ping_exporter

Prometheus exporter for ICMP echo requests using https://github.com/digineo/go-ping

This is a simple server that scrapes go-ping stats and exports them via HTTP for Prometheus consumption. The go-ping library is build and maintained by Digineo GmbH. For more information check the source code.

Getting Started

Config file

Targets can be specified in a YAML based config file:

targets:
  - 8.8.8.8
  - 8.8.4.4
  - 2001:4860:4860::8888
  - 2001:4860:4860::8844
  - google.com

dns:
  refresh: 2m15s
  nameserver: 1.1.1.1

ping:
  interval: 2s
  timeout: 3s
  history-size: 42
  payload-size: 120

Note: domains are resolved (regularly) to their corresponding A and AAAA records (IPv4 and IPv6). By default, ping_exporter uses the system resolver to translate domain names to IP addresses. You can override the resolver address by specifying the --dns.nameserver flag when starting the binary, e.g.

$ # use Cloudflare's public DNS server
$ ./ping_exporter --dns.nameserver=1.1.1.1:53 [other options]

Exported metrics

ping_rtt_best_ms: Best round trip time in millis
ping_rtt_worst_ms: Worst round trip time in millis
ping_rtt_mean_ms: Mean round trip time in millis
ping_rtt_std_deviation_ms: Standard deviation in millis
ping_loss_percent: Packet loss in percent

Each metric has labels ip (the target's IP address), ip_version (4 or 6, corresponding to the IP version), and target (the target's name).

Additionally, a ping_up metric reports whether the exporter is running (and in which version).

Different time unit

The *_ms metrics actually violate the recommendations by Prometheus, whereby time values should be expressed in seconds (not milliseconds).

To accomodate for this, we've added a command line switch to select the proper scale:

$ # keep using millis
$ ./ping_exporter --metrics.rttunit=ms [other options]
$ # use seconds instead
$ ./ping_exporter --metrics.rttunit=s [other options]
$ # use both millis and seconds
$ ./ping_exporter --metrics.rttunit=both [other options]

For the foreseeable future, the default is --metrics.rttunit=ms.

If you used the ping_exporter in the past, and want to migrate, start using --metrics.rttunit=both now. This gives you the opportunity to update all your alerts, dashboards, and other software depending on ms values to use proper scale (you "just" need to apply a factor of 1000 on everything). When you're ready, you just need to switch to --metrics.rttunit=s.

Deprecated metrics

ping_rtt_ms: Round trip trim in millis

This metric has a label type with one of the following values:

best denotes best round trip time
worst denotes worst round trip time
mean denotes mean round trip time
std_dev denotes standard deviation

These metrics are exported by default, but this may change with a future release of this exporter.

To ensure forward- or backward compatability, use the --metrics.deprecated flag:

$ # also export deprecated metrics
$ ./ping_exporter --metrics.deprecated=enable [other options]
$ # or omit deprecated metrics
$ ./ping_exporter --metrics.deprecated=disable [other options]

Shell

To run the exporter:

$ ./ping_exporter [options] target1 target2 ...

$ ./ping_exporter --config.path my-config-file [options]

Help on flags:

$ ./ping_exporter --help

Getting the results for testing via cURL:

$ curl http://localhost:9427/metrics

Docker

https://hub.docker.com/r/czerwonk/ping_exporter

To run the ping_exporter as a Docker container, run:

$ docker run -p 9427:9427 -v /path/to/config/directory:/config:ro --name ping_exporter czerwonk/ping_exporter

Contribute

Simply fork and create a pull-request. We'll try to respond in a timely fashion.

leahoswald / ping_exporter