Overview

The Wavefront collector facilitates external integrations with Wavefront. This allows metrics from external services such as New Relic to be pulled into Wavefront. Each integration is a executed via this utility using the command name specified in the table below.

Current Integrations

Integration	Command Name	Description	Python File
AppDynamics	appdynamics	Metrics from AppDynamics	appdynamics.py
New Relic	newrelic	Extracts metrics from New Relic API	newrelic.py
AWS Cloudwatch	awscloudwatch	Metrics pulled from AWS Cloudwatch	awscloudwatch.py
AWS Billing	awsbilling	AWS Billing metrics retrieved from Billing Reports	awsbilling.py
Linux System Checker	systemchecker	Creates Wavefront events when files matching a pattern are found (e.g., core dumps) or when files have changed	system_checker.py

Installation

Prerequisites

A couple of Linux development packages are required to run the collector:

1. libffi-devel
2. openssl-devel

Install using pip or using the provided setup.py.

> pip install wavefront_collector

Executing an Integration

The wf script (a symlink to wave.py) is the primary interface to running commands. This script supports 2 methods of running a command:

1. Command line
2. Configuration file

Run Method 1: Command Line

Running a command via the command line is the simplest method. It allows you to execute a single integration in either the foreground or background. In this mode, the wf script has the following command line options:

Argument	Option	Description
--daemon	N/A	Run in the background as a daemon. The default is foreground without this option.
COMMAND	N/A	Execute the given command (see Current Integrations section above for names available).
--config	FILE	Provide the configuration file to the COMMAND. The default path and file is set by each command.

Additional options available in daemon mode (i.e., when using --daemon option):

Argument	Option	Description
--pid	FILE	The path to the PID file where the PID will be written (default: ./wavefront.pid)
--out	FILE	The path to the file that will capture STDOUT and STDERR (default: ./wavefront.out)
--delay	SECONDS	The number of sections to delay between each iteration (default: 90)

Command Line Examples

Examples of executing the systemchecker integration from the command line using the system_checker.conf file.

system_checker.conf

[global]
cache_dir=/tmp/sc-wavefront-cache

[find_files]
paths=/tmp/
patterns=core*
event_names=core-dump

[wavefront]
api_key=TOKEN
api_base=https://INSTANCE.wavefront.com

Execute the systemchecker command just once in the foreground

> wf systemchecker --config system_checker.conf

Execute the systemchecker command in the background and continue running every 30s

> wf --daemon --delay 30 systemchecker --config system_checker.conf

Run Method 2: Configuration File

The configuration file execution mode allows you to run one or more commands (either simultaneously or separately). In this mode, the wf script has the same command line options as the command line mode. Options specified on the command line take precedence over those in the configuration file. One additional required argument is the configuration file path:

Argument	Option	Description
-c	FILE	The configuration file to describe the command(s) to execute. This is the option that puts the script into "configuration file mode". See below for the supported options in the configuration file.

-c FILE option must be supplied on the command line to indicate to wf that it should determine which command(s) to run from the configuration file FILE.

Configuration File Specification

This section outlines the specification of the configuration file that the wf script supports when loading and executing commands from a file rather than the command line.

Section: global

Configuration Key	Required?	Default	Description
daemon	N	false	Run in the background or foreground. The command line option will override this value.
out	N	./wavefront.out	The file to put the STDOUT and STDERR in. The command line option will override this value. NOTE: This is only valid when in daemon mode
pid	N	./wavefront.pid	The location of the PID file. The command line option will override this value. NOTE: This is only valid when in daemon mode
threads	Y	None	The comma-separated list of commands to run in separate threads. The name provided here can be anything as it is just a placeholder for the section name where the configuration of each command resides. Each name listed here requires an additional section in the configuration file labeled thread-[thread name].

Section: thread-[thread name]

There should be one section per name listed in the threads key in the global section.

Configuration Key	Required?	Default	Description
command	Y	None	The name of the command to execute
args	Y	None	The comma separated list of arguments. Each argument should be separated by a comma (even values provided to a given argument). Example: --config,foo.conf,--verbose
delay	N	None	The number of seconds to delay between each iteration of this command being executed. If delay is not set, only one iteration will be executed and the wf script will end.

Service Script

wavefront-collector is provided to execute the collector as a service. This script has following options:

start - starts the service running in the background using --daemon --pid /tmp/wavefront-collector.pid --out /tmp/wavefront-collector.log -c /opt/wavefront/etc/wavefront-collector.conf

stop - stops the service by sending a SIGTERM signal to the PID in the PID file /tmp/wavefront-collector.pid

status - prints the current status of the service (running or not) and the last lines of the log file if the service is running

restart - stops, then starts the service using the above commands

Configuration File Examples

Execute systemchecker and awscloudwatch in the foreground via the command line mode (iterating once every 60 and 90 seconds respectfully)

> wf -c example.conf

example.conf

[global]
pid=/tmp/wf.pid
out=/tmp/wf.out
daemon=false
threads=sc1,cloud1

[thread-sc1]
command=systemchecker
args=--config,system_checker.conf
delay=60

[thread-cloud1]
command=awscloudwatch
args=--config,awscloudwatch.conf
delay=90

Additional Details

• Create a new command by following these instructions