The nginx integration collects connection metrics and access logs. Connection metrics capture the current state of the connection: active, reading, or waiting. Access logs are parsed for their connection details, which include fields mapped to request, client, server, and message.
For more information about nginx, see the nginx documentation.
Prerequisites
To collect nginx telemetry, you must install the Ops Agent:
- For metrics, install version 2.1.0 or higher.
- For logs, install version 2.1.0 or higher.
This integration supports nginx versions 1.18 and 1.20.
Configure your nginx instance
You must enable the stub_status
module in the nginx configuration file to set
up a locally reachable URL, for example, http://www.example.com/nginx_status
for the status page. To enable the stub_status
module, complete the following
steps:
Edit the
status.conf
file, or create the file if it doesn't exist. You can find this file in the nginx configuration directory, typically found at/etc/nginx/conf.d
.Add the following lines to the
server
section:location /nginx_status { stub_status on; access_log off; allow 127.0.0.1; deny all; }
Your configuration file might look like the following example:
server { listen 80; server_name 127.0.0.1; location /nginx_status { stub_status on; access_log off; allow 127.0.0.1; deny all; } location / { root /dev/null; } }
Reload the nginx configuration.
sudo service nginx reload
You can run the following command to automate the previous steps. It creates
a status.conf
file if it doesn't exist or overwrites the existing one if it
does exist. The command turns on stub_status
, reloads nginx, and verifies
that the expected information is exposed through the endpoint.
sudo tee /etc/nginx/conf.d/status.conf > /dev/null << EOF
server {
listen 80;
server_name 127.0.0.1;
location /nginx_status {
stub_status on;
access_log off;
allow 127.0.0.1;
deny all;
}
location / {
root /dev/null;
}
}
EOF
sudo service nginx reload
curl http://127.0.0.1:80/nginx_status
The sample output is:
Active connections: 1 server accepts handled requests 23 23 74 Reading: 0 Writing: 1 Waiting: 0
Alternately, instead of using a separate status.conf
file, you can also
directly embed the lines to the main nginx.conf
file, which
is typically located in one of the following directories: /etc/nginx
,
/usr/local/nginx/conf
, or /usr/local/etc/nginx
.
Configure the Ops Agent for nginx
Following the guide to Configure the Ops Agent, add the required elements to collect telemetry from nginx instances, and restart the agent.
Example configuration
The following commands create the configuration to collect and ingest telemetry for nginx and restart the Ops Agent.
Configure logs collection
To ingest logs from nginx, you must create a receiver for the logs that nginx produces and then create a pipeline for the new receiver.
To configure a receiver for your nginx_access
logs, specify the following
fields:
Field | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
exclude_paths |
A list of filesystem path patterns to exclude from the set matched by include_paths . |
|
include_paths |
[/var/log/nginx/access.log] |
A list of filesystem paths to read by tailing each file. A wild card (* ) can be used in the paths. |
record_log_file_path |
false |
If set to true , then the path to the specific file from which the log record was obtained appears in the output log entry as the value of the agent.googleapis.com/log_file_path label. When using a wildcard, only the path of the file from which the record was obtained is recorded. |
type |
This value must be nginx_access . |
|
wildcard_refresh_interval |
60s |
The interval at which wildcard file paths in include_paths are refreshed. Given as a time duration, for example 30s or 2m . This property might be useful under high logging throughputs where log files are rotated faster than the default interval. |
To configure a receiver for your nginx_error
logs, specify the following
fields:
Field | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
exclude_paths |
A list of filesystem path patterns to exclude from the set matched by include_paths . |
|
include_paths |
[/var/log/nginx/error.log] |
A list of filesystem paths to read by tailing each file. A wild card (* ) can be used in the paths. |
record_log_file_path |
false |
If set to true , then the path to the specific file from which the log record was obtained appears in the output log entry as the value of the agent.googleapis.com/log_file_path label. When using a wildcard, only the path of the file from which the record was obtained is recorded. |
type |
This value must be nginx_error . |
|
wildcard_refresh_interval |
60s |
The interval at which wildcard file paths in include_paths are refreshed. Given as a time duration, for example 30s or 2m . This property might be useful under high logging throughputs where log files are rotated faster than the default interval. |
What is logged
The logName
is derived from
the receiver IDs specified in the configuration. Detailed fields inside the
LogEntry
are as follows.
The nginx_access
logs contain the following fields in the LogEntry
:
Field | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
httpRequest |
object | See HttpRequest |
jsonPayload.host |
string | Contents of the Host header (usually not reported by nginx) |
jsonPayload.level |
string | Log entry level |
jsonPayload.user |
string | Authenticated username for the request |
severity |
string (LogSeverity ) |
Log entry level (translated). |
The nginx_error
logs contain the following fields in the LogEntry
:
Field | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
jsonPayload.client |
string | Client IP address (optional) |
jsonPayload.connection |
number | Connection ID |
jsonPayload.host |
string | Host header (optional) |
jsonPayload.level |
string | Log entry level |
jsonPayload.message |
string | Log message |
jsonPayload.pid |
number | The process ID issuing the log |
jsonPayload.referer |
string | Referer header (optional) |
jsonPayload.request |
string | Original HTTP request (optional) |
jsonPayload.server |
string | Nginx server name (optional) |
jsonPayload.subrequest |
string | Nginx subrequest (optional) |
jsonPayload.tid |
number | Thread ID where the log originated |
jsonPayload.upstream |
string | Upstream request URI (optional) |
severity |
string (LogSeverity ) |
Log entry level (translated). |
Configure metrics collection
To ingest metrics from nginx, you must create a receiver for the metrics that nginx produces and then create a pipeline for the new receiver.
This receiver does not support the use of multiple instances in the configuration, for example, to monitor multiple endpoints. All such instances write to the same time series, and Cloud Monitoring has no way to distinguish among them.
To configure a receiver for your nginx
metrics, specify the following
fields:
Field | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
collection_interval |
60s |
A time duration value, such as 30s or 5m . |
server_status_url |
http://localhost/status |
The URL exposed by the nginx stub status module. |
type |
This value must be nginx . |
What is monitored
The following table provides the list of metrics that the Ops Agent collects from the nginx instance.
Metric type | |
---|---|
Kind, Type Monitored resources |
Labels |
workload.googleapis.com/nginx.connections_accepted
|
|
CUMULATIVE , INT64 gce_instance |
|
workload.googleapis.com/nginx.connections_current
|
|
GAUGE , INT64 gce_instance |
state
|
workload.googleapis.com/nginx.connections_handled
|
|
CUMULATIVE , INT64 gce_instance |
|
workload.googleapis.com/nginx.requests
|
|
CUMULATIVE , INT64 gce_instance |
Verify the configuration
This section describes how to verify that you correctly configured the nginx receiver. It might take one or two minutes for the Ops Agent to begin collecting telemetry.
To verify that nginx logs are being sent to Cloud Logging, do the following:
-
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Logs Explorer page:
If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Logging.
- Enter the following query in the editor, and then click Run query:
resource.type="gce_instance" (log_id("nginx_access") OR log_id("nginx_error"))
To verify that nginx metrics are being sent to Cloud Monitoring, do the following:
-
In the Google Cloud console, go to the leaderboard Metrics explorer page:
If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.
- In the toolbar of the query-builder pane, select the button whose name is either code MQL or code PromQL.
- Verify that MQL is selected in the Language toggle. The language toggle is in the same toolbar that lets you format your query.
- Enter the following query in the editor, and then click Run query:
fetch gce_instance | metric 'workload.googleapis.com/nginx.requests' | every 1m
View dashboard
To view your nginx metrics, you must have a chart or dashboard configured. The nginx integration includes one or more dashboards for you. Any dashboards are automatically installed after you configure the integration and the Ops Agent has begun collecting metric data.
You can also view static previews of dashboards without installing the integration.
To view an installed dashboard, do the following:
-
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dashboards page:
If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.
- Select the Dashboard List tab, and then choose the Integrations category.
- Click the name of the dashboard you want to view.
If you have configured an integration but the dashboard has not been installed, then check that the Ops Agent is running. When there is no metric data for a chart in the dashboard, installation of the dashboard fails. After the Ops Agent begins collecting metrics, the dashboard is installed for you.
To view a static preview of the dashboard, do the following:
-
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Integrations page:
If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.
- Click the Compute Engine deployment-platform filter.
- Locate the entry for nginx and click View Details.
- Select the Dashboards tab to see a static preview. If the dashboard is installed, then you can navigate to it by clicking View dashboard.
For more information about dashboards in Cloud Monitoring, see Dashboards and charts.
For more information about using the Integrations page, see Manage integrations.
Install alerting policies
Alerting policies instruct Cloud Monitoring to notify you when specified conditions occur. The nginx integration includes one or more alerting policies for you to use. You can view and install these alerting policies from the Integrations page in Monitoring.
To view the descriptions of available alerting policies and install them, do the following:
-
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Integrations page:
If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.
- Locate the entry for nginx and click View Details.
- Select the Alerts tab. This tab provides descriptions of available alerting policies and provides an interface for installing them.
- Install alerting policies. Alerting policies need
to know where to send notifications that the alert has been
triggered, so they require information from you for installation.
To install alerting policies, do the following:
- From the list of available alerting policies, select those that you want to install.
In the Configure notifications section, select one or more notification channels. You have the option to disable the use of notification channels, but if you do, then your alerting policies fire silently. You can check their status in Monitoring, but you receive no notifications.
For more information about notification channels, see Manage notification channels.
- Click Create Policies.
For more information about alerting policies in Cloud Monitoring, see Introduction to alerting.
For more information about using the Integrations page, see Manage integrations.
Troubleshooting
On most distributions, nginx comes with ngx_http_stub_status_module
enabled.
You can check if the module is enabled by running the following command:
sudo nginx -V 2>&1 | grep -o with-http_stub_status_module
The expected output is with-http_stub_status_module
, which means the module
is enabled. In rare cases, if the command returns no output, you must compile
nginx from source with the -with-http_stub_status_module
following the nginx
public documentation.
What's next
For a walkthrough on how to use Ansible to install the Ops Agent, configure a third-party application, and install a sample dashboard, see the Install the Ops Agent to troubleshoot third-party applications video.