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May 22, 2015
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Two minor docs improvements. #95

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ccebb61
Improve the naming section.
May 22, 2015
f0821ec
Add hint about relevance of the documentation for different versions.
May 22, 2015
745ac28
Improvements after review.
May 22, 2015
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13 changes: 11 additions & 2 deletions content/docs/introduction/install.md
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Expand Up @@ -13,11 +13,20 @@ GitHub repositories. For example, for the main Prometheus server, binary
releases are available at
[https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/releases).

We also plan on providing packages for common Linux distributions soon.
Debian and RPM packages are being worked on.

## From source

For building Prometheus from source, see the relevant [`README.md` section](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/blob/master/README.md#use-make).
For building Prometheus from source, see the relevant [`README.md`
section](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/blob/master/README.md#use-make).

Note that this documentation (as published on
[prometheus.io](http://prometheus.io)) refers to the latest production
release. The head of the
[prometheus/docs](https://github.com/prometheus/docs) GitHub
repository refers to the (possibly not yet released) head of the
[prometheus/prometheus](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus) (and
other) repositories.

## Using Docker

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26 changes: 17 additions & 9 deletions content/docs/practices/naming.md
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Expand Up @@ -6,24 +6,32 @@ sort_rank: 1
# Metric and label naming

The metric and label conventions presented in this document are not required
for using Prometheus, but can serve as both a style-guide and collection of
for using Prometheus, but can serve as both a style-guide and a collection of
best practices. Individual organizations may want to approach e.g. naming
conventions differently.

## Metric names

A metric name:
A metric name...

* should have a (single-word) application prefix relevant to the containing Prometheus domain
* ...should have a (single-word) application prefix relevant to the domain the
metric belongs to. The prefix is sometimes referred to as `namespace` by
client libraries. For metrics specific to an application, the prefix is
usually the application name itself. Sometimes, however, metrics are more
generic, like standardized metrics exported by client libraries. Examples:
* <code><b>prometheus</b>\_notifications\_total</code>
* <code><b>indexer</b>\_requests\_latencies\_milliseconds</code>
* <code><b>processor</b>\_requests\_total</code>
* must have a single unit (i.e. do not mix seconds with milliseconds)
* should have a units suffix
(specific to the Prometheus server)
* <code><b>process</b>\_cpu\_seconds\_total</code>
(exported by many client libraries)
* <code><b>http</b>\_request\_duration\_microseconds</code>
(for all HTTP requests)
* ...must have a single unit (i.e. do not mix seconds with milliseconds).
* ...should have a suffix describing the unit.
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_total is not a really a unit. To make it even more confusing, we have metrics with just _total and others with <unit>_total (like foobar_seconds_total). Maybe add an extra comment that counters should have an additional _total suffix after the unit?

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This section is not about units. The _total thing is explained in the units section below.

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This section says, "should have a suffix describing the unit", and then lists as one of the examples a metric without any unit, but a _total suffix. That's the confusing bit. It was there before, but we could make it clearer what suffix is expected when.

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I see, I missed what line you are commenting on.

Will improve wording.

* <code>api\_http\_request\_latency\_<b>milliseconds</b></code>
* <code>node\_memory\_usage\_<b>bytes</b></code>
* <code>api\_http\_requests\_<b>total</b></code> (for an accumulating count)
* should represent the same logical thing-being-measured across all label dimensions
* ...should represent the same logical thing-being-measured across all label
dimensions.
* request duration
* bytes of data transfer
* instantaneous resource usage as a percentage
Expand All @@ -44,7 +52,7 @@ Use labels to differentiate the characteristics of the thing that is being measu
Do not put the label names in the metric name, as this introduces redundancy
and will cause confusion if the respective labels are aggregated away.

CAUTION: <b>CAUTION:</b> Remember that every unique key-value label pair
CAUTION: **CAUTION:** Remember that every unique key-value label pair
represents a new time series, which can dramatically increase the amount of
data stored. Do not use labels to store dimensions with high cardinality (many
different label values), such as user IDs, email addresses, or other unbounded
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