System Input Plugin

This plugin gathers general system statistics like system load, uptime or the number of users logged in. It is similar to the unix uptime command.

Introduced in: Telegraf v0.1.6 Tags: system OS support: all

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 for more details.

Configuration

# Read metrics about system load & uptime
[[inputs.system]]
  ## Information to collect; available options are:
  ##   legacy - legacy layout of system metrics; see README for details
  ##   cpus   - CPU counts of the system
  ##   dmi    - BIOS, baseboard, chassis and product information from DMI/SMBIOS
  ##   load   - 1, 5 and 15-minute load averages
  ##   os     - operating system release and uname information
  ##   uptime - system uptime
  ##   users  - logged-in user counts
  # include = ["legacy"]

  ## How long to cache the result of the "os" group between gathers.
  ## Set higher to reduce the number of os-release/uname reads, lower to
  ## surface distro upgrades and kexec'd kernels faster. Set to zero to
  ## re-read the data on every gather.
  # os_cache_ttl = "8h"

  ## How long to cache the result of the "dmi" group between gathers.
  ## DMI/SMBIOS data is effectively static for the life of the machine,
  ## so a long cache is typical. Set to zero to re-read on every gather.
  # dmi_cache_ttl = "8h"

legacy include vs. fine-grained options

While legacy is the default include for compatibility reasons, it is not recommended as it creates three, sparse metrics, one containing the CPU, load and user information, one for the uptime and one for the formatted uptime. However, if you are using Prometheus as an output, it might be your preferred choice as the metrics are typed correctly.

If you are using the fine-grained options such as cpus you will get a single, untyped metric containing all selected information. To reproduce the fields of the legacy set, use include = ["load", "users", "cpus", "uptime"].

Both legacy and the fine-grained options can be used at the same time resulting in four metrics in total (one for the fine-grained set and three for the legacy setting).

Permissions

The n_users field requires read access to /var/run/utmp, and may require the telegraf user to be added to the utmp group on some systems. If this file does not exist n_users will be skipped.

The n_unique_users shows the count of unique usernames logged in. This way if a user has multiple sessions open/started they would only get counted once. The same requirements for n_users apply.

The os group reads /etc/os-release on Linux (typically world-readable) and calls the uname syscall on POSIX systems. The os field is always populated from Go’s runtime, and arch falls back to the runtime architecture when the kernel cannot be queried, so both are always present. On platforms where gopsutil cannot provide platform release or kernel data (e.g. parts of FreeBSD/OpenBSD/Solaris) the platform, platform_family, platform_version and kernel_version fields may be empty. Results are cached between gathers, see os_cache_ttl above.

The dmi group exposes BIOS, baseboard, chassis and product information from DMI/SMBIOS. On Linux the data is read from /sys/class/dmi/id/ and does not require root access for most fields; serial numbers and asset tags are generally restricted by the kernel. On Windows the data is read via WMI. macOS, BSD and Solaris are not supported and the dmi value is ignored there. Results are cached between gathers, see dmi_cache_ttl above.

Metrics

The include option controls which measurements and fields are gathered. The fine-grained options like cpus, load or users populate the system metric, while the legacy setting emits three system metrics.

fine-grained options

When os is included, the values reflect operating system release information together with uname-style kernel data. Fields are reported as strings. The os and arch fields are always populated; the platform, platform_family, platform_version and kernel_version fields may be empty on unsupported platforms.

When dmi is included fields may be empty if the field is not exposed by the system, or unknown when it is restricted by the kernel (typical for serial numbers, asset tags and the product UUID on Linux without root).

system

The resulting metric is untyped.

legacy setting

The following three metrics are emitted if include contains the legacy setting.

system (gauge)

system (counter)

system (untyped)

Example Output

Default configuration

With the default include = ["legacy"] the output is backward-compatible with previous versions:

system,host=worker-01 load1=3.72,load5=2.4,load15=2.1,n_users=3i,n_unique_users=2i,n_cpus=4i,n_physical_cpus=2i 1748000000000000000
system,host=worker-01 uptime=1249632i 1748000000000000000
system,host=worker-01 uptime_format="14 days, 11:07" 1748000000000000000

Recommended configuration

With include = ["cpus", "load", "users", "uptime"], all fields are emitted in a single metric with the new field names:

system,host=worker-01 load1=3.72,load5=2.4,load15=2.1,n_users=3i,n_unique_users=2i,n_cpus=4i,n_physical_cpus=2i,uptime=1249632i 1748000000000000000

When including all options the emitted metric will be

system,host=worker-01 load1=3.72,load5=2.4,load15=2.1,n_users=3i,n_unique_users=2i,n_cpus=4i,n_physical_cpus=2i,uptime=1249632i os="linux",arch="x86_64",platform="ubuntu",platform_family="debian",platform_version="26.04",kernel_version="7.0.0-7-generic" bios_vendor="Dell Inc.",bios_version="2.18.0",bios_date="04/12/2024",board_vendor="Dell Inc.",board_product="0X3D66",board_version="A00",board_serial="CN747503AB0123",board_asset_tag="",chassis_vendor="Dell Inc.",chassis_type="23",chassis_type_description="Rack mount chassis",chassis_version="",chassis_serial="7XK4P03",chassis_asset_tag="",product_vendor="Dell Inc.",product_name="PowerEdge R750",product_family="PowerEdge",product_version="",product_serial="7XK4P03",product_sku="SKU=NotProvided;ModelName=PowerEdge R750",product_uuid="4c4c4544-0058-4b10-8034-b3c04f503033" 1748000000000000000