Plugin graph categories

A plugin that outputs a “graph_category” attribute will get the graph grouped with other plugin graphs using the same category, across all nodes on the same munin master.

A graph may only belong to one category.

Note

A multigraph plugin may create multiple graphs, and may place those in different categories.

To get a clear and concise overview in the Munin web interface, the list of categories should be small and meaningful.

The graph categories should create a general grouping of plugins. If you have lots of different types of databases in use, it makes sense to be more specific, and add a graph_category for each.

Categories may be overridden in the munin configuration, and should reflect your monitoring perspective.

Note

Depending on your perspective, graphs in several categories below could be moved to a “security” category, but that may not make sense for everyone.

To move a graph to another category, add configuration for it on the munin master to override what the plugin emits.

Example Categories

Hardware and operating system categories

graph_category:system
Description:Graphs general operating system metrics.
Examples:CPU speed and load, uptime, number of processes, paging activity, open file descriptors.

graph_category:network
Description:Graphs general networking metrics.
Examples:Network interface activity, latency, number of open network connections, firewall counters.

graph_category:storage
Description:A general category for data storage.
Examples:Disk and device usage, activity, latency and saturation.

graph_category:environment
Description:Graphs the environment around the server.
Examples:External temperature, light or other radiation, humidity, noise and vibration.

Role specific categories

graph_category:www
Description:Used for graphing web server performance and use.
Examples:Requests, bytes, errors, cache hit rate for Apache httpd, nginx, lighttpd, varnish, hitch, and other web servers, caches or TLS wrappers.

graph_category:database
Description:Used for graphing database system use and performance.
Examples:MySQL, PosgreSQL, MongoDB, Memcached, Redis.
Comment:Some database systems may have enough munin plugins to warrant a graph_category on their own.

graph_category:mail
Description:Used for graphing mail servers and traffic.
Examples:Postfix, Exim, Sendmail, antispam and antimalware components for these.
Comment:For monitoring a large mail system, it makes sense to override this with configuration on the munin master, and make graph categories for the mail roles you provide. Mail Transfer Agent (postfix and exim), Mail Delivery Agent (filtering, sorting and storage), Mail Retrieval Agent (imap server).

graph_category:security
Description:Graphs security information.
Examples:Login failures, available security upgrades, number of CVEs in the running kernel fixed by the lastest installed kernel, firewall counters.

Application specific categories

graph_category:tomcat
Description:For whatever is going on within your tomcat instances
Comment:Graphing resource usage, computing time, threads, IO. Access counters for applications running within Tomcat.