---
title: Telegraf Documentation
description: Telegraf plugin for collecting metrics from System
url: https://docs.influxdata.com/telegraf/v1/input-plugins/system/
estimated_tokens: 766
product: Telegraf
version: v1
---

-   Telegraf v0.1.6+

# 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](/telegraf/v1/configuration/#plugins) for more details.

## Configuration

```toml
# Read metrics about system load & uptime
[[inputs.system]]
  # no configuration
```

### 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.

## Metrics

-   system
    -   fields:
        -   load1 (float)
        -   load15 (float)
        -   load5 (float)
        -   n\_users (integer)
        -   n\_unique\_users (integer)
        -   n\_cpus (integer)
        -   n\_physical\_cpus (integer)
        -   uptime (integer, seconds)
        -   uptime\_format (string, deprecated in 1.10, use `uptime` field)

## Example Output

```text
system,host=tyrion load1=3.72,load5=2.4,load15=2.1,n_users=3i,n_cpus=4i,n_physical_cpus=2i 1483964144000000000
system,host=tyrion uptime=1249632i 1483964144000000000
system,host=tyrion uptime_format="14 days, 11:07" 1483964144000000000
```

#### Related

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