---
title: Telegraf Documentation
description: Telegraf plugin for collecting metrics from Slab
url: https://docs.influxdata.com/telegraf/v1/input-plugins/slab/
estimated_tokens: 919
product: Telegraf
version: v1
---

-   Telegraf v1.23.0+

# Slab Input Plugin

This plugin collects details on memory consumption of [Slab cache](https://www.kernel.org/doc/gorman/html/understand/understand011.html) entries by parsing the `/proc/slabinfo` file respecting the `HOST_PROC` environment variable.

This plugin requires `/proc/slabinfo` to be readable by the Telegraf user.

**Introduced in:** Telegraf v1.23.0 **Tags:** system **OS support:** linux

## 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
# Get slab statistics from procfs
# This plugin ONLY supports Linux
[[inputs.slab]]
  # no configuration - please see the plugin's README for steps to configure
  # sudo properly
```

### Sudo configuration

Since the slabinfo file is only readable by root, the plugin runs `sudo /bin/cat` to read the file.

Sudo can be configured to allow telegraf to run just the command needed to read the slabinfo file. For example, if telegraf is running as the user `telegraf` and `HOST_PROC` is not used, add this to the sudoers file

```text
telegraf ALL = (root) NOPASSWD: /bin/cat /proc/slabinfo
```

## Metrics

Metrics include generic ones such as `kmalloc_*` as well as those of kernel subsystems and drivers used by the system such as `xfs_inode`. Each field with `_size` suffix indicates memory consumption in bytes.

-   mem
    -   tags:
    -   fields:
        -   kmalloc\_8\_size (integer)
        -   kmalloc\_16\_size (integer)
        -   kmalloc\_32\_size (integer)
        -   kmalloc\_64\_size (integer)
        -   kmalloc\_96\_size (integer)
        -   kmalloc\_128\_size (integer)
        -   kmalloc\_256\_size (integer)
        -   kmalloc\_512\_size (integer)
        -   xfs\_ili\_size (integer)
        -   xfs\_inode\_size (integer)

## Example Output

```text
slab kmalloc_1024_size=239927296i,kmalloc_512_size=5582848i 1651049129000000000
```

#### Related

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