---
title: Telegraf Documentation
description: Telegraf plugin for collecting metrics from InfluxDB Listener
url: https://docs.influxdata.com/telegraf/v1/input-plugins/influxdb_listener/
estimated_tokens: 2541
product: Telegraf
version: v1
---

-   Telegraf v1.9.0+

# InfluxDB Listener Input Plugin

This plugin listens for requests sent according to the [InfluxDB HTTP v1 API](https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v1.8/guides/write_data/). This allows Telegraf to serve as a proxy/router for the `/write` endpoint of the InfluxDB HTTP API.

This plugin was previously known as `http_listener`. If you wish to send general metrics via HTTP it is recommended to use the [`http_listener_v2`](/telegraf/v1/plugins/#input-http_listener_v2) instead.

The `/write` endpoint supports the `precision` query parameter and can be set to one of `ns`, `u`, `ms`, `s`, `m`, `h`. All other parameters are ignored and defer to the output plugins configuration.

When chaining Telegraf instances using this plugin, `CREATE DATABASE` requests receive a `200 OK` response with message body `{"results":[]}` but they are not relayed. The configuration of the output plugin ultimately submits data to InfluxDB determines the destination database.

**Introduced in:** Telegraf v1.9.0 **Tags:** datastore **OS support:** all

## Service Input

This plugin is a service input. Normal plugins gather metrics determined by the interval setting. Service plugins start a service to listen and wait for metrics or events to occur. Service plugins have two key differences from normal plugins:

1. The global or plugin specific `interval` setting may not apply
2. The CLI options of `--test`, `--test-wait`, and `--once` may not produce output for this plugin

## Global configuration options

Plugins support additional global and plugin configuration settings for tasks such as modifying metrics, tags, and fields, creating aliases, and configuring plugin ordering. See [CONFIGURATION.md](/telegraf/v1/configuration/#plugins) for more details.

## Configuration

```toml
# Accept metrics over InfluxDB 1.x HTTP API
[[inputs.influxdb_listener]]
  ## Address and port to host HTTP listener on
  service_address = ":8186"

  ## maximum duration before timing out read of the request
  read_timeout = "10s"
  ## maximum duration before timing out write of the response
  write_timeout = "10s"

  ## Maximum allowed HTTP request body size in bytes.
  ## 0 means to use the default of 32MiB.
  max_body_size = 0

  ## Set one or more allowed client CA certificate file names to
  ## enable mutually authenticated TLS connections
  tls_allowed_cacerts = ["/etc/telegraf/clientca.pem"]

  ## Add service certificate and key
  tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"

  ## Optional tag name used to store the database name.
  ## If the write has a database in the query string then it will be kept in this tag name.
  ## This tag can be used in downstream outputs.
  ## The default value of nothing means it will be off and the database will not be recorded.
  ## If you have a tag that is the same as the one specified below, and supply a database,
  ## the tag will be overwritten with the database supplied.
  # database_tag = ""

  ## If set the retention policy specified in the write query will be added as
  ## the value of this tag name.
  # retention_policy_tag = ""

  ## Optional username and password to accept for HTTP basic authentication
  ## or authentication token.
  ## You probably want to make sure you have TLS configured above for this.
  ## Use these options for the authentication token in the form
  ##   Authentication: Token <basic_username>:<basic_password>
  # basic_username = "foobar"
  # basic_password = "barfoo"

  ## Optional JWT token authentication for HTTP requests
  ## Please see the documentation at
  ##   https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v1.8/administration/authentication_and_authorization/#authenticate-using-jwt-tokens
  ## for further details.
  ## Please note: Token authentication and basic authentication cannot be used
  ##              at the same time.
  # token_shared_secret = ""
  # token_username = ""

  ## Influx line protocol parser
  ## 'internal' is the default. 'upstream' is a newer parser that is faster
  ## and more memory efficient.
  # parser_type = "internal"
```

## Metrics

Metrics are created from InfluxDB Line Protocol in the request body.

## Example Output

Using

```sh
curl -i -XPOST 'http://localhost:8186/write' --data-binary 'cpu_load_short,host=server01,region=us-west value=0.64 1434055562000000000'
```

will produce the following metric

```text
cpu_load_short,host=server01,region=us-west value=0.64 1434055562000000000
```

#### Related

-   [Configure plugins](/telegraf/v1/configure_plugins/)
-   [InfluxDB Listener Plugin Source](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/tree/v1.38.4/plugins/inputs/influxdb_listener/README.md)