VictoriaMetrics/app/vmagent/README.md

vmagent

vmagent is a tiny but mighty agent which helps you collect metrics from various sources and store them in VictoriaMetrics or any other Prometheus-compatible storage systems that support the remote_write protocol.

Motivation

While VictoriaMetrics provides an efficient solution to store and observe metrics, our users needed something fast and RAM friendly to scrape metrics from Prometheus-compatible exporters into VictoriaMetrics. Also, we found that our user's infrastructure are like snowflakes in that no two are alike. Therefore we decided to add more flexibility to vmagent such as the ability to push metrics additionally to pulling them. We did our best and will continue to improve vmagent.

Features

• Can be used as a drop-in replacement for Prometheus for scraping targets such as node_exporter. See Quick Start for details.
• Can read data from Kafka. See these docs.
• Can write data to Kafka. See these docs.
• Can add, remove and modify labels (aka tags) via Prometheus relabeling. Can filter data before sending it to remote storage. See these docs for details.
• Accepts data via all ingestion protocols supported by VictoriaMetrics:
  • DataDog "submit metrics" API. See these docs.
  • InfluxDB line protocol via http://<vmagent>:8429/write. See these docs.
  • Graphite plaintext protocol if -graphiteListenAddr command-line flag is set. See these docs.
  • OpenTSDB telnet and http protocols if -opentsdbListenAddr command-line flag is set. See these docs.
  • Prometheus remote write protocol via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/write.
  • JSON lines import protocol via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import. See these docs.
  • Native data import protocol via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import/native. See these docs.
  • Prometheus exposition format via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import/prometheus. See these docs for details.
  • Arbitrary CSV data via http://<vmagent>:8429/api/v1/import/csv. See these docs.
• Can replicate collected metrics simultaneously to multiple remote storage systems.
• Works smoothly in environments with unstable connections to remote storage. If the remote storage is unavailable, the collected metrics are buffered at -remoteWrite.tmpDataPath. The buffered metrics are sent to remote storage as soon as the connection to the remote storage is repaired. The maximum disk usage for the buffer can be limited with -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL.
• Uses lower amounts of RAM, CPU, disk IO and network bandwidth compared with Prometheus.
• Scrape targets can be spread among multiple vmagent instances when big number of targets must be scraped. See these docs.
• Can efficiently scrape targets that expose millions of time series such as /federate endpoint in Prometheus. See these docs.
• Can deal with high cardinality and high churn rate issues by limiting the number of unique time series at scrape time and before sending them to remote storage systems. See these docs.
• Can load scrape configs from multiple files. See these docs.

Quick Start

Please download vmutils-* archive from releases page, unpack it and configure the following flags to the vmagent binary in order to start scraping Prometheus targets:

• -promscrape.config with the path to Prometheus config file (usually located at /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml). The path can point either to local file or to http url. vmagent doesn't support some sections of Prometheus config file, so you may need either to delete these sections or to run vmagent with -promscrape.config.strictParse=false additional command-line flag, so vmagent will ignore unsupported sections. See the list of unsupported sections.
• -remoteWrite.url with the remote storage endpoint such as VictoriaMetrics, the -remoteWrite.url argument can be specified multiple times to replicate data concurrently to an arbitrary number of remote storage systems.

Example command line:

/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.config=/path/to/prometheus.yml -remoteWrite.url=https://victoria-metrics-host:8428/api/v1/write

If you only need to collect InfluxDB data, then the following command is sufficient:

/path/to/vmagent -remoteWrite.url=https://victoria-metrics-host:8428/api/v1/write

Then send InfluxDB data to http://vmagent-host:8429. See these docs for more details.

vmagent is also available in docker images.

Pass -help to vmagent in order to see the full list of supported command-line flags with their descriptions.

Configuration update

vmagent should be restarted in order to update config options set via command-line args.

vmagent supports multiple approaches for reloading configs from updated config files such as -promscrape.config, -remoteWrite.relabelConfig and -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig:

• Sending SUGHUP signal to vmagent process:

  kill -SIGHUP `pidof vmagent`
  

• Sending HTTP request to http://vmagent:8429/-/reload endpoint.

There is also -promscrape.configCheckInterval command-line option, which can be used for automatic reloading configs from updated -promscrape.config file.

Use cases

IoT and Edge monitoring

vmagent can run and collect metrics in IoT and industrial networks with unreliable or scheduled connections to their remote storage. It buffers the collected data in local files until the connection to remote storage becomes available and then sends the buffered data to the remote storage. It re-tries sending the data to remote storage until any errors are resolved. The maximum buffer size can be limited with -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL.

vmagent works on various architectures from the IoT world - 32-bit arm, 64-bit arm, ppc64, 386, amd64. See the corresponding Makefile rules for details.

Drop-in replacement for Prometheus

If you use Prometheus only for scraping metrics from various targets and forwarding those metrics to remote storage then vmagent can replace Prometheus. Typically, vmagent requires lower amounts of RAM, CPU and network bandwidth compared with Prometheus. See these docs for details.

Replication and high availability

vmagent replicates the collected metrics among multiple remote storage instances configured via -remoteWrite.url args. If a single remote storage instance temporarily is out of service, then the collected data remains available in another remote storage instance. vmagent buffers the collected data in files at -remoteWrite.tmpDataPath until the remote storage becomes available again and then it sends the buffered data to the remote storage in order to prevent data gaps.

Relabeling and filtering

vmagent can add, remove or update labels on the collected data before sending it to the remote storage. Additionally, it can remove unwanted samples via Prometheus-like relabeling before sending the collected data to remote storage. Please see these docs for details.

Splitting data streams among multiple systems

vmagent supports splitting the collected data between muliple destinations with the help of -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig, which is applied independently for each configured -remoteWrite.url destination. For example, it is possible to replicate or split data among long-term remote storage, short-term remote storage and a real-time analytical system built on top of Kafka. Note that each destination can receive it's own subset of the collected data due to per-destination relabeling via -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig.

Prometheus remote_write proxy

vmagent can be used as a proxy for Prometheus data sent via Prometheus remote_write protocol. It can accept data via the remote_write API at the/api/v1/write endpoint. Then apply relabeling and filtering and proxy it to another remote_write system . The vmagent can be configured to encrypt the incoming remote_write requests with -tls* command-line flags. Also, Basic Auth can be enabled for the incoming remote_write requests with -httpAuth.* command-line flags.

remote_write for clustered version

While vmagent can accept data in several supported protocols (OpenTSDB, Influx, Prometheus, Graphite) and scrape data from various targets, writes are always peformed in Promethes remote_write protocol. Therefore for the clustered version, -remoteWrite.url the command-line flag should be configured as <schema>://<vminsert-host>:8480/insert/<accountID>/prometheus/api/v1/write according to these docs. There is also support for multitenant writes. See these docs.

Multitenancy

By default vmagent collects the data without tenant identifiers and routes it to the configured -remoteWrite.url. But it can accept multitenant data if -remoteWrite.multitenantURL is set. In this case it accepts multitenant data at http://vmagent:8429/insert/<accountID>/... in the same way as cluster version of VictoriaMetrics does according to these docs and routes it to <-remoteWrite.multitenantURL>/insert/<accountID>/prometheus/api/v1/write. If multiple -remoteWrite.multitenantURL command-line options are set, then vmagent replicates the collected data across all the configured urls. This allows using a single vmagent instance in front of VictoriaMetrics clusters for processing the data from all the tenants.

How to collect metrics in Prometheus format

Specify the path to prometheus.yml file via -promscrape.config command-line flag. vmagent takes into account the following sections from Prometheus config file:

• global
• scrape_configs

All other sections are ignored, including the remote_write section. Use -remoteWrite.* command-line flag instead for configuring remote write settings.

The following scrape types in scrape_config section are supported:

• static_configs - is for scraping statically defined targets. See these docs for details.
• file_sd_configs - is for scraping targets defined in external files (aka file-based service discover). See these docs for details
• kubernetes_sd_configs - for scraping targets in Kubernetes (k8s). See kubernetes_sd_config for details.
• ec2_sd_configs - is for scraping targets in Amazon EC2. See ec2_sd_config for details. vmagent doesn't support the profile config param yet.
• gce_sd_configs - is for scraping targets in Google Compute Engine (GCE). See gce_sd_config for details. vmagent provides the following additional functionality for gce_sd_config:
  • if project arg is missing then vmagent uses the project for the instance where it runs;
  • if zone arg is missing then vmagent uses the zone for the instance where it runs;
  • if zone arg is equal to "*", then vmagent discovers all the zones for the given project;
  • zone may contain an arbitrary number of zones, i.e. zone: [us-east1-a, us-east1-b].
• consul_sd_configs - is for scraping the targets registered in Consul. See consul_sd_config for details.
• dns_sd_configs - is for scraping targets discovered from DNS records (SRV, A and AAAA). See dns_sd_config for details.
• openstack_sd_configs - is for scraping OpenStack targets. See openstack_sd_config for details. OpenStack identity API v3 is supported only.
• docker_sd_configs - is for scraping Docker targets. See docker_sd_config for details.
• dockerswarm_sd_configs - is for scraping Docker Swarm targets. See dockerswarm_sd_config for details.
• eureka_sd_configs - is for scraping targets registered in Netflix Eureka. See eureka_sd_config for details.
• digitalocean_sd_configs is for scraping targerts registered in DigitalOcean See digitalocean_sd_config for details.
• http_sd_configs is for scraping targerts registered in http service discovery. See http_sd_config for details.

Please file feature requests to our issue tracker if you need other service discovery mechanisms to be supported by vmagent.

vmagent also support the following additional options in scrape_configs section:

• disable_compression: true - to disable response compression on a per-job basis. By default vmagent requests compressed responses from scrape targets to save network bandwidth.
• disable_keepalive: true - to disable HTTP keep-alive connections on a per-job basis. By default, vmagent uses keep-alive connections to scrape targets to reduce overhead on connection re-establishing.
• series_limit: N - for limiting the number of unique time series a single scrape target can expose. See these docs.
• stream_parse: true - for scraping targets in a streaming manner. This may be useful for targets exporting big number of metrics. See these docs.
• scrape_align_interval: duration - for aligning scrapes to the given interval instead of using random offset in the range [0 ... scrape_interval] for scraping each target. The random offset helps spreading scrapes evenly in time.
• scrape_offset: duration - for specifying the exact offset for scraping instead of using random offset in the range [0 ... scrape_interval].
• relabel_debug: true - for enabling debug logging during relabeling of the discovered targets. See these docs.
• metric_relabel_debug: true - for enabling debug logging during relabeling of the scraped metrics. See these docs.

Note that vmagent doesn't support refresh_interval option for these scrape configs. Use the corresponding -promscrape.*CheckInterval command-line flag instead. For example, -promscrape.consulSDCheckInterval=60s sets refresh_interval for all the consul_sd_configs entries to 60s. Run vmagent -help in order to see default values for the -promscrape.*CheckInterval flags.

The file pointed by -promscrape.config may contain %{ENV_VAR} placeholders which are substituted by the corresponding ENV_VAR environment variable values.

Loading scrape configs from multiple files

vmagent supports loading scrape configs from multiple files specified in the scrape_config_files section of -promscrape.config file. For example, the following -promscrape.config instructs vmagent loading scrape configs from all the *.yml files under configs directory, from single_scrape_config.yml local file and from https://config-server/scrape_config.yml url:

scrape_config_files:
- configs/*.yml
- single_scrape_config.yml
- https://config-server/scrape_config.yml

Every referred file can contain arbitrary number of supported scrape configs. There is no need in specifying top-level scrape_configs section in these files. For example:

- job_name: foo
  static_configs:
  - targets: ["vmagent:8429"]
- job_name: bar
  kubernetes_sd_configs:
  - role: pod

vmagent dynamically reloads these files on SIGHUP signal or on the request to http://vmagent:8429/-/reload.

Unsupported Prometheus config sections

vmagent doesn't support the following sections in Prometheus config file passed to -promscrape.config command-line flag:

• remote_write. This section is substituted with various -remoteWrite* command-line flags. See the full list of flags. The remote_write section isn't supported in order to reduce possible confusion when vmagent is used for accepting incoming metrics via push protocols such as InfluxDB, Graphite, OpenTSDB, DataDog, etc. In this case the -promscrape.config file isn't needed. See these docs for details.
• remote_read. This section isn't supported at all.
• rule_files and alerting. These sections are supported by vmalert.

The list of supported service discovery types is available here.

Additionally vmagent doesn't support refresh_interval option at service discovery sections. This option is substituted with -promscrape.*CheckInterval command-line options, which are specific per each service discovery type. See the full list of command-line flags for vmagent.

Adding labels to metrics

Labels can be added to metrics by the following mechanisms:

• The global -> external_labels section in -promscrape.config file. These labels are added only to metrics scraped from targets configured in the -promscrape.config file. They aren't added to metrics collected via other data ingestion protocols.
• The -remoteWrite.label command-line flag. These labels are added to all the collected metrics before sending them to -remoteWrite.url. For example, the following command will start vmagent, which will add {datacenter="foobar"} label to all the metrics pushed to all the configured remote storage systems (all the -remoteWrite.url flag values):

/path/to/vmagent -remoteWrite.label=datacenter=foobar ...

Relabeling

VictoriaMetrics components (including vmagent) support Prometheus-compatible relabeling. They provide the following additional actions on top of actions from the Prometheus relabeling:

• replace_all: replaces all of the occurences of regex in the values of source_labels with the replacement and stores the results in the target_label.
• labelmap_all: replaces all of the occurences of regex in all the label names with the replacement.
• keep_if_equal: keeps the entry if all the label values from source_labels are equal.
• drop_if_equal: drops the entry if all the label values from source_labels are equal.
• keep_metrics: keeps all the metrics with names matching the given regex.
• drop_metrics: drops all the metrics with names matching the given regex.

The regex value can be split into multiple lines for improved readability and maintainability. These lines are automatically joined with | char when parsed. For example, the following configs are equivalent:

- action: keep_metrics
  regex: "metric_a|metric_b|foo_.+"

- action: keep_metrics
  regex:
  - "metric_a"
  - "metric_b"
  - "foo_.+"

VictoriaMetrics components support an optional if filter, which can be used for conditional relabeling. The if filter may contain arbitrary time series selector. For example, the following relabeling rule drops targets, which don't match foo{bar="baz"} series selector:

- action: keep
  if: 'foo{bar="baz"}'

This is equivalent to less clear traditional relabeling rule:

- action: keep
  source_labels: [__name__, bar]
  regex: 'foo;baz'

The relabeling can be defined in the following places:

• At the scrape_config -> relabel_configs section in -promscrape.config file. This relabeling is applied to target labels. This relabeling can be debugged by passing relabel_debug: true option to the corresponding scrape_config section. In this case vmagent logs target labels before and after the relabeling and then drops the logged target.
• At the scrape_config -> metric_relabel_configs section in -promscrape.config file. This relabeling is applied to all the scraped metrics in the given scrape_config. This relabeling can be debugged by passing metric_relabel_debug: true option to the corresponding scrape_config section. In this case vmagent logs metrics before and after the relabeling and then drops the logged metrics.
• At the -remoteWrite.relabelConfig file. This relabeling is applied to all the collected metrics before sending them to remote storage. This relabeling can be debugged by passing -remoteWrite.relabelDebug command-line option to vmagent. In this case vmagent logs metrics before and after the relabeling and then drops all the logged metrics instead of sending them to remote storage.
• At the -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig files. This relabeling is applied to metrics before sending them to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. This relabeling can be debugged by passing -remoteWrite.urlRelabelDebug command-line options to vmagent. In this case vmagent logs metrics before and after the relabeling and then drops all the logged metrics instead of sending them to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url.

You can read more about relabeling in the following articles:

• How to use Relabeling in Prometheus and VictoriaMetrics
• Life of a label
• Discarding targets and timeseries with relabeling
• Dropping labels at scrape time
• Extracting labels from legacy metric names
• relabel_configs vs metric_relabel_configs

Prometheus staleness markers

vmagent sends Prometheus staleness markers to -remoteWrite.url in the following cases:

• If they are passed to vmagent via Prometheus remote_write protocol.
• If the metric disappears from the list of scraped metrics, then stale marker is sent to this particular metric.
• If the scrape target becomes temporarily unavailable, then stale markers are sent for all the metrics scraped from this target.
• If the scrape target is removed from the list of targets, then stale markers are sent for all the metrics scraped from this target.

Prometheus staleness markers' tracking needs additional memory, since it must store the previous response body per each scrape target in order to compare it to the current response body. The memory usage may be reduced by passing -promscrape.noStaleMarkers command-line flag to vmagent. This disables staleness tracking. This also disables tracking the number of new time series per each scrape with the auto-generated scrape_series_added metric. See these docs for details.

Stream parsing mode

By default vmagent reads the full response body from scrape target into memory, then parses it, applies relabeling and then pushes the resulting metrics to the configured -remoteWrite.url. This mode works good for the majority of cases when the scrape target exposes small number of metrics (e.g. less than 10 thousand). But this mode may take big amounts of memory when the scrape target exposes big number of metrics. In this case it is recommended enabling stream parsing mode. When this mode is enabled, then vmagent reads response from scrape target in chunks, then immediately processes every chunk and pushes the processed metrics to remote storage. This allows saving memory when scraping targets that expose millions of metrics.

Stream parsing mode is automatically enabled for scrape targets returning response bodies with sizes bigger than the -promscrape.minResponseSizeForStreamParse command-line flag value. Additionally, the stream parsing mode can be explicitly enabled in the following places:

• Via -promscrape.streamParse command-line flag. In this case all the scrape targets defined in the file pointed by -promscrape.config are scraped in stream parsing mode.
• Via stream_parse: true option at scrape_configs section. In this case all the scrape targets defined in this section are scraped in stream parsing mode.
• Via __stream_parse__=true label, which can be set via relabeling at relabel_configs section. In this case stream parsing mode is enabled for the corresponding scrape targets. Typical use case: to set the label via Kubernetes annotations for targets exposing big number of metrics.

Examples:

scrape_configs:
- job_name: 'big-federate'
  stream_parse: true
  static_configs:
  - targets:
    - big-prometeus1
    - big-prometeus2
  honor_labels: true
  metrics_path: /federate
  params:
    'match[]': ['{__name__!=""}']

Note that sample_limit and series_limit options cannot be used in stream parsing mode because the parsed data is pushed to remote storage as soon as it is parsed.

Scraping big number of targets

A single vmagent instance can scrape tens of thousands of scrape targets. Sometimes this isn't enough due to limitations on CPU, network, RAM, etc. In this case scrape targets can be split among multiple vmagent instances (aka vmagent horizontal scaling, sharding and clustering). Each vmagent instance in the cluster must use identical -promscrape.config files with distinct -promscrape.cluster.memberNum values. The flag value must be in the range 0 ... N-1, where N is the number of vmagent instances in the cluster. The number of vmagent instances in the cluster must be passed to -promscrape.cluster.membersCount command-line flag. For example, the following commands spread scrape targets among a cluster of two vmagent instances:

/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=0 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...
/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=1 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...

The -promscrape.cluster.memberNum can be set to a StatefulSet pod name when vmagent runs in Kubernetes. The pod name must end with a number in the range 0 ... promscrape.cluster.memberNum-1. For example, -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=vmagent-0.

By default each scrape target is scraped only by a single vmagent instance in the cluster. If there is a need for replicating scrape targets among multiple vmagent instances, then -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor command-line flag must be set to the desired number of replicas. For example, the following commands start a cluster of three vmagent instances, where each target is scraped by two vmagent instances:

/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=3 -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=0 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...
/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=3 -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=1 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...
/path/to/vmagent -promscrape.cluster.membersCount=3 -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor=2 -promscrape.cluster.memberNum=2 -promscrape.config=/path/to/config.yml ...

If each target is scraped by multiple vmagent instances, then data deduplication must be enabled at remote storage pointed by -remoteWrite.url. See these docs for details.

Scraping targets via a proxy

vmagent supports scraping targets via http, https and socks5 proxies. Proxy address must be specified in proxy_url option. For example, the following scrape config instructs target scraping via https proxy at https://proxy-addr:1234:

scrape_configs:
- job_name: foo
  proxy_url: https://proxy-addr:1234

Proxy can be configured with the following optional settings:

• proxy_authorization for generic token authorization. See Prometheus docs for details on authorization section
• proxy_bearer_token and proxy_bearer_token_file for Bearer token authorization
• proxy_basic_auth for Basic authorization. See these docs.
• proxy_tls_config for TLS config. See these docs.

For example:

scrape_configs:
- job_name: foo
  proxy_url: https://proxy-addr:1234
  proxy_basic_auth:
    username: foobar
    password: secret
  proxy_tls_config:
    insecure_skip_verify: true
    cert_file: /path/to/cert
    key_file: /path/to/key
    ca_file: /path/to/ca
    server_name: real-server-name

Cardinality limiter

By default vmagent doesn't limit the number of time series each scrape target can expose. The limit can be enforced in the following places:

• Via -promscrape.seriesLimitPerTarget command-line option. This limit is applied individually to all the scrape targets defined in the file pointed by -promscrape.config.
• Via series_limit config option at scrape_config section. This limit is applied individually to all the scrape targets defined in the given scrape_config.
• Via __series_limit__ label, which can be set with relabeling at relabel_configs section. This limit is applied to the corresponding scrape targets. Typical use case: to set the limit via Kubernetes annotations for targets, which may expose too high number of time series.

All the scraped metrics are dropped for time series exceeding the given limit. The exceeded limit can be monitored via promscrape_series_limit_rows_dropped_total metric.

See also sample_limit option at scrape_config section.

By default vmagent doesn't limit the number of time series written to remote storage systems specified at -remoteWrite.url. The limit can be enforced by setting the following command-line flags:

• -remoteWrite.maxHourlySeries - limits the number of unique time series vmagent can write to remote storage systems during the last hour. Useful for limiting the number of active time series.
• -remoteWrite.maxDailySeries - limits the number of unique time series vmagent can write to remote storage systems during the last day. Useful for limiting daily churn rate.

Both limits can be set simultaneously. If any of these limits is reached, then samples for new time series are dropped instead of sending them to remote storage systems. A sample of dropped series is put in the log with WARNING level.

The exceeded limits can be monitored with the following metrics:

• vmagent_hourly_series_limit_rows_dropped_total - the number of metrics dropped due to exceeded hourly limit on the number of unique time series.
• vmagent_daily_series_limit_rows_dropped_total - the number of metrics dropped due to exceeded daily limit on the number of unique time series.

These limits are approximate, so vmagent can underflow/overflow the limit by a small percentage (usually less than 1%).

Monitoring

vmagent exports various metrics in Prometheus exposition format at http://vmagent-host:8429/metrics page. We recommend setting up regular scraping of this page either through vmagent itself or by Prometheus so that the exported metrics may be analyzed later. Use official Grafana dashboard for vmagent state overview. Graphs on this dashboard contain useful hints - hover the i icon at the top left corner of each graph in order to read it. If you have suggestions for improvements or have found a bug - please open an issue on github or add a review to the dashboard.

vmagent also exports the status for various targets at the following handlers:

• http://vmagent-host:8429/targets. This handler returns human-readable status for every active target. This page is easy to query from the command line with wget, curl or similar tools. It accepts optional show_original_labels=1 query arg which shows the original labels per each target before applying the relabeling. This information may be useful for debugging target relabeling.

• http://vmagent-host:8429/api/v1/targets. This handler returns data compatible with the corresponding page from Prometheus API.

• http://vmagent-host:8429/ready. This handler returns http 200 status code when vmagent finishes it's initialization for all service_discovery configs. It may be useful to perform vmagent rolling update without any scrape loss.

Troubleshooting

• We recommend you set up the official Grafana dashboard in order to monitor the state of `vmagent'.

• We recommend you increase the maximum number of open files in the system (ulimit -n) when scraping a big number of targets, as vmagent establishes at least a single TCP connection per target.

• If vmagent uses too big amounts of memory, then the following options can help:

  • Disabling staleness tracking with -promscrape.noStaleMarkers option. See these docs.
  • Enabling stream parsing mode if vmagent scrapes targets with millions of metrics per target. See these docs.
  • Reducing the number of output queues with -remoteWrite.queues command-line option.
  • Reducing the amounts of RAM vmagent can use for in-memory buffering with -memory.allowedPercent or -memory.allowedBytes command-line option. Another option is to reduce memory limits in Docker and/or Kubernetes if vmagent runs under these systems.
  • Reducing the number of CPU cores vmagent can use by passing GOMAXPROCS=N environment variable to vmagent, where N is the desired limit on CPU cores. Another option is to reduce CPU limits in Docker or Kubernetes if vmagent runs under these systems.
  • Passing -promscrape.dropOriginalLabels command-line option to vmagent, so it drops "discoveredLabels" and "droppedTargets" lists at /api/v1/targets page. This reduces memory usage when scraping big number of targets at the cost of reduced debuggability for improperly configured per-target relabeling.

• When vmagent scrapes many unreliable targets, it can flood the error log with scrape errors. These errors can be suppressed by passing -promscrape.suppressScrapeErrors command-line flag to vmagent. The most recent scrape error per each target can be observed at http://vmagent-host:8429/targets and http://vmagent-host:8429/api/v1/targets.

• The /api/v1/targets page could be useful for debugging relabeling process for scrape targets. This page contains original labels for targets dropped during relabeling (see "droppedTargets" section in the page output). By default the -promscrape.maxDroppedTargets targets are shown here. If your setup drops more targets during relabeling, then increase -promscrape.maxDroppedTargets command-line flag value to see all the dropped targets. Note that tracking each dropped target requires up to 10Kb of RAM. Therefore big values for -promscrape.maxDroppedTargets may result in increased memory usage if a big number of scrape targets are dropped during relabeling.

• We recommend you increase -remoteWrite.queues if vmagent_remotewrite_pending_data_bytes metric exported at http://vmagent-host:8429/metrics page grows constantly. It is also recommended increasing -remoteWrite.maxBlockSize and -remoteWrite.maxRowsPerBlock command-line options in this case. This can improve data ingestion performance to the configured remote storage systems at the cost of higher memory usage.

• If you see gaps in the data pushed by vmagent to remote storage when -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL is set, try increasing -remoteWrite.queues. Such gaps may appear because vmagent cannot keep up with sending the collected data to remote storage. Therefore it starts dropping the buffered data if the on-disk buffer size exceeds -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL.

• vmagent drops data blocks if remote storage replies with 400 Bad Request and 409 Conflict HTTP responses. The number of dropped blocks can be monitored via vmagent_remotewrite_packets_dropped_total metric exported at /metrics page.

• Use -remoteWrite.queues=1 when -remoteWrite.url points to remote storage, which doesn't accept out-of-order samples (aka data backfilling). Such storage systems include Prometheus, Cortex and Thanos, which typically emit out of order sample errors. The best solution is to use remote storage with backfilling support.

• vmagent buffers scraped data at the -remoteWrite.tmpDataPath directory until it is sent to -remoteWrite.url. The directory can grow large when remote storage is unavailable for extended periods of time and if -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL isn't set. If you don't want to send all the data from the directory to remote storage then simply stop vmagent and delete the directory.

• By default vmagent masks -remoteWrite.url with secret-url values in logs and at /metrics page because the url may contain sensitive information such as auth tokens or passwords. Pass -remoteWrite.showURL command-line flag when starting vmagent in order to see all the valid urls.

• By default vmagent evenly spreads scrape load in time. If a particular scrape target must be scraped at the beginning of some interval, then scrape_align_interval option must be used. For example, the following config aligns hourly scrapes to the beginning of hour:

  scrape_configs:
  - job_name: foo
    scrape_interval: 1h
    scrape_align_interval: 1h
  

• By default vmagent evenly spreads scrape load in time. If a particular scrape target must be scraped at specific offset, then scrape_offset option must be used. For example, the following config instructs vmagent to scrape the target at 10 seconds of every minute:

  scrape_configs:
  - job_name: foo
    scrape_interval: 1m
    scrape_offset: 10s
  

• If you see skipping duplicate scrape target with identical labels errors when scraping Kubernetes pods, then it is likely these pods listen to multiple ports or they use an init container. These errors can either be fixed or suppressed with the -promscrape.suppressDuplicateScrapeTargetErrors command-line flag. See the available options below if you prefer fixing the root cause of the error:

  The following relabeling rule may be added to relabel_configs section in order to filter out pods with unneeded ports:

  - action: keep_if_equal
    source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_prometheus_io_port, __meta_kubernetes_pod_container_port_number]
  

  The following relabeling rule may be added to relabel_configs section in order to filter out init container pods:

  - action: drop
    source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_container_init]
    regex: true
  

Kafka integration

Enterprise version of vmagent can read and write metrics from / to Kafka:

• Reading metrics from Kafka
• Writing metrics to Kafka

The enterprise version of vmagent is available for evaluation at releases page in vmutils-*-enteprise.tar.gz archives and in docker images with tags containing enterprise suffix.

Reading metrics from Kafka

Enterprise version of vmagent can read metrics in various formats from Kafka messages. These formats can be configured with -kafka.consumer.topic.defaultFormat or -kafka.consumer.topic.format command-line options. The following formats are supported:

• promremotewrite - Prometheus remote_write. Messages in this format can be sent by vmagent - see these docs.
• influx - InfluxDB line protocol format.
• prometheus - Prometheus text exposition format and OpenMetrics format.
• graphite - Graphite plaintext format.
• jsonline - JSON line format.

Every Kafka message may contain multiple lines in influx, prometheus, graphite and jsonline format delimited by \n.

vmagent consumes messages from Kafka topics specified by -kafka.consumer.topic command-line flag. Multiple topics can be specified by passing multiple -kafka.consumer.topic command-line flags to vmagent.

vmagent consumes messages from Kafka brokers specified by -kafka.consumer.topic.brokers command-line flag. Multiple brokers can be specified per each -kafka.consumer.topic by passing a list of brokers delimited by ;. For example, -kafka.consumer.topic.brokers=host1:9092;host2:9092.

The following command starts vmagent, which reads metrics in InfluxDB line protocol format from Kafka broker at localhost:9092 from the topic metrics-by-telegraf and sends them to remote storage at http://localhost:8428/api/v1/write:

./bin/vmagent -remoteWrite.url=http://localhost:8428/api/v1/write \
       -kafka.consumer.topic.brokers=localhost:9092 \
       -kafka.consumer.topic.format=influx \
       -kafka.consumer.topic=metrics-by-telegraf \
       -kafka.consumer.topic.groupID=some-id

It is expected that Telegraf sends metrics to the metrics-by-telegraf topic with the following config:

[[outputs.kafka]]
brokers = ["localhost:9092"]
topic = "influx"
data_format = "influx"

Command-line flags for Kafka consumer

These command-line flags are available only in enterprise version of vmagent, which can be downloaded for evaluation from releases page (see vmutils-*-enteprise.tar.gz archives) and from docker images with tags containing enterprise suffix.

  -kafka.consumer.topic array
        Kafka topic names for data consumption.
        Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.basicAuth.password array
        Optional basic auth password for -kafka.consumer.topic. Must be used in conjunction with any supported auth methods for kafka client, specified by flag -kafka.consumer.topic.options='security.protocol=SASL_SSL;sasl.mechanisms=PLAIN'
        Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.basicAuth.username array
        Optional basic auth username for -kafka.consumer.topic. Must be used in conjunction with any supported auth methods for kafka client, specified by flag -kafka.consumer.topic.options='security.protocol=SASL_SSL;sasl.mechanisms=PLAIN'
        Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.brokers array
        List of brokers to connect for given topic, e.g. -kafka.consumer.topic.broker=host-1:9092;host-2:9092
        Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.defaultFormat string
        Expected data format in the topic if -kafka.consumer.topic.format is skipped. (default "promremotewrite")
  -kafka.consumer.topic.format array
        data format for corresponding kafka topic. Valid formats: influx, prometheus, promremotewrite, graphite, jsonline
        Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.groupID array
        Defines group.id for topic
        Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.isGzipped array
        Enables gzip setting for topic messages payload. Only prometheus, jsonline and influx formats accept gzipped messages.
        Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.options array
        Optional key=value;key1=value2 settings for topic consumer. See full configuration options at https://github.com/edenhill/librdkafka/blob/master/CONFIGURATION.md.
        Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.

Writing metrics to Kafka

Enterprise version of vmagent writes data to Kafka with at-least-once semantics if -remoteWrite.url contains e.g. Kafka url. For example, if vmagent is started with -remoteWrite.url=kafka://localhost:9092/?topic=prom-rw, then it would send Prometheus remote_write messages to Kafka bootstrap server at localhost:9092 with the topic prom-rw. These messages can be read later from Kafka by another vmagent - see these docs for details.

Additional Kafka options can be passed as query params to -remoteWrite.url. For instance, kafka://localhost:9092/?topic=prom-rw&client.id=my-favorite-id sets client.id Kafka option to my-favorite-id. The full list of Kafka options is available here.

Kafka broker authorization and authentication

Two types of auth are supported:

• sasl with username and password:

./bin/vmagent -remoteWrite.url=kafka://localhost:9092/?topic=prom-rw&security.protocol=SASL_SSL&sasl.mechanisms=PLAIN -remoteWrite.basicAuth.username=user -remoteWrite.basicAuth.password=password

• tls certificates:

./bin/vmagent -remoteWrite.url=kafka://localhost:9092/?topic=prom-rw&security.protocol=SSL -remoteWrite.tlsCAFile=/opt/ca.pem -remoteWrite.tlsCertFile=/opt/cert.pem -remoteWrite.tlsKeyFile=/opt/key.pem

How to build from sources

We recommend using binary releases - vmagent is located in the vmutils-* archives .

Development build

1. Install Go. The minimum supported version is Go 1.17.
2. Run make vmagent from the root folder of the repository. It builds the vmagent binary and puts it into the bin folder.

Production build

1. Install docker.
2. Run make vmagent-prod from the root folder of the repository. It builds vmagent-prod binary and puts it into the bin folder.

Building docker images

Run make package-vmagent. It builds victoriametrics/vmagent:<PKG_TAG> docker image locally. <PKG_TAG> is an auto-generated image tag, which depends on source code in the repository. The <PKG_TAG> may be manually set via PKG_TAG=foobar make package-vmagent.

The base docker image is alpine but it is possible to use any other base image by setting it via <ROOT_IMAGE> environment variable. For example, the following command builds the image on top of scratch image:

ROOT_IMAGE=scratch make package-vmagent

ARM build

ARM build may run on Raspberry Pi or on energy-efficient ARM servers.

Development ARM build

1. Install Go. The minimum supported version is Go 1.17.
2. Run make vmagent-arm or make vmagent-arm64 from the root folder of the repository It builds vmagent-arm or vmagent-arm64 binary respectively and puts it into the bin folder.

Production ARM build

1. Install docker.
2. Run make vmagent-arm-prod or make vmagent-arm64-prod from the root folder of the repository. It builds vmagent-arm-prod or vmagent-arm64-prod binary respectively and puts it into the bin folder.

Profiling

vmagent provides handlers for collecting the following Go profiles:

• Memory profile can be collected with the following command (replace 0.0.0.0 with hostname if needed):

curl http://0.0.0.0:8429/debug/pprof/heap > mem.pprof

• CPU profile can be collected with the following command (replace 0.0.0.0 with hostname if needed):

curl http://0.0.0.0:8429/debug/pprof/profile > cpu.pprof

The command for collecting CPU profile waits for 30 seconds before returning.

The collected profiles may be analyzed with go tool pprof.

Advanced usage

vmagent can be fine-tuned with various command-line flags. Run ./vmagent -help in order to see the full list of these flags with their desciptions and default values:

./vmagent -help

vmagent collects metrics data via popular data ingestion protocols and routes them to VictoriaMetrics.

See the docs at https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html .

  -configAuthKey string
     Authorization key for accessing /config page. It must be passed via authKey query arg
  -csvTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps when importing csv data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1ms. Higher duration (i.e. 1s) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1ms)
  -datadog.maxInsertRequestSize size
     The maximum size in bytes of a single DataDog POST request to /api/v1/series
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 67108864)
  -dryRun
     Whether to check only config files without running vmagent. The following files are checked: -promscrape.config, -remoteWrite.relabelConfig, -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig . Unknown config entries aren't allowed in -promscrape.config by default. This can be changed by passing -promscrape.config.strictParse=false command-line flag
  -enableTCP6
     Whether to enable IPv6 for listening and dialing. By default only IPv4 TCP and UDP is used
  -envflag.enable
     Whether to enable reading flags from environment variables additionally to command line. Command line flag values have priority over values from environment vars. Flags are read only from command line if this flag isn't set. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#environment-variables for more details
  -envflag.prefix string
     Prefix for environment variables if -envflag.enable is set
  -eula
     By specifying this flag, you confirm that you have an enterprise license and accept the EULA https://victoriametrics.com/assets/VM_EULA.pdf
  -fs.disableMmap
     Whether to use pread() instead of mmap() for reading data files. By default mmap() is used for 64-bit arches and pread() is used for 32-bit arches, since they cannot read data files bigger than 2^32 bytes in memory. mmap() is usually faster for reading small data chunks than pread()
  -graphiteListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for Graphite plaintext data. Usually :2003 must be set. Doesn't work if empty
  -graphiteTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps for Graphite data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1s. Higher duration (i.e. 1m) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1s)
  -http.connTimeout duration
     Incoming http connections are closed after the configured timeout. This may help to spread the incoming load among a cluster of services behind a load balancer. Please note that the real timeout may be bigger by up to 10% as a protection against the thundering herd problem (default 2m0s)
  -http.disableResponseCompression
     Disable compression of HTTP responses to save CPU resources. By default compression is enabled to save network bandwidth
  -http.idleConnTimeout duration
     Timeout for incoming idle http connections (default 1m0s)
  -http.maxGracefulShutdownDuration duration
     The maximum duration for a graceful shutdown of the HTTP server. A highly loaded server may require increased value for a graceful shutdown (default 7s)
  -http.pathPrefix string
     An optional prefix to add to all the paths handled by http server. For example, if '-http.pathPrefix=/foo/bar' is set, then all the http requests will be handled on '/foo/bar/*' paths. This may be useful for proxied requests. See https://www.robustperception.io/using-external-urls-and-proxies-with-prometheus
  -http.shutdownDelay duration
     Optional delay before http server shutdown. During this delay, the server returns non-OK responses from /health page, so load balancers can route new requests to other servers
  -httpAuth.password string
     Password for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if -httpAuth.username is empty
  -httpAuth.username string
     Username for HTTP Basic Auth. The authentication is disabled if empty. See also -httpAuth.password
  -httpListenAddr string
     TCP address to listen for http connections. Set this flag to empty value in order to disable listening on any port. This mode may be useful for running multiple vmagent instances on the same server. Note that /targets and /metrics pages aren't available if -httpListenAddr='' (default ":8429")
  -import.maxLineLen size
     The maximum length in bytes of a single line accepted by /api/v1/import; the line length can be limited with 'max_rows_per_line' query arg passed to /api/v1/export
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 104857600)
  -influx.databaseNames array
     Comma-separated list of database names to return from /query and /influx/query API. This can be needed for accepting data from Telegraf plugins such as https://github.com/fangli/fluent-plugin-influxdb
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -influx.maxLineSize size
     The maximum size in bytes for a single InfluxDB line during parsing
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 262144)
  -influxDBLabel string
     Default label for the DB name sent over '?db={db_name}' query parameter (default "db")
  -influxListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for InfluxDB line protocol data. Usually :8189 must be set. Doesn't work if empty. This flag isn't needed when ingesting data over HTTP - just send it to http://<vmagent>:8429/write
  -influxMeasurementFieldSeparator string
     Separator for '{measurement}{separator}{field_name}' metric name when inserted via InfluxDB line protocol (default "_")
  -influxSkipMeasurement
     Uses '{field_name}' as a metric name while ignoring '{measurement}' and '-influxMeasurementFieldSeparator'
  -influxSkipSingleField
     Uses '{measurement}' instead of '{measurement}{separator}{field_name}' for metic name if InfluxDB line contains only a single field
  -influxTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps for InfluxDB line protocol data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1ms. Higher duration (i.e. 1s) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1ms)
  -insert.maxQueueDuration duration
     The maximum duration for waiting in the queue for insert requests due to -maxConcurrentInserts (default 1m0s)
  -kafka.consumer.topic array
     Kafka topic names for data consumption.
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.basicAuth.password array
     Optional basic auth password for -kafka.consumer.topic. Must be used in conjunction with any supported auth methods for kafka client, specified by flag -kafka.consumer.topic.options='security.protocol=SASL_SSL;sasl.mechanisms=PLAIN'
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.basicAuth.username array
     Optional basic auth username for -kafka.consumer.topic. Must be used in conjunction with any supported auth methods for kafka client, specified by flag -kafka.consumer.topic.options='security.protocol=SASL_SSL;sasl.mechanisms=PLAIN'
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.brokers array
     List of brokers to connect for given topic, e.g. -kafka.consumer.topic.broker=host-1:9092;host-2:9092
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.defaultFormat string
     Expected data format in the topic if -kafka.consumer.topic.format is skipped. (default "promremotewrite")
  -kafka.consumer.topic.format array
     data format for corresponding kafka topic. Valid formats: influx, prometheus, promremotewrite, graphite, jsonline
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.groupID array
     Defines group.id for topic
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.isGzipped array
     Enables gzip setting for topic messages payload. Only prometheus, jsonline and influx formats accept gzipped messages.
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -kafka.consumer.topic.options array
     Optional key=value;key1=value2 settings for topic consumer. See full configuration options at https://github.com/edenhill/librdkafka/blob/master/CONFIGURATION.md.
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -loggerDisableTimestamps
     Whether to disable writing timestamps in logs
  -loggerErrorsPerSecondLimit int
     Per-second limit on the number of ERROR messages. If more than the given number of errors are emitted per second, the remaining errors are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
  -loggerFormat string
     Format for logs. Possible values: default, json (default "default")
  -loggerLevel string
     Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
  -loggerOutput string
     Output for the logs. Supported values: stderr, stdout (default "stderr")
  -loggerTimezone string
     Timezone to use for timestamps in logs. Timezone must be a valid IANA Time Zone. For example: America/New_York, Europe/Berlin, Etc/GMT+3 or Local (default "UTC")
  -loggerWarnsPerSecondLimit int
     Per-second limit on the number of WARN messages. If more than the given number of warns are emitted per second, then the remaining warns are suppressed. Zero values disable the rate limit
  -maxConcurrentInserts int
     The maximum number of concurrent inserts. Default value should work for most cases, since it minimizes the overhead for concurrent inserts. This option is tigthly coupled with -insert.maxQueueDuration (default 16)
  -maxInsertRequestSize size
     The maximum size in bytes of a single Prometheus remote_write API request
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 33554432)
  -memory.allowedBytes size
     Allowed size of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. This option overrides -memory.allowedPercent if set to a non-zero value. Too low a value may increase the cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from OS page cache resulting in higher disk IO usage
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 0)
  -memory.allowedPercent float
     Allowed percent of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy. See also -memory.allowedBytes. Too low a value may increase cache miss rate usually resulting in higher CPU and disk IO usage. Too high a value may evict too much data from OS page cache which will result in higher disk IO usage (default 60)
  -metricsAuthKey string
     Auth key for /metrics. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -opentsdbHTTPListenAddr string
     TCP address to listen for OpentTSDB HTTP put requests. Usually :4242 must be set. Doesn't work if empty
  -opentsdbListenAddr string
     TCP and UDP address to listen for OpentTSDB metrics. Telnet put messages and HTTP /api/put messages are simultaneously served on TCP port. Usually :4242 must be set. Doesn't work if empty
  -opentsdbTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps for OpenTSDB 'telnet put' data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1s. Higher duration (i.e. 1m) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1s)
  -opentsdbhttp.maxInsertRequestSize size
     The maximum size of OpenTSDB HTTP put request
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 33554432)
  -opentsdbhttpTrimTimestamp duration
     Trim timestamps for OpenTSDB HTTP data to this duration. Minimum practical duration is 1ms. Higher duration (i.e. 1s) may be used for reducing disk space usage for timestamp data (default 1ms)
  -pprofAuthKey string
     Auth key for /debug/pprof. It must be passed via authKey query arg. It overrides httpAuth.* settings
  -promscrape.cluster.memberNum string
     The number of number in the cluster of scrapers. It must be an unique value in the range 0 ... promscrape.cluster.membersCount-1 across scrapers in the cluster. Can be specified as pod name of Kubernetes StatefulSet - pod-name-Num, where Num is a numeric part of pod name (default "0")
  -promscrape.cluster.membersCount int
     The number of members in a cluster of scrapers. Each member must have an unique -promscrape.cluster.memberNum in the range 0 ... promscrape.cluster.membersCount-1 . Each member then scrapes roughly 1/N of all the targets. By default cluster scraping is disabled, i.e. a single scraper scrapes all the targets
  -promscrape.cluster.replicationFactor int
     The number of members in the cluster, which scrape the same targets. If the replication factor is greater than 2, then the deduplication must be enabled at remote storage side. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#deduplication (default 1)
  -promscrape.config string
     Optional path to Prometheus config file with 'scrape_configs' section containing targets to scrape. The path can point to local file and to http url. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#how-to-scrape-prometheus-exporters-such-as-node-exporter for details
  -promscrape.config.dryRun
     Checks -promscrape.config file for errors and unsupported fields and then exits. Returns non-zero exit code on parsing errors and emits these errors to stderr. See also -promscrape.config.strictParse command-line flag. Pass -loggerLevel=ERROR if you don't need to see info messages in the output.
  -promscrape.config.strictParse
     Whether to deny unsupported fields in -promscrape.config . Set to false in order to silently skip unsupported fields (default true)
  -promscrape.configCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in '-promscrape.config' file. By default the checking is disabled. Send SIGHUP signal in order to force config check for changes
  -promscrape.consul.waitTime duration
     Wait time used by Consul service discovery. Default value is used if not set
  -promscrape.consulSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in Consul. This works only if consul_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#consul_sd_config for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.digitaloceanSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in digital ocean. This works only if digitalocean_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#digitalocean_sd_config for details (default 1m0s)
  -promscrape.disableCompression
     Whether to disable sending 'Accept-Encoding: gzip' request headers to all the scrape targets. This may reduce CPU usage on scrape targets at the cost of higher network bandwidth utilization. It is possible to set 'disable_compression: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control
  -promscrape.disableKeepAlive
     Whether to disable HTTP keep-alive connections when scraping all the targets. This may be useful when targets has no support for HTTP keep-alive connection. It is possible to set 'disable_keepalive: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control. Note that disabling HTTP keep-alive may increase load on both vmagent and scrape targets
  -promscrape.discovery.concurrency int
     The maximum number of concurrent requests to Prometheus autodiscovery API (Consul, Kubernetes, etc.) (default 100)
  -promscrape.discovery.concurrentWaitTime duration
     The maximum duration for waiting to perform API requests if more than -promscrape.discovery.concurrency requests are simultaneously performed (default 1m0s)
  -promscrape.dnsSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in dns. This works only if dns_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#dns_sd_config for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.dockerSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in docker. This works only if docker_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#docker_sd_config for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.dockerswarmSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in dockerswarm. This works only if dockerswarm_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#dockerswarm_sd_config for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.dropOriginalLabels
     Whether to drop original labels for scrape targets at /targets and /api/v1/targets pages. This may be needed for reducing memory usage when original labels for big number of scrape targets occupy big amounts of memory. Note that this reduces debuggability for improper per-target relabeling configs
  -promscrape.ec2SDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in ec2. This works only if ec2_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#ec2_sd_config for details (default 1m0s)
  -promscrape.eurekaSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in eureka. This works only if eureka_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#eureka_sd_config for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.fileSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in 'file_sd_config'. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#file_sd_config for details (default 5m0s)
  -promscrape.gceSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in gce. This works only if gce_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#gce_sd_config for details (default 1m0s)
  -promscrape.httpSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in http endpoint service discovery. This works only if http_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#http_sd_config for details (default 1m0s)
  -promscrape.kubernetes.apiServerTimeout duration
     How frequently to reload the full state from Kubernetes API server (default 30m0s)
  -promscrape.kubernetesSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in Kubernetes API server. This works only if kubernetes_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#kubernetes_sd_config for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.maxDroppedTargets int
     The maximum number of droppedTargets to show at /api/v1/targets page. Increase this value if your setup drops more scrape targets during relabeling and you need investigating labels for all the dropped targets. Note that the increased number of tracked dropped targets may result in increased memory usage (default 1000)
  -promscrape.maxResponseHeadersSize size
     The maximum size of http response headers from Prometheus scrape targets
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 4096)
  -promscrape.maxScrapeSize size
     The maximum size of scrape response in bytes to process from Prometheus targets. Bigger responses are rejected
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 16777216)
  -promscrape.minResponseSizeForStreamParse size
     The minimum target response size for automatic switching to stream parsing mode, which can reduce memory usage. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#stream-parsing-mode
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 1000000)
  -promscrape.noStaleMarkers
     Whether to disable sending Prometheus stale markers for metrics when scrape target disappears. This option may reduce memory usage if stale markers aren't needed for your setup. This option also disables populating the scrape_series_added metric. See https://prometheus.io/docs/concepts/jobs_instances/#automatically-generated-labels-and-time-series
  -promscrape.openstackSDCheckInterval duration
     Interval for checking for changes in openstack API server. This works only if openstack_sd_configs is configured in '-promscrape.config' file. See https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#openstack_sd_config for details (default 30s)
  -promscrape.seriesLimitPerTarget int
     Optional limit on the number of unique time series a single scrape target can expose. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#cardinality-limiter for more info
  -promscrape.streamParse
     Whether to enable stream parsing for metrics obtained from scrape targets. This may be useful for reducing memory usage when millions of metrics are exposed per each scrape target. It is posible to set 'stream_parse: true' individually per each 'scrape_config' section in '-promscrape.config' for fine grained control
  -promscrape.suppressDuplicateScrapeTargetErrors
     Whether to suppress 'duplicate scrape target' errors; see https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#troubleshooting for details
  -promscrape.suppressScrapeErrors
     Whether to suppress scrape errors logging. The last error for each target is always available at '/targets' page even if scrape errors logging is suppressed
  -remoteWrite.basicAuth.password array
     Optional basic auth password to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.basicAuth.passwordFile array
     Optional path to basic auth password to use for -remoteWrite.url. The file is re-read every second. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.basicAuth.username array
     Optional basic auth username to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.bearerToken array
     Optional bearer auth token to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.bearerTokenFile array
     Optional path to bearer token file to use for -remoteWrite.url. The token is re-read from the file every second. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.flushInterval duration
     Interval for flushing the data to remote storage. This option takes effect only when less than 10K data points per second are pushed to -remoteWrite.url (default 1s)
  -remoteWrite.label array
     Optional label in the form 'name=value' to add to all the metrics before sending them to -remoteWrite.url. Pass multiple -remoteWrite.label flags in order to add multiple labels to metrics before sending them to remote storage
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.maxBlockSize size
     The maximum block size to send to remote storage. Bigger blocks may improve performance at the cost of the increased memory usage. See also -remoteWrite.maxRowsPerBlock
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 8388608)
  -remoteWrite.maxDailySeries int
     The maximum number of unique series vmagent can send to remote storage systems during the last 24 hours. Excess series are logged and dropped. This can be useful for limiting series churn rate. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#cardinality-limiter
  -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL size
     The maximum file-based buffer size in bytes at -remoteWrite.tmpDataPath for each -remoteWrite.url. When buffer size reaches the configured maximum, then old data is dropped when adding new data to the buffer. Buffered data is stored in ~500MB chunks, so the minimum practical value for this flag is 500000000. Disk usage is unlimited if the value is set to 0
     Supports the following optional suffixes for size values: KB, MB, GB, KiB, MiB, GiB (default 0)
  -remoteWrite.maxHourlySeries int
     The maximum number of unique series vmagent can send to remote storage systems during the last hour. Excess series are logged and dropped. This can be useful for limiting series cardinality. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#cardinality-limiter
  -remoteWrite.maxRowsPerBlock int
     The maximum number of samples to send in each block to remote storage. Higher number may improve performance at the cost of the increased memory usage. See also -remoteWrite.maxBlockSize (default 10000)
  -remoteWrite.multitenantURL array
     Base path for multitenant remote storage URL to write data to. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#multitenancy for details. Example url: http://<vminsert>:8480 . Pass multiple -remoteWrite.multitenantURL flags in order to replicate data to multiple remote storage systems. See also -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.oauth2.clientID array
     Optional OAuth2 clientID to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.oauth2.clientSecret array
     Optional OAuth2 clientSecret to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.oauth2.clientSecretFile array
     Optional OAuth2 clientSecretFile to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.oauth2.scopes array
     Optional OAuth2 scopes to use for -remoteWrite.url. Scopes must be delimited by ';'. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.oauth2.tokenUrl array
     Optional OAuth2 tokenURL to use for -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.proxyURL array
     Optional proxy URL for writing data to -remoteWrite.url. Supported proxies: http, https, socks5. Example: -remoteWrite.proxyURL=socks5://proxy:1234
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.queues int
     The number of concurrent queues to each -remoteWrite.url. Set more queues if default number of queues isn't enough for sending high volume of collected data to remote storage. Default value is 2 * numberOfAvailableCPUs (default 8)
  -remoteWrite.rateLimit array
     Optional rate limit in bytes per second for data sent to -remoteWrite.url. By default the rate limit is disabled. It can be useful for limiting load on remote storage when big amounts of buffered data is sent after temporary unavailability of the remote storage
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.relabelConfig string
     Optional path to file with relabel_config entries. The path can point either to local file or to http url. These entries are applied to all the metrics before sending them to -remoteWrite.url. See https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#relabeling for details
  -remoteWrite.relabelDebug
     Whether to log metrics before and after relabeling with -remoteWrite.relabelConfig. If the -remoteWrite.relabelDebug is enabled, then the metrics aren't sent to remote storage. This is useful for debugging the relabeling configs
  -remoteWrite.roundDigits array
     Round metric values to this number of decimal digits after the point before writing them to remote storage. Examples: -remoteWrite.roundDigits=2 would round 1.236 to 1.24, while -remoteWrite.roundDigits=-1 would round 126.78 to 130. By default digits rounding is disabled. Set it to 100 for disabling it for a particular remote storage. This option may be used for improving data compression for the stored metrics
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.sendTimeout array
     Timeout for sending a single block of data to -remoteWrite.url
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.showURL
     Whether to show -remoteWrite.url in the exported metrics. It is hidden by default, since it can contain sensitive info such as auth key
  -remoteWrite.significantFigures array
     The number of significant figures to leave in metric values before writing them to remote storage. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significant_figures . Zero value saves all the significant figures. This option may be used for improving data compression for the stored metrics. See also -remoteWrite.roundDigits
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.tlsCAFile array
     Optional path to TLS CA file to use for verifying connections to -remoteWrite.url. By default system CA is used. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.tlsCertFile array
     Optional path to client-side TLS certificate file to use when connecting to -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.tlsInsecureSkipVerify array
     Whether to skip tls verification when connecting to -remoteWrite.url
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.tlsKeyFile array
     Optional path to client-side TLS certificate key to use when connecting to -remoteWrite.url. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.tlsServerName array
     Optional TLS server name to use for connections to -remoteWrite.url. By default the server name from -remoteWrite.url is used. If multiple args are set, then they are applied independently for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.tmpDataPath string
     Path to directory where temporary data for remote write component is stored. See also -remoteWrite.maxDiskUsagePerURL (default "vmagent-remotewrite-data")
  -remoteWrite.url array
     Remote storage URL to write data to. It must support Prometheus remote_write API. It is recommended using VictoriaMetrics as remote storage. Example url: http://<victoriametrics-host>:8428/api/v1/write . Pass multiple -remoteWrite.url flags in order to replicate data to multiple remote storage systems. See also -remoteWrite.multitenantURL
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig array
     Optional path to relabel config for the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. The path can point either to local file or to http url
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -remoteWrite.urlRelabelDebug array
     Whether to log metrics before and after relabeling with -remoteWrite.urlRelabelConfig. If the -remoteWrite.urlRelabelDebug is enabled, then the metrics aren't sent to the corresponding -remoteWrite.url. This is useful for debugging the relabeling configs
     Supports array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -sortLabels
     Whether to sort labels for incoming samples before writing them to all the configured remote storage systems. This may be needed for reducing memory usage at remote storage when the order of labels in incoming samples is random. For example, if m{k1="v1",k2="v2"} may be sent as m{k2="v2",k1="v1"}Enabled sorting for labels can slow down ingestion performance a bit
  -tls
     Whether to enable TLS for incoming HTTP requests at -httpListenAddr (aka https). -tlsCertFile and -tlsKeyFile must be set if -tls is set
  -tlsCertFile string
     Path to file with TLS certificate if -tls is set. Prefer ECDSA certs instead of RSA certs as RSA certs are slower. The provided certificate file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated
  -tlsCipherSuites array
     Optional list of TLS cipher suites for incoming requests over HTTPS if -tls is set. See the list of supported cipher suites at https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants
     Supports an array of values separated by comma or specified via multiple flags.
  -tlsKeyFile string
     Path to file with TLS key if -tls is set. The provided key file is automatically re-read every second, so it can be dynamically updated
  -version
     Show VictoriaMetrics version