Traffic Stats Administration

Traffic Stats consists of three separate components: Traffic Stats, InfluxDB, and Grafana. See below for information on installing and configuring each component as well as configuring the integration between the three and Traffic Ops.

Installation

Installing Traffic Stats

  • See the downloads page for Traffic Control to get the latest release.

  • Follow the instructions in Building Traffic Control to generate an RPM.

  • Copy the RPM to your server

  • Install the generated Traffic Stats RPM with yum(8) or rpm(8)

Installing InfluxDB

In order to store Traffic Stats data you will need to install InfluxDB. While not required, it is recommended to use some sort of high availability option like Influx enterprise, InfluxDB Relay, or another high availability option.

Installing Grafana

Grafana is used to display Traffic Stats/InfluxDB data in Traffic Ops. Grafana is typically run on the same server as Traffic Stats but this is not a requirement. Grafana can be installed on any server that can access InfluxDB and can be accessed by Traffic Ops. Documentation on installing Grafana can be found on the Grafana website.

Configuration

Configuring Traffic Stats

Traffic Stats’s configuration file can be found in /opt/traffic_stats/conf/traffic_stats.cfg. It is a JSON-format file with the following properties.

toUser

The username of the user as whom to connect to Traffic Ops

toPasswd

The password to use when authenticating with Traffic Ops

toUrl

The URL of the Traffic Ops server used by Traffic Stats

influxUser

Optionally specify the user to use when connecting to InfluxDB (if InfluxDB is not configured to require authentication, has no effect)

influxPassword

Optionally specify the password to use when connecting to InfluxDB (if InfluxDB is not configured to require authentication, has no effect)

pollingInterval

The interval in seconds for which Traffic Monitor will wait between polling for stats and storing them in InfluxDB

statusToMon

The name of the Status of the Traffic Monitors to poll (e.g. ONLINE or OFFLINE)

seelogConfig

Optionally specify the absolute path to a seelog configuration file. Has no effect if the logs property is present.

Deprecated since version ATCv6.1: This will be removed in the future, configurations should be migrated to the new logs property.

logs

This property is an object containing keys that specify locations for different log streams.

New in version ATCv6.1.

error

The location of error-level logs. If omitted, null, an empty string (""), or the special path /dev/null (even on Windows), error-level logs will not be emitted. The special values “stderr” and “stdout” cause logging to use STDOUT or STDERR, respectively1.

warning

The location of warning-level logs. If omitted, null, an empty string (""), or the special path /dev/null (even on Windows), warning-level logs will not be emitted. The special values “stderr” and “stdout” cause logging to use STDOUT or STDERR, respectively1.

info

The location of info-level logs. If omitted, null, an empty string (""), or the special path /dev/null (even on Windows), info-level logs will not be emitted. The special values “stderr” and “stdout” cause logging to use STDOUT or STDERR, respectively1.

debug

The location of debug-level logs. If omitted, null, an empty string (""), or the special path /dev/null (even on Windows), debug-level logs will not be emitted. The special values “stderr” and “stdout” cause logging to use STDOUT or STDERR, respectively1.

event

The location of event-level logs. If omitted, null, an empty string (""), or the special path /dev/null (even on Windows), event-level logs will not be emitted. The special values “stderr” and “stdout” cause logging to use STDOUT or STDERR, respectively1.

Note

At the time of this writing, Traffic Stats does not make use of the “event” log level.

dailySummaryPollingInterval

The interval, in seconds, on which Traffic Stats checks to see if daily stats need to be computed and stored.

cacheRetentionPolicy

The default retention policy for cache stats

dsRetentionPolicy

The default retention policy for Delivery Service statistics

dailySummaryRetentionPolicy

The retention policy to be used for the daily statistics

influxUrls

An array of InfluxDB hosts for Traffic Stats to write stats to.

Configuring InfluxDB

As mentioned above, it is recommended that InfluxDB be running in some sort of high availability configuration. There are several ways to achieve high availability so it is best to consult the high availability options on the InfuxDB website.

Once InfluxDB is installed and configured, databases and retention policies need to be created. Traffic Stats writes to three different databases: cache_stats, deliveryservice_stats, and daily_stats. More information about the databases and what data is stored in each can be found in the Traffic Stats Overview.

To easily create databases, retention policies, and continuous queries, run create_ts_databases from the /opt/traffic_stats/influxdb_tools directory on your Traffic Stats server. See the InfluxDB Tools section for more information.

Configuring Grafana

In Traffic Portal the Other ‣ Grafana menu item can be configured to display Grafana graphs using InfluxDB data (when not configured, this menu item will not appear). In order for this to work correctly, you will need two things:

  1. A Parameter with the graph URL (more information below)

  2. The graphs created in Grafana. See below for how to create some simple graphs in Grafana. These instructions assume that InfluxDB has been configured and that data has been written to it. If this is not true, you will not see any graphs.

To create a graph in Grafana, you can follow these basic steps:

  1. Login to Grafana as an administrative user

  2. Click on Data Sources ‣ Add New

  3. Enter the necessary information to configure your data source

  4. Click on Home ‣ New at the bottom

  5. Click on “Collapsed Menu Icon” Button ‣ Add Panel ‣ Graph

  6. Where it says No Title (click here) click and choose edit

  7. Choose your data source at the bottom

  8. You can have Grafana help you create a query, or you can create your own.

    #59 Sample Query
    SELECT sum(value)*1000 FROM "monthly"."bandwidth.cdn.1min" GROUP BY time(60s), cdn;
    
  9. Once you have the graph the way you want it, click the Save Dashboard button at the top

  10. You should now have a new saved graph

In order for Traffic Portal users to see Grafana graphs, Grafana will need to allow anonymous access. Information on how to configure anonymous access can be found on the configuration page of the Grafana Website.

Traffic Portal uses custom dashboards to display information about individual Delivery Services or Cache Groups. In order for the custom graphs to display correctly, the Javascript files in traffic_stats/grafana/ need to be in the /usr/share/grafana/public/dashboards/ directory on the Grafana server. If your Grafana server is the same as your Traffic Stats server the RPM install process will take care of putting the files in place. If your Grafana server is different from your Traffic Stats server, you will need to manually copy the files to the correct directory.

See also

More information on custom scripted graphs can be found in the scripted dashboards section of the Grafana documentation.

Configuring Traffic Portal for Traffic Stats

  • The InfluxDB servers need to be added to Traffic Portal with a Profile that has the Type InfluxDB. Make sure to use port 8086 in the configuration.

  • The traffic stats server should be added to Traffic Ops with a Profile that has the Type TRAFFIC_STATS.

  • Parameters for which stats will be collected are added with the release, but any changes can be made via Parameters that are assigned to the Traffic Stats Profile.

Configuring Traffic Portal to use Grafana Dashboards

To configure Traffic Portal to use Grafana Dashboards, you need to enter the following Parameters and assign them to the special GLOBAL Profile. This assumes you followed instructions in the Installation, Configuring Traffic Stats, Configuring InfluxDB, and Configuring Grafana sections.

Table 68 Traffic Stats Parameters

parameter name

parameter value

all_graph_url

https://grafanaHost/dashboard/db/deliveryservice-stats-dashboard

cachegroup_graph_url

https://grafanaHost/dashboard/script/traffic_ops_cachegroup.js?which=

deliveryservice_graph_url

https://grafanaHost/dashboard/script/traffic_ops_deliveryservice.js?which=

server_graph_url

https://grafanaHost/dashboard/script/traffic_ops_server.js?which=

visual_status_panel_1

https://grafanaHost/dashboard-solo/db/cdn-stats-dashboard?panelId=2&fullscreen&from=now-24h&to=now-60s

visual_status_panel_2

https://grafanaHost/dashboard-solo/db/cdn-stats-dashboard?panelId=1&fullscreen&from=now-24h&to=now-60s

daily_bw_url

https://grafanaHost/dashboard-solo/db/daily-summary-dashboard?panelId=1&fullscreen&from=now-3y&to=now

daily_served_url

https://grafanaHost/dashboard-solo/db/daily-summary-dashboard?panelId=2&fullscreen&from=now-3y&to=now

where

grafanaHost

is the FQDN of the Grafana server (again, usually the same as the Traffic Stats server),

cdn-stats-dashboard

is the name of the Dashboard providing CDN-level statistics,

deliveryservice-stats-dashboard

is the name of the Dashboard providing Delivery Service-level statistics, and

daily-summary-dashboard

is the name of the Dashboard providing a daily summary of general statistics that would be of interest to administrators using Traffic Portal

InfluxDB Tools

Under the Traffic Stats source directory there is a directory called influxdb_tools. These tools are meant to be used as one-off scripts to help a user quickly get new databases and continuous queries setup in InfluxDB. They are specific for Traffic Stats and are not meant to be generic to InfluxDB. Below is an brief description of each script along with how to use it.

create/create_ts_databases.go

This program creates all databases, retention policies, and continuous queries required by Traffic Stats.

Pre-Requisites

  • Go 1.7 or later

  • Configured $GOPATH environment variable

Options and Arguments

--help

(Optional) Print usage information and exit (with a failure exit code for some reason)

--password password

The password that will be used by the user defined by --user to authenticate.

--replication N

(Optional) The number of nodes in the cluster (default: 3)

--url URL

The InfluxDB server’s root URL - including port number, if required (default: http://localhost:8086)

--user username

The name of the user to use when connecting to InfluxDB

sync/sync_ts_databases.go

This program is used to sync one InfluxDB environment to another. Only data from continuous queries is synced as it is down-sampled data and much smaller in size than syncing raw data. Possible use cases are syncing from production to development or syncing a new cluster once brought online.

Pre-Requisites

  • Go 1.7 or later

  • Configured $GOPATH environment variable

Options and Arguments

--database database_name

(Optional) Specify the name of a specific database to sync (default: all databases)

--days N

The number of days in the past to sync. 0 means ‘all’

--help

(Optional) Print usage information and exit

--source-password password

The password of the user named by --source-user

--source-url URL

(Optional) The URL of the InfluxDB instance _from_ which data will be copied (default: http://localhost:8086)

--source-user username

The name of the user as whom the utility will connect to the source InfluxDB instance

--target-password password

The password of the user named by --target-user

--target-url URL

(Optional) The URL of the InfluxDB instance _to_ which data will be copied (default: http://localhost:8086)

--target-user username

The name of the user as whom the utility will connect to the target InfluxDB instance

1(1,2,3,4,5)

To log to files named literally “stdout” or “stderr”, use an absolute or relative file path e.g. “./stdout” or “/path/to/stderr”.