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diff --git a/doc/administration/monitoring/performance/influxdb_configuration.md b/doc/administration/monitoring/performance/influxdb_configuration.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..c30cd2950d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/administration/monitoring/performance/influxdb_configuration.md @@ -0,0 +1,193 @@ +# InfluxDB Configuration + +The default settings provided by [InfluxDB] are not sufficient for a high traffic +GitLab environment. The settings discussed in this document are based on the +settings GitLab uses for GitLab.com, depending on your own needs you may need to +further adjust them. + +If you are intending to run InfluxDB on the same server as GitLab, make sure +you have plenty of RAM since InfluxDB can use quite a bit depending on traffic. + +Unless you are going with a budget setup, it's advised to run it separately. + +## Requirements + +- InfluxDB 0.9.5 or newer +- A fairly modern version of Linux +- At least 4GB of RAM +- At least 10GB of storage for InfluxDB data + +Note that the RAM and storage requirements can differ greatly depending on the +amount of data received/stored. To limit the amount of stored data users can +look into [InfluxDB Retention Policies][influxdb-retention]. + +## Installation + +Installing InfluxDB is out of the scope of this document. Please refer to the +[InfluxDB documentation]. + +## InfluxDB Server Settings + +Since InfluxDB has many settings that users may wish to customize themselves +(e.g. what port to run InfluxDB on), we'll only cover the essentials. + +The configuration file in question is usually located at +`/etc/influxdb/influxdb.conf`. Whenever you make a change in this file, +InfluxDB needs to be restarted. + +### Storage Engine + +InfluxDB comes with different storage engines and as of InfluxDB 0.9.5 a new +storage engine is available, called [TSM Tree]. All users **must** use the new +`tsm1` storage engine as this [will be the default engine][tsm1-commit] in +upcoming InfluxDB releases. + +Make sure you have the following in your configuration file: + +``` +[data] + dir = "/var/lib/influxdb/data" + engine = "tsm1" +``` + +### Admin Panel + +Production environments should have the InfluxDB admin panel **disabled**. This +feature can be disabled by adding the following to your InfluxDB configuration +file: + +``` +[admin] + enabled = false +``` + +### HTTP + +HTTP is required when using the [InfluxDB CLI] or other tools such as Grafana, +thus it should be enabled. When enabling make sure to _also_ enable +authentication: + +``` +[http] + enabled = true + auth-enabled = true +``` + +_**Note:** Before you enable authentication, you might want to [create an +admin user](#create-a-new-admin-user)._ + +### UDP + +GitLab writes data to InfluxDB via UDP and thus this must be enabled. Enabling +UDP can be done using the following settings: + +``` +[[udp]] + enabled = true + bind-address = ":8089" + database = "gitlab" + batch-size = 1000 + batch-pending = 5 + batch-timeout = "1s" + read-buffer = 209715200 +``` + +This does the following: + +1. Enable UDP and bind it to port 8089 for all addresses. +2. Store any data received in the "gitlab" database. +3. Define a batch of points to be 1000 points in size and allow a maximum of + 5 batches _or_ flush them automatically after 1 second. +4. Define a UDP read buffer size of 200 MB. + +One of the most important settings here is the UDP read buffer size as if this +value is set too low, packets will be dropped. You must also make sure the OS +buffer size is set to the same value, the default value is almost never enough. + +To set the OS buffer size to 200 MB, on Linux you can run the following command: + +```bash +sysctl -w net.core.rmem_max=209715200 +``` + +To make this permanent, add the following to `/etc/sysctl.conf` and restart the +server: + +```bash +net.core.rmem_max=209715200 +``` + +It is **very important** to make sure the buffer sizes are large enough to +handle all data sent to InfluxDB as otherwise you _will_ lose data. The above +buffer sizes are based on the traffic for GitLab.com. Depending on the amount of +traffic, users may be able to use a smaller buffer size, but we highly recommend +using _at least_ 100 MB. + +When enabling UDP, users should take care to not expose the port to the public, +as doing so will allow anybody to write data into your InfluxDB database (as +[InfluxDB's UDP protocol][udp] doesn't support authentication). We recommend either +whitelisting the allowed IP addresses/ranges, or setting up a VLAN and only +allowing traffic from members of said VLAN. + +## Create a new admin user + +If you want to [enable authentication](#http), you might want to [create an +admin user][influx-admin]: + +``` +influx -execute "CREATE USER jeff WITH PASSWORD '1234' WITH ALL PRIVILEGES" +``` + +## Create the `gitlab` database + +Once you get InfluxDB up and running, you need to create a database for GitLab. +Make sure you have changed the [storage engine](#storage-engine) to `tsm1` +before creating a database. + +_**Note:** If you [created an admin user](#create-a-new-admin-user) and enabled +[HTTP authentication](#http), remember to append the username (`-username <username>`) +and password (`-password <password>`) you set earlier to the commands below._ + +Run the following command to create a database named `gitlab`: + +```bash +influx -execute 'CREATE DATABASE gitlab' +``` + +The name **must** be `gitlab`, do not use any other name. + +Next, make sure that the database was successfully created: + +```bash +influx -execute 'SHOW DATABASES' +``` + +The output should be similar to: + +``` +name: databases +--------------- +name +_internal +gitlab +``` + +That's it! Now your GitLab instance should send data to InfluxDB. + +--- + +Read more on: + +- [Introduction to GitLab Performance Monitoring](introduction.md) +- [GitLab Configuration](gitlab_configuration.md) +- [InfluxDB Schema](influxdb_schema.md) +- [Grafana Install/Configuration](grafana_configuration.md) + +[influxdb-retention]: https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v0.9/query_language/database_management/#retention-policy-management +[influxdb documentation]: https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v0.9/ +[influxdb cli]: https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v0.9/tools/shell/ +[udp]: https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v0.9/write_protocols/udp/ +[influxdb]: https://influxdata.com/time-series-platform/influxdb/ +[tsm tree]: https://influxdata.com/blog/new-storage-engine-time-structured-merge-tree/ +[tsm1-commit]: https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb/commit/15d723dc77651bac83e09e2b1c94be480966cb0d +[influx-admin]: https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v0.9/administration/authentication_and_authorization/#create-a-new-admin-user |