scrape time
• Extracting labels from legacy metric names
• relabel_configs vs metric_relabel_configs

Relabeling enhancements

vmagent provides the following enhancements on top of Prometheus-compatible relabeling:

• The replacement option can refer arbitrary labels via {% raw %}{{label_name}}{% endraw %} placeholders. Such placeholders are substituted with the corresponding label value. For example, the following relabeling rule sets instance-job label value to host123-foo when applied to the metric with {instance="host123",job="foo"} labels:

  {% raw %}

  - target_label: "instance-job"
    replacement: "{{instance}}-{{job}}"
  

  {% endraw %}

• An optional if filter can be used for conditional relabeling. The if filter may contain arbitrary time series selector. The action is performed only for samples, which match the provided if filter. For example, the following relabeling rule keeps metrics matching foo{bar="baz"} series selector, while dropping the rest of metrics:

  - if: 'foo{bar="baz"}'
    action: keep
  

  This is equivalent to less clear Prometheus-compatible relabeling rule:

  - action: keep
    source_labels: [__name__, bar]
    regex: 'foo;baz'
  

  The if option may contain more than one filter. In this case the action is performed if at least a single filter matches the given sample. For example, the following relabeling rule adds foo="bar" label to samples with job="foo" or instance="bar" labels:

  - target_label: foo
    replacement: bar
    if:
    - '{job="foo"}'
    - '{instance="bar"}'
  

• 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:

  - action: keep_metrics
    regex: "metric_a|metric_b|foo_.+"
  

  - action: keep_metrics
    regex:
    - "metric_a"
    - "metric_b"
    - "foo_.+"
  

• VictoriaMetrics provides the following additional relabeling actions on top of standard actions from the Prometheus relabeling:

  • replace_all replaces all the occurrences of regex in the values of source_labels with the replacement and stores the results in the target_label. For example, the following relabeling config replaces all the occurrences of - char in metric names with _ char (e.g. foo-bar-baz metric name is transformed into foo_bar_baz):

    - action: replace_all
      source_labels: ["__name__"]
      target_label: "__name__"
      regex: "-"
      replacement: "_"
    

  • labelmap_all replaces all the occurrences of regex in all the label names with the replacement. For example, the following relabeling config replaces all the occurrences of - char in all the label names with _ char (e.g. foo-bar-baz label name is transformed into foo_bar_baz):

    - action: labelmap_all
      regex: "-"
      replacement: "_"
    

  • keep_if_equal: keeps the entry if all the label values from source_labels are equal, while dropping all the other entries. For example, the following relabeling config keeps targets if they contain equal values for instance and host labels, while dropping all the other targets:

    - action: keep_if_equal
      source_labels: ["instance", "host"]
    

  • drop_if_equal: drops the entry if all the label values from source_labels are equal, while keeping all the other entries. For example, the following relabeling config drops targets if they contain equal values for instance and host labels, while keeping all the other targets:

    - action: drop_if_equal
      source_labels: ["instance", "host"]
    

  • keep_metrics: keeps all the metrics with names matching the given regex, while dropping all the other metrics. For example, the following relabeling config keeps metrics with foo and bar names, while dropping all the other metrics:

    - action: keep_metrics
      regex: "foo|bar"
    

  • drop_metrics: drops all the metrics with names matching the given regex, while keeping all the other metrics. For example, the following relabeling config drops metrics with foo and bar names, while leaving all the other metrics:

    - action: drop_metrics
      regex: "foo|bar"
    

  • graphite: applies Graphite-style relabeling to metric name. See these docs for details.

Graphite relabeling

VictoriaMetrics components support action: graphite relabeling rules, which allow extracting various parts from Graphite-style metrics into the configured labels with the syntax similar to Glob matching in statsd_exporter. Note that the name field must be substituted with explicit __name__ option under labels section. If __name__ option is missing under labels section, then the original Graphite-style metric name is left unchanged.

For example, the following relabeling rule generates requests_total{job="app42",instance="host124:8080"} metric from app42.host123.requests.total Graphite-style metric:

- action: graphite
  match: "*.*.*.total"
  labels:
    __name__: "${3}_total"
    job: "$1"
    instance: "${2}:8080"

Important notes about action: graphite relabeling rules:

• The relabeling rule is applied only to metrics, which match the given match expression. Other metrics remain unchanged.
• The * matches the maximum possible number of chars until the next dot or until the next part of the match expression whichever comes first. It may match zero chars if the next char is .. For example, match: "app*foo.bar" matches app42foo.bar and 42 becomes available to use at labels section via $1 capture group.
• The $0 capture group matches the original metric name.
• The relabeling rules are executed in order defined in the original config.

The action: graphite relabeling rules are easier to write and maintain than action: replace for labels extraction from Graphite-style metric names. Additionally, the action: graphite relabeling rules usually work much faster than the equivalent action: replace rules.

Relabel debug

vmagent and single-node VictoriaMetrics provide the following tools for debugging target-level and metric-level relabeling:

• Target-level debugging (e.g. relabel_configs section at scrape_configs) can be performed by navigating to http://vmagent:8429/targets page (http://victoriametrics:8428/targets page for single-node VictoriaMetrics) and clicking the debug target relabeling link at the target, which must be debugged. The link is unavailable if vmagent runs with -promscrape.dropOriginalLabels command-line flag. The opened page shows step-by-step results for the actual target relabeling rules applied to the discovered target labels. The page shows also the target URL generated after applying all the relabeling rules.

  The http://vmagent:8429/targets page shows only active targets. If you need to understand why some target is dropped during the relabeling, then navigate to http://vmagent:8428/service-discovery page (http://victoriametrics:8428/service-discovery for single-node VictoriaMetrics), find the dropped target and click the debug link there. The link is unavailable if vmagent runs with -promscrape.dropOriginalLabels command-line flag. The opened page shows step-by-step results for the actual relabeling rules, which result to target drop.

• Metric-level debugging (e.g. metric_relabel_configs section at scrape_configs can be performed by navigating to http://vmagent:8429/targets page (http://victoriametrics:8428/targets page for single-node VictoriaMetrics) and clicking the debug metrics relabeling link at the target, which must be debugged. The link is unavailable if vmagent runs with -promscrape.dropOriginalLabels command-line flag. The opened page shows step-by-step results for the actual metric relabeling rules applied to the given target labels.

Prometheus staleness markers

vmagent sends Prometheus staleness markers to -remoteWrite.url in the following cases:

• If they are passed to vmagent via Prometheus remote_write protocol.
• If the metric disappears from the list of scraped metrics, then stale marker is sent to this particular metric.
• If the scrape target becomes temporarily unavailable, then stale markers are sent for all the metrics scraped from this target.
• If the scrape target is removed from the list of targets, then stale markers are sent for all the metrics scraped from this target.

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 disabling staleness tracking in the following ways:

• By passing -promscrape.noStaleMarkers command-line flag to vmagent. This disables staleness tracking across all the targets.
• By specifying no_stale_markers: true option in the scrape_config for the corresponding target.

When staleness tracking is disabled, then vmagent doesn't track the number of new time series per each scrape, e.g. it sets scrape_series_added metric to zero. See these docs for details.

Stream parsing mode

By default, vmagent reads the full response body from scrape target into memory, then parses it, applies 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, 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 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 for targets exposing big number of metrics.

Examples:

scrape_configs:
- job_name: 'big-federate'
  stream_parse: true
  static_configs:
  - targets:
    - big-prometheus1
    - big-prometheus2
  honor_labels: true
  metrics_path: /federate
  params:
    'match[]': ['{__name__!=""}']

Note that vmagent in stream parsing mode stores up to sample_limit samples to the configured -remoteStorage.url instead of dropping all the samples read from the target, because the parsed data is sent to the remote storage as soon as it is parsed in stream parsing mode.

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). The number of vmagent instances in the cluster must be passed to -promscrape.cluster.membersCount command-line flag. Each vmagent instance in the cluster must use identical -promscrape.config files with distinct -promscrape.cluster.memberNum values in the range 0 ... N-1, where N is the number of vmagent instances in the cluster specified via -promscrape.cluster.membersCount. 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 ...

The -promscrape.cluster.memberNum can be set to a StatefulSet pod name when vmagent runs in Kubernetes. The pod name must end with a number in the range 0 ... promscrape.cluster.membersCount-1. For example, -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=vmagent-0.

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. The -dedup.minScrapeInterval must be set to the scrape_interval configured at -promscrape.config. See these docs for details.

The -promscrape.cluster.memberLabel command-line flag allows specifying a name for member num label to add to all the scraped metrics. The value of the member num label is set to -promscrape.cluster.memberNum. For example, the following config instructs adding vmagent_instance="0" label to all the metrics scraped by the given vmagent instance:

/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=0 -promscrape.cluster.memberLabel=vmagent_instance

See also how to shard data among multiple remote storage systems.

High availability

It is possible to run multiple identically configured vmagent instances or vmagent clusters, so they scrape the same set of targets and push the collected data to the same set of VictoriaMetrics remote storage systems. Two identically configured vmagent instances or clusters is usually called an HA pair.

When running HA pairs, deduplication must be configured at VictoriaMetrics side in order to de-duplicate received samples. See these docs for details.

It is also recommended passing different values to -promscrape.cluster.name command-line flag per each vmagent instance or per each vmagent cluster in HA setup. This is needed for proper data de-duplication. See this issue 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:

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 these docs.
• proxy_basic_auth for Basic authorization. See these docs.
• proxy_bearer_token and proxy_bearer_token_file for Bearer token authorization
• proxy_oauth2 for OAuth2 config. See these docs.
• proxy_tls_config for TLS config. See these docs.
• proxy_headers for passing additional HTTP headers in requests to proxy.

For example:

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
  proxy_headers:
  - "Proxy-Auth: top-secret"

Cardinality limiter

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 at relabel_configs section. This limit is applied to the corresponding scrape targets. Typical use case: to set the limit via Kubernetes annotations for targets, which may expose too high number of time series.

Scraped metrics are dropped for time series exceeding the given limit on the time window of 24h. vmagent creates the following additional per-target metrics for targets with non-zero series limit:

• scrape_series_limit_samples_dropped - the number of dropped samples during the scrape when the unique series limit is exceeded.
• scrape_series_limit - the series limit for the given target.
• scrape_series_current - the current number of series for the given target.

These metrics are automatically sent to the configured -remoteWrite.url alongside with the scraped per-target metrics.

These metrics allow building the following alerting rules:

• scrape_series_current / scrape_series_limit > 0.9 - alerts when the number of series exposed by the target reaches 90% of the limit.
• sum_over_time(scrape_series_limit_samples_dropped[1h]) > 0 - alerts when some samples are dropped because the series limit on a particular target is reached.

See also sample_limit option at scrape_config section.

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 exposes the following metrics at http://vmagent:8429/metrics page (see monitoring docs for details):

• 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_hourly_series_limit_max_series - the hourly series limit set via -remoteWrite.maxHourlySeries.
• vmagent_hourly_series_limit_current_series - the current number of unique series registered during the last hour.
• vmagent_daily_series_limit_rows_dropped_total - the number of metrics dropped due to exceeded daily limit on the number of unique time series.
• vmagent_daily_series_limit_max_series - the daily series limit set via -remoteWrite.maxDailySeries.
• vmagent_daily_series_limit_current_series - the current number of unique series registered during the last day.

These limits are approximate, so vmagent can underflow/overflow the limit by a small percentage (usually less than 1%).

See also cardinality explorer docs.

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 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. 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 pages:

• http://vmagent-host:8429/targets. This pages shows the current status for every active target.
• http://vmagent-host:8429/service-discovery. This pages shows the list of discovered targets with the discovered __meta_* labels according to these docs. This page may help debugging target relabeling.
• http://vmagent-host:8429/api/v1/targets. This handler returns JSON response compatible with the corresponding page from Prometheus API.
• http://vmagent-host:8429/ready. This handler returns http 200 status code when vmagent finishes its initialization for all the 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 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:

  • Disabling staleness tracking with -promscrape.noStaleMarkers option. See these docs.
  • Enabling stream parsing mode if vmagent scrapes targets with millions of metrics per target. See these docs.
  • 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 Kubernetes 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.

• 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 /service-discovery page could be useful for debugging relabeling process for scrape targets. This page contains original labels for targets dropped during relabeling. 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.

• 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, Mimir, Cortex and Thanos, which typically emit out of order sample errors. The best solution is to use remote storage with backfilling support such as VictoriaMetrics.

• 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:

  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:

  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:

  - 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:

  - action: drop
    source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_init]
    regex: true
  

See also troubleshooting docs.

Kafka integration

Enterprise version of vmagent can read and write metrics from / to Kafka:

• Reading metrics from Kafka
• Writing metrics to Kafka

The enterprise version of vmagent is available for evaluation at releases page in vmutils-...-enterprise.tar.gz archives and in docker images with tags containing enterprise suffix. See how to request a free trial license here.

Reading metrics from Kafka

Enterprise version 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. Messages in this format can be sent by vmagent - see these docs.
• influx - InfluxDB line protocol format.
• prometheus - Prometheus text exposition format and OpenMetrics format.
• graphite - Graphite plaintext format.
• jsonline - 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:

./bin/vmagent -remoteWrite.url=http://localhost:8428/api/v1/write \
       -kafka.consumer.topic.brokers=localhost:9092 \
       -kafka.consumer.topic.format=influx \
       -kafka.consumer.topic=metrics-by-telegraf \
       -kafka.consumer.topic.groupID=some-id

It is expected that Telegraf sends metrics to the metrics-by-telegraf topic with the following config:

[[outputs.kafka]]
brokers = ["localhost:9092"]
topic = "influx"
data_format = "influx"

Command-line flags for Kafka consumer

These command-line flags are available only in enterprise version of vmagent, which can be downloaded for evaluation from releases page (see vmutils-...-enterprise.tar.gz archives) and from docker images 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.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.basicAuth.password array
        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.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.defaultFormat string
        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.

Writing metrics to Kafka

Enterprise version 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 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.

Kafka broker authorization and authentication

Two types of auth are supported:

• sasl with username and password:

./bin/vmagent -remoteWrite.url=kafka://localhost:9092/?topic=prom-rw&security.protocol=SASL_SSL&sasl.mechanisms=PLAIN -remoteWrite.basicAuth.username=user -remoteWrite.basicAuth.password=password

• tls certificates:

./bin/vmagent -remoteWrite.url=kafka://localhost:9092/?topic=prom-rw&security.protocol=SSL -remoteWrite.tlsCAFile=/opt/ca.pem -remoteWrite.tlsCertFile=/opt/cert.pem -remoteWrite.tlsKeyFile=/opt/key.pem

How to build from sources

We recommend using official binary releases - vmagent is located in the vmutils-... archives.

It may be needed to build vmagent from source code when developing or testing new feature or bugfix.

Development build

1. Install Go. The minimum supported version is Go 1.20.
2. Run make vmagent from the root folder of the repository. It builds the vmagent binary and puts it into the bin folder.

Production build

1. Install docker.
2. Run make vmagent-prod from the root folder of the repository. It builds vmagent-prod binary and puts it into the bin folder.

Building docker images

Run make package-vmagent. It builds victoriametrics/vmagent:<PKG_TAG> docker image locally. <PKG_TAG> is an auto-generated image tag, which depends on source code in the repository. The <PKG_TAG> may be manually set via PKG_TAG=foobar make package-vmagent.

The base docker image is alpine but it is possible to use any other base image by setting it via <ROOT_IMAGE> environment variable. For example, the following command builds the image on top of scratch image:

ROOT_IMAGE=scratch make package-vmagent

ARM build

ARM build may run on Raspberry Pi or on energy-efficient ARM servers.

Development ARM build

1. Install Go. The minimum supported version is Go 1.20.
2. Run make vmagent-linux-arm or make vmagent-linux-arm64 from the root folder of the repository It builds vmagent-linux-arm or vmagent-linux-arm64 binary respectively and puts it into the bin folder.

Production ARM build

1. Install docker.
2. Run make vmagent-linux-arm-prod or make vmagent-linux-arm64-prod from the root folder of the repository. It builds vmagent-linux-arm-prod or vmagent-linux-arm64-prod binary respectively and puts it into the bin folder.

Profiling

vmagent provides handlers for collecting the following Go profiles:

• Memory profile can be collected with the following command (replace 0.0.0.0 with hostname if needed):

curl http://0.0.0.0:8429/debug/pprof/heap > mem.pprof

• CPU profile can be collected with the following command (replace 0.0.0.0 with hostname if needed):

curl http://0.0.0.0:8429/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.

It is safe sharing the collected profiles from security point of view, since they do not contain sensitive information.

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 descriptions 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 .

  -cacheExpireDuration duration
     Items are removed from in-memory caches after they aren't accessed for this duration. Lower values may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -prevCacheRemovalPercent (default 30m0s)
  -configAuthKey string
     Authorization key for accessing /config page. It must be passed via authKey query arg
  -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)
  -datadog.maxInsertRequestSize size
     The maximum size in bytes of a single DataDog POST request to /api/v1/series
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 67108864)
  -datadog.sanitizeMetricName
     Sanitize metric names for the ingested DataDog data to comply with DataDog behaviour described at https://docs.datadoghq.com/metrics/custom_metrics/#naming-custom-metrics (default true)
  -denyQueryTracing
     Whether to disable the ability to trace queries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#query-tracing
  -dryRun
     Whether to check config files without running vmagent. The following files are checked: -promscrape.config, -remoteWrite.relabelConfig, -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig, -remoteWrite.streamAggr.config . Unknown config entries aren't allowed in -promscrape.config by default. This can be changed by passing -promscrape.config.strictParse=false command-line flag
  -enableTCP6
     Whether to enable IPv6 for listening and dialing. By default, only IPv4 TCP and UDP are used
  -envflag.enable
     Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables in addition to the command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from the command line if this flag isn't set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#environment-variables for more details
  -envflag.prefix string
     Prefix for environment variables if -envflag.enable is set
  -eula
     Deprecated, please use -license or -licenseFile flags instead. By specifying this flag, you confirm that you have an enterprise license and accept the ESA https://victoriametrics.com/legal/esa/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html
  -filestream.disableFadvise
     Whether to disable fadvise() syscall when reading large data files. The fadvise() syscall prevents from eviction of recently accessed data from OS page cache during background merges and backups. In some rare cases it is better to disable the syscall if it uses too much CPU
  -flagsAuthKey string
     Auth key for /flags endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -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. See also -graphiteListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
  -graphiteListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -graphiteListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt
  -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.header.csp string
     Value for 'Content-Security-Policy' header
  -http.header.frameOptions string
     Value for 'X-Frame-Options' header
  -http.header.hsts string
     Value for 'Strict-Transport-Security' header
  -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 server's Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if -httpAuth.username is empty
  -httpAuth.username string
     Username for HTTP server's 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=''. See also -httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol (default ":8429")
  -httpListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -httpListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt . With enabled proxy protocol http server cannot serve regular /metrics endpoint. Use -pushmetrics.url for metrics pushing
  -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, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (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 InfluxDB line during parsing
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 262144)
  -influxDBLabel string
     Default label for the DB name sent over '?db={db_name}' query parameter (default "db")
  -influxListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for InfluxDB line protocol data. Usually :8089 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 . See also -influxListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
  -influxListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -influxListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt
  -influxMeasurementFieldSeparator string
     Separator for '{measurement}{separator}{field_name}' metric name when inserted via InfluxDB 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 metric name if InfluxDB line contains only a single field
  -influxTrimTimestamp duration
     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)
  -insert.maxQueueDuration duration
     The maximum duration to wait in the queue when -maxConcurrentInserts concurrent insert requests are executed (default 1m0s)
  -internStringCacheExpireDuration duration
     The expiry duration for caches for interned strings. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringMaxLen and -internStringDisableCache (default 6m0s)
  -internStringDisableCache
     Whether to disable caches for interned strings. This may reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringCacheExpireDuration and -internStringMaxLen
  -internStringMaxLen int
     The maximum length for strings to intern. A lower limit may save memory at the cost of higher CPU usage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_interning . See also -internStringDisableCache and -internStringCacheExpireDuration (default 500)
  -kafka.consumer.topic array
     Kafka topic names for data consumption. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.basicAuth.password array
     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' . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html
     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' . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html
     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 . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.concurrency array
     Configures consumer concurrency for topic specified via -kafka.consumer.topic flag.This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html (default 1)
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.defaultFormat string
     Expected data format in the topic if -kafka.consumer.topic.format is skipped. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html (default "promremotewrite")
  -kafka.consumer.topic.format array
     data format for corresponding kafka topic. Valid formats: influx, prometheus, promremotewrite, graphite, jsonline . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.groupID array
     Defines group.id for topic. This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html
     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.This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html
     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 . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/enterprise.html
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -license string
     Lisense key for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise. See https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/ . Trial Enterprise license can be obtained from https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/trial/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. The license key can be also passed via file specified by -licenseFile command-line flag
  -license.forceOffline
     Whether to enable offline verification for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise license key, which has been passed either via -license or via -licenseFile command-line flag. The issued license key must support offline verification feature. Contact info@victoriametrics.com if you need offline license verification. This flag is avilable only in Enterprise binaries
  -licenseFile string
     Path to file with license key for VictoriaMetrics Enterprise. See https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/ . Trial Enterprise license can be obtained from https://victoriametrics.com/products/enterprise/trial/ . This flag is available only in Enterprise binaries. The license key can be also passed inline via -license command-line flag
  -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")
  -loggerJSONFields string
     Allows renaming fields in JSON formatted logs. Example: "ts:timestamp,msg:message" renames "ts" to "timestamp" and "msg" to "message". Supported fields: ts, level, caller, msg
  -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 insert requests. Default value should work for most cases, since it minimizes the memory usage. The default value can be increased when clients send data over slow networks. See also -insert.maxQueueDuration (default 8)
  -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, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (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 the OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (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 the OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
  -metricsAuthKey string
     Auth key for /metrics endpoint. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -newrelic.maxInsertRequestSize size
     The maximum size in bytes of a single NewRelic request to /newrelic/infra/v2/metrics/events/bulk
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 67108864)
  -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr string
     TCP address to listen for OpenTSDB HTTP put requests. Usually :4242 must be set. Doesn't work if empty. See also -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
  -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt
  -opentsdbListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for OpenTSDB 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. See also -opentsdbListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
  -opentsdbListenAddr.useProxyProtocol
     Whether to use proxy protocol for connections accepted at -opentsdbListenAddr . See https://www.haproxy.org/download/1.8/doc/proxy-protocol.txt
  -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, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (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/* endpoints. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -prevCacheRemovalPercent float
     Items in the previous caches are removed when the percent of requests it serves becomes lower than this value. Higher values reduce memory usage at the cost of higher CPU usage. See also -cacheExpireDuration (default 0.1)
  -promscrape.azureSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in Azure. This works only if azure_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#azure_sd_configs for details (default 1m0s)
  -promscrape.cluster.memberLabel string
     If non-empty, then the label with this name and the -promscrape.cluster.memberNum value is added to all the scraped metrics. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#scraping-big-number-of-targets for more info
  -promscrape.cluster.memberNum string
     The number of vmagent instance in the cluster of scrapers. It must be a unique value in the range 0 ... promscrape.cluster.membersCount-1 across scrapers in the cluster. Can be specified as pod name of Kubernetes StatefulSet - pod-name-Num, where Num is a numeric part of pod name. See also -promscrape.cluster.memberLabel . See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#scraping-big-number-of-targets for more info (default "0")
  -promscrape.cluster.membersCount int
     The number of members in a cluster of scrapers. Each member must have a 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. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#scraping-big-number-of-targets for more info (default 1)
  -promscrape.cluster.name string
     Optional name of the cluster. If multiple vmagent clusters scrape the same targets, then each cluster must have unique name in order to properly de-duplicate samples received from these clusters. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#scraping-big-number-of-targets for more info
  -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor int
     The number of members in the cluster, which scrape the same targets. If the replication factor is greater than 1, then the deduplication must be enabled at remote storage side. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#scraping-big-number-of-targets for more info (default 1)
  -promscrape.config string
     Optional path to Prometheus config file with 'scrape_configs' section containing targets to scrape. The path can point to local file and to http url. 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 deny unsupported fields in -promscrape.config . Set to false in order to silently skip unsupported fields (default true)
  -promscrape.configCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in -promscrape.config file. By default, the checking is disabled. See how to reload -promscrape.config file at https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#configuration-update
  -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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#consul_sd_configs for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.consulagentSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in Consul Agent. This works only if consulagent_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#consulagent_sd_configs 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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#digitalocean_sd_configs 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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#dns_sd_configs 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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#docker_sd_configs 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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#dockerswarm_sd_configs 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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#ec2_sd_configs 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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#eureka_sd_configs for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.fileSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in 'file_sd_config'. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#file_sd_configs for details (default 1m0s)
  -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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#gce_sd_configs 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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#http_sd_configs for details (default 1m0s)
  -promscrape.kubernetes.apiServerTimeout duration
     How frequently to reload the full state from Kubernetes 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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#kubernetes_sd_configs for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.kumaSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in kuma service discovery. This works only if kuma_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#kuma_sd_configs 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.maxResponseHeadersSize size
     The maximum size of http response headers from Prometheus scrape targets
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 4096)
  -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, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 16777216)
  -promscrape.minResponseSizeForStreamParse size
     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, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (default 1000000)
  -promscrape.noStaleMarkers
     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
  -promscrape.nomad.waitTime duration
     Wait time used by Nomad service discovery. Default value is used if not set
  -promscrape.nomadSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in Nomad. This works only if nomad_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#nomad_sd_configs for details (default 30s)
  -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://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#openstack_sd_configs for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.seriesLimitPerTarget int
     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
  -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 possible 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. See also -promscrape.suppressScrapeErrorsDelay
  -promscrape.suppressScrapeErrorsDelay duration
     The delay for suppressing repeated scrape errors logging per each scrape targets. This may be used for reducing the number of log lines related to scrape errors. See also -promscrape.suppressScrapeErrors
  -promscrape.yandexcloudSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in Yandex Cloud API. This works only if yandexcloud_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/sd_configs.html#yandexcloud_sd_configs for details (default 30s)
  -pushmetrics.extraLabel array
     Optional labels to add to metrics pushed to -pushmetrics.url . For example, -pushmetrics.extraLabel='instance="foo"' adds instance="foo" label to all the metrics pushed to -pushmetrics.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -pushmetrics.interval duration
     Interval for pushing metrics to -pushmetrics.url (default 10s)
  -pushmetrics.url array
     Optional URL to push metrics exposed at /metrics page. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#push-metrics . By default, metrics exposed at /metrics page aren't pushed to any remote storage
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.aws.accessKey array
     Optional AWS AccessKey to use for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url if -remoteWrite.aws.useSigv4 is set
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.aws.ec2Endpoint array
     Optional AWS EC2 API endpoint to use for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url if -remoteWrite.aws.useSigv4 is set
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.aws.region array
     Optional AWS region to use for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url if -remoteWrite.aws.useSigv4 is set
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.aws.roleARN array
     Optional AWS roleARN to use for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url if -remoteWrite.aws.useSigv4 is set
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.aws.secretKey array
     Optional AWS SecretKey to use for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url if -remoteWrite.aws.useSigv4 is set
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.aws.service array
     Optional AWS Service to use for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url if -remoteWrite.aws.useSigv4 is set. Defaults to "aps"
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.aws.stsEndpoint array
     Optional AWS STS API endpoint to use for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url if -remoteWrite.aws.useSigv4 is set
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.aws.useSigv4 array
     Enables SigV4 request signing for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. It is expected that other -remoteWrite.aws.* command-line flags are set if sigv4 request signing is enabled
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.basicAuth.password array
     Optional basic auth password to use 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 the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. The file is re-read every second
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.basicAuth.username array
     Optional basic auth username to use 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 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 the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. The token is re-read from the file every second
     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.forcePromProto array
     Whether to force Prometheus remote write protocol for sending data to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url . See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#victoriametrics-remote-write-protocol
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.forceVMProto array
     Whether to force VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol for sending data to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url . See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#victoriametrics-remote-write-protocol
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.headers array
     Optional HTTP headers to send with each request to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. For example, -remoteWrite.headers='My-Auth:foobar' would send 'My-Auth: foobar' HTTP header with every request to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. Multiple headers must be delimited by '^^': -remoteWrite.headers='header1:value1^^header2:value2'
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.keepDanglingQueues
     Keep persistent queues contents at -remoteWrite.tmpDataPath in case there are no matching -remoteWrite.url. Useful when -remoteWrite.url is changed temporarily and persistent queue files will be needed later on.
  -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 block size to send to remote storage. Bigger blocks may improve performance at the cost of the increased memory usage. See also -remoteWrite.maxRowsPerBlock
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB (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 https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#cardinality-limiter
  -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL array
     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. It is recommended to set the value for this flag to a multiple of the block size 500MB. Disk usage is unlimited if the value is set to 0
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, TB, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB. (default 0)
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -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 https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#cardinality-limiter
  -remoteWrite.maxRowsPerBlock int
     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)
  -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://<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.
  -remoteWrite.oauth2.clientID array
     Optional OAuth2 clientID to use 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 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 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 the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. Scopes must be delimited by ';'
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.oauth2.tokenUrl array
     Optional OAuth2 tokenURL to use 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 the corresponding -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 is 2 * numberOfAvailableCPUs (default 8)
  -remoteWrite.rateLimit array
     Optional rate limit in bytes per second for data sent to the corresponding -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 (default 0)
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.relabelConfig string
     Optional path to file with relabeling configs, which are applied to all the metrics before sending them to -remoteWrite.url. See also -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig. The path can point either to local file or to http url. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#relabeling
  -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 (default 100)
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.sendTimeout array
     Timeout for sending a single block of data to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url (default 1m0s)
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.shardByURL
     Whether to shard outgoing series across all the remote storage systems enumerated via -remoteWrite.url . By default the data is replicated across all the -remoteWrite.url . See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#sharding-among-remote-storages
  -remoteWrite.shardByURL.labels array
     Optional list of labels, which must be used for sharding outgoing samples among remote storage systems if -remoteWrite.shardByURL command-line flag is set. By default all the labels are used for sharding in order to gain even distribution of series over the specified -remoteWrite.url systems
     Supports an 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 (default 0)
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.streamAggr.config array
     Optional path to file with stream aggregation config. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/stream-aggregation.html . See also -remoteWrite.streamAggr.keepInput, -remoteWrite.streamAggr.dropInput and -remoteWrite.streamAggr.dedupInterval
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.streamAggr.dedupInterval array
     Input samples are de-duplicated with this interval before being aggregated. Only the last sample per each time series per each interval is aggregated if the interval is greater than zero (default 0s)
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.streamAggr.dropInput array
     Whether to drop all the input samples after the aggregation with -remoteWrite.streamAggr.config. By default, only aggregates samples are dropped, while the remaining samples are written to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url . See also -remoteWrite.streamAggr.keepInput and https://docs.victoriametrics.com/stream-aggregation.html
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.streamAggr.keepInput array
     Whether to keep all the input samples after the aggregation with -remoteWrite.streamAggr.config. By default, only aggregates samples are dropped, while the remaining samples are written to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url . See also -remoteWrite.streamAggr.dropInput and https://docs.victoriametrics.com/stream-aggregation.html
     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 the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. By default, system CA is used
     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 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 the corresponding -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 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 the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. By default, the server name from -remoteWrite.url is used
     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 either VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol or Prometheus remote_write protocol. Example url: http://<victoriametrics-host>:8428/api/v1/write . Pass multiple -remoteWrite.url options in order to replicate the collected data to multiple remote storage systems. The data can be sharded among the configured remote storage systems if -remoteWrite.shardByURL flag is set. See also -remoteWrite.multitenantURL
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig array
     Optional path to relabel configs for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. See also -remoteWrite.relabelConfig. The path can point either to local file or to http url. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#relabeling
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.vmProtoCompressLevel int
     The compression level for VictoriaMetrics remote write protocol. Higher values reduce network traffic at the cost of higher CPU usage. Negative values reduce CPU usage at the cost of increased network traffic. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#victoriametrics-remote-write-protocol
  -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 for incoming HTTP requests at -httpListenAddr (aka https). -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set
  -tlsCertFile string
     Path to file with TLS certificate if -tls is set. Prefer ECDSA certs instead of RSA certs as RSA certs are slower. The provided certificate file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated
  -tlsCipherSuites array
     Optional list of TLS cipher suites for incoming requests over HTTPS if -tls is set. See the list of supported cipher suites at https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -tlsKeyFile string
     Path to file with TLS key if -tls is set. The provided key file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated
  -tlsMinVersion string
     Optional minimum TLS version to use for incoming requests over HTTPS if -tls is set. Supported values: TLS10, TLS11, TLS12, TLS13
  -usePromCompatibleNaming
     Whether to replace characters unsupported by Prometheus with underscores in the ingested metric names and label names. For example, foo.bar{a.b='c'} is transformed into foo_bar{a_b='c'} during data ingestion if this flag is set. See https://prometheus.io/docs/concepts/data_model/#metric-names-and-labels
  -version
     Show VictoriaMetrics version