Optical modules

Plugin: go.d.plugin Module: ethtool

Overview

This collector monitors optical transceiver modules' diagnostic parameters (temperature, voltage, laser bias current, transmit/receive power levels) from network interfaces equipped with modules that support Digital Diagnostic Monitoring (DDM). It relies on the ethtool CLI tool but avoids directly executing the binary. Instead, it utilizes ndsudo, a Netdata helper specifically designed to run privileged commands securely within the Netdata environment. This approach eliminates the need to use sudo, improving security and potentially simplifying permission management.

This collector is only supported on the following platforms:

• Linux

This collector only supports collecting metrics from a single instance of this integration.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

This integration doesn't support auto-detection.

Limits

The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.

Performance Impact

The default configuration for this integration is not expected to impose a significant performance impact on the system.

Metrics

Metrics grouped by scope.

The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.

Per Optical Transceiver Module

Metrics collected from optical transceiver modules that support Digital Diagnostic Monitoring (DDM).

Labels:

Label	Description
iface	Network interface name where the optical transceiver module is installed.

Metrics:

Metric	Dimensions	Unit
ethtool.optical_module_receiver_signal_power	rx_power	dBm
ethtool.optical_module_laser_output_power	tx_power	dBm
ethtool.optical_module_laser_bias_current	bias_current	mA
ethtool.optical_module_temperature	temperature	Celsius
ethtool.optical_module_voltage	voltage	Volts

Alerts

There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.

Setup

Prerequisites

No action required.

Configuration

File

The configuration file name for this integration is go.d/ethtool.conf.

The file format is YAML. Generally, the structure is:

update_every: 1
autodetection_retry: 0
jobs:
  - name: some_name1
  - name: some_name1

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config go.d/ethtool.conf

Options

The following options can be defined globally: update_every.

Config options

Name	Description	Default	Required
update_every	Data collection frequency.	10	no
timeout	Timeout for executing the binary, specified in seconds.	2	no
optical_interfaces	Space-separated list of optical interface names which must have optical transceiver modules with DDM.		yes

Examples

Custom binary path

The executable is not in the directories specified in the PATH environment variable.

Config

jobs:
  - name: ethtool
    binary_path: /usr/local/sbin/ethtool
    optical_interfaces: "enp1s0 enp1s1 enp2s0"

Troubleshooting

Debug Mode

Important: Debug mode is not supported for data collection jobs created via the UI using the Dyncfg feature.

To troubleshoot issues with the ethtool collector, run the go.d.plugin with the debug option enabled. The output should give you clues as to why the collector isn't working.

• Navigate to the plugins.d directory, usually at /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that's not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the plugins setting under [directories].

  cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/

• Switch to the netdata user.

  sudo -u netdata -s

• Run the go.d.plugin to debug the collector:

  ./go.d.plugin -d -m ethtool

  To debug a specific job:

  ./go.d.plugin -d -m ethtool -j jobName

Getting Logs

If you're encountering problems with the ethtool collector, follow these steps to retrieve logs and identify potential issues:

• Run the command specific to your system (systemd, non-systemd, or Docker container).
• Examine the output for any warnings or error messages that might indicate issues. These messages should provide clues about the root cause of the problem.

System with systemd

Use the following command to view logs generated since the last Netdata service restart:

journalctl _SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID="$(systemctl show --value --property=InvocationID netdata)" --namespace=netdata --grep ethtool

System without systemd

Locate the collector log file, typically at /var/log/netdata/collector.log, and use grep to filter for collector's name:

grep ethtool /var/log/netdata/collector.log

Note: This method shows logs from all restarts. Focus on the latest entries for troubleshooting current issues.

Docker Container

If your Netdata runs in a Docker container named "netdata" (replace if different), use this command:

docker logs netdata 2>&1 | grep ethtool