Ping Input Plugin

This plugin collects metrics on ICMP ping packets including the round-trip time, response times and other packet statistics.

Introduced in: Telegraf v0.1.8 Tags: network OS support: all

Global configuration options

In addition to the plugin-specific configuration settings, plugins support additional global and plugin configuration settings. These settings are used to modify metrics, tags, and field or create aliases and configure ordering, etc. See the CONFIGURATION.md for more details.

Configuration

# Ping given url(s) and return statistics
[[inputs.ping]]
  ## Hosts to send ping packets to.
  urls = ["example.org"]

  ## Method used for sending pings, can be either "exec" or "native".  When set
  ## to "exec" the systems ping command will be executed.  When set to "native"
  ## the plugin will send pings directly.
  ##
  ## While the default is "exec" for backwards compatibility, new deployments
  ## are encouraged to use the "native" method for improved compatibility and
  ## performance.
  # method = "exec"

  ## Number of ping packets to send per interval.  Corresponds to the "-c"
  ## option of the ping command.
  # count = 1

  ## Time to wait between sending ping packets in seconds.  Operates like the
  ## "-i" option of the ping command.
  # ping_interval = 1.0

  ## If set, the time to wait for a ping response in seconds.  Operates like
  ## the "-W" option of the ping command.
  # timeout = 1.0

  ## If set, the total ping deadline, in seconds.  Operates like the -w option
  ## of the ping command.
  # deadline = 10

  ## Interface or source address to send ping from.  Operates like the -I or -S
  ## option of the ping command.
  # interface = ""

  ## Percentiles to calculate. This only works with the native method.
  # percentiles = [50, 95, 99]

  ## Specify the ping executable binary.
  # binary = "ping"

  ## Arguments for ping command. When arguments is not empty, the command from
  ## the binary option will be used and other options (ping_interval, timeout,
  ## etc) will be ignored.
  # arguments = ["-c", "3"]

  ## Use only IPv4 addresses when resolving a hostname. By default, both IPv4
  ## and IPv6 can be used.
  # ipv4 = false

  ## Use only IPv6 addresses when resolving a hostname. By default, both IPv4
  ## and IPv6 can be used.
  # ipv6 = false

  ## Number of data bytes to be sent. Corresponds to the "-s"
  ## option of the ping command. This only works with the native method.
  # size = 56

Ping methods

This plugin has two main methods of operation, the exec and native mode. The latter is the recommended method as it provides better system compatibility and performance. However, for backwards compatibility the exec method is the default.

When using the exec method, most ping command implementations are supported, one notable exception being the GNU inetutils ping. You may instead use the iputils-ping implementation:

apt-get install iputils-ping

For the native method a corresponding ICMP packet is sent and the results are reported in native Go by the Telegraf process, eliminating the need to execute the system ping command. Therefore, this method doesn’t have external dependencies.

File Limit

Since this plugin runs the ping command, it may need to open multiple files per host. The number of files used is lessened with the native option but still many files are used. With a large host list you may receive a too many open files error.

To increase this limit on platforms using systemd the recommended method is to use the “drop-in directory”, usually located at /etc/systemd/system/telegraf.service.d.

You can create or edit a drop-in file in the correct location using:

systemctl edit telegraf

Increase the number of open files:

[Service]
LimitNOFILE=8192

Restart Telegraf:

systemctl restart telegraf

Linux Permissions

When using the native method, Telegraf will attempt to use privileged raw ICMP sockets. On most systems, doing so requires CAP_NET_RAW capabilities or for Telegraf to be run as root.

With systemd:

systemctl edit telegraf

[Service]
CapabilityBoundingSet=CAP_NET_RAW
AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_RAW

systemctl restart telegraf

Without systemd:

setcap cap_net_raw=eip /usr/bin/telegraf

Reference man 7 capabilities for more information about setting capabilities.

Other OS Permissions

When using method = "native", you will need permissions similar to the executable ping program for your OS.

Metrics

• ping
  • tags:
    • url
  • fields:
    • packets_transmitted (integer)
    • packets_received (integer)
    • percent_packet_loss (float)
    • ttl (integer, Not available on Windows)
    • average_response_ms (float)
    • minimum_response_ms (float)
    • maximum_response_ms (float)
    • standard_deviation_ms (float, Available on Windows only with method = “native”)
    • percentile<N>_ms (float, Where <N> is the percentile specified in percentiles. Available with method = “native” only)
    • errors (float, Windows only)
    • reply_received (integer, Windows with method = “exec” only)
    • percent_reply_loss (float, Windows with method = “exec” only)
    • result_code (int, success = 0, no such host = 1, ping error = 2)

reply_received vs packets_received

On Windows systems with method = "exec", the “Destination net unreachable” reply will increment packets_received but not reply_received*.

ttl

There is currently no support for TTL on windows with "native"; track progress at https://github.com/golang/go/issues/7175 and https://github.com/golang/go/issues/7174

Example Output

ping,url=example.org average_response_ms=23.066,ttl=63,maximum_response_ms=24.64,minimum_response_ms=22.451,packets_received=5i,packets_transmitted=5i,percent_packet_loss=0,result_code=0i,standard_deviation_ms=0.809 1535747258000000000