Docker and Thanos Integration
Powerful performance with an easy integration, powered by Telegraf, the open source data connector built by InfluxData.
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Powerful Performance, Limitless Scale
Collect, organize, and act on massive volumes of high-velocity data. Any data is more valuable when you think of it as time series data. with InfluxDB, the #1 time series platform built to scale with Telegraf.
See Ways to Get Started
Input and output integration overview
The Docker input plugin allows you to collect metrics from your Docker containers using the Docker Engine API, facilitating enhanced visibility and monitoring of containerized applications.
This plugin sends metrics from Telegraf to Thanos using the Prometheus remote write protocol over HTTP, allowing efficient and scalable ingestion into Thanos Receive components.
Integration details
Docker
The Docker input plugin for Telegraf gathers valuable metrics from the Docker Engine API, providing insights into running containers. This plugin utilizes the Official Docker Client to interface with the Engine API, allowing users to monitor various container states, resource allocations, and performance metrics. With options for filtering containers by names and states, along with customizable tags and labels, this plugin supports flexibility in monitoring containerized applications in diverse environments, whether on local systems or within orchestration platforms like Kubernetes. Additionally, it addresses security considerations by requiring permissions for accessing Docker’s daemon and emphasizes proper configuration when deploying within containerized environments.
Thanos
Telegraf’s HTTP plugin can send metrics directly to Thanos via its Remote Write-compatible Receive component. By setting the data format to prometheusremotewrite
, Telegraf can serialize metrics into the same protobuf-based format used by native Prometheus clients. This setup enables high-throughput, low-latency metric ingestion into Thanos, facilitating centralized observability at scale. It is particularly useful in hybrid environments where Telegraf is collecting metrics from systems outside Prometheus’ native reach, such as SNMP devices, Windows hosts, or custom apps, and streams them directly to Thanos for long-term storage and global querying.
Configuration
Docker
[[inputs.docker]]
## Docker Endpoint
## To use TCP, set endpoint = "tcp://[ip]:[port]"
## To use environment variables (ie, docker-machine), set endpoint = "ENV"
endpoint = "unix:///var/run/docker.sock"
## Set to true to collect Swarm metrics(desired_replicas, running_replicas)
## Note: configure this in one of the manager nodes in a Swarm cluster.
## configuring in multiple Swarm managers results in duplication of metrics.
gather_services = false
## Only collect metrics for these containers. Values will be appended to
## container_name_include.
## Deprecated (1.4.0), use container_name_include
container_names = []
## Set the source tag for the metrics to the container ID hostname, eg first 12 chars
source_tag = false
## Containers to include and exclude. Collect all if empty. Globs accepted.
container_name_include = []
container_name_exclude = []
## Container states to include and exclude. Globs accepted.
## When empty only containers in the "running" state will be captured.
# container_state_include = []
# container_state_exclude = []
## Objects to include for disk usage query
## Allowed values are "container", "image", "volume"
## When empty disk usage is excluded
storage_objects = []
## Timeout for docker list, info, and stats commands
timeout = "5s"
## Whether to report for each container per-device blkio (8:0, 8:1...),
## network (eth0, eth1, ...) and cpu (cpu0, cpu1, ...) stats or not.
## Usage of this setting is discouraged since it will be deprecated in favor of 'perdevice_include'.
## Default value is 'true' for backwards compatibility, please set it to 'false' so that 'perdevice_include' setting
## is honored.
perdevice = true
## Specifies for which classes a per-device metric should be issued
## Possible values are 'cpu' (cpu0, cpu1, ...), 'blkio' (8:0, 8:1, ...) and 'network' (eth0, eth1, ...)
## Please note that this setting has no effect if 'perdevice' is set to 'true'
# perdevice_include = ["cpu"]
## Whether to report for each container total blkio and network stats or not.
## Usage of this setting is discouraged since it will be deprecated in favor of 'total_include'.
## Default value is 'false' for backwards compatibility, please set it to 'true' so that 'total_include' setting
## is honored.
total = false
## Specifies for which classes a total metric should be issued. Total is an aggregated of the 'perdevice' values.
## Possible values are 'cpu', 'blkio' and 'network'
## Total 'cpu' is reported directly by Docker daemon, and 'network' and 'blkio' totals are aggregated by this plugin.
## Please note that this setting has no effect if 'total' is set to 'false'
# total_include = ["cpu", "blkio", "network"]
## docker labels to include and exclude as tags. Globs accepted.
## Note that an empty array for both will include all labels as tags
docker_label_include = []
docker_label_exclude = []
## Which environment variables should we use as a tag
tag_env = ["JAVA_HOME", "HEAP_SIZE"]
## Optional TLS Config
# tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
# tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
# tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
# insecure_skip_verify = false
Thanos
[[outputs.http]]
## Thanos Receive endpoint for remote write
url = "http://thanos-receive.example.com/api/v1/receive"
## HTTP method
method = "POST"
## Data format set to Prometheus remote write
data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"
## Optional headers (authorization, etc.)
# [outputs.http.headers]
# Authorization = "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"
## Optional TLS configuration
# tls_ca = "/path/to/ca.pem"
# tls_cert = "/path/to/cert.pem"
# tls_key = "/path/to/key.pem"
# insecure_skip_verify = false
## Request timeout
timeout = "10s"
Input and output integration examples
Docker
-
Monitoring the Performance of Containerized Applications: Use the Docker input plugin in order to track the CPU, memory, disk I/O, and network activity of applications running in Docker containers. By collecting these metrics, DevOps teams can proactively manage resource allocation, troubleshoot performance bottlenecks, and ensure optimal application performance across different environments.
-
Integrating with Kubernetes: Leverage this plugin to gather metrics from Docker containers orchestrated by Kubernetes. By filtering out unnecessary Kubernetes labels and focusing on key metrics, teams can streamline their monitoring solutions and create dashboards that provide insights into the overall health of microservices running within the Kubernetes cluster.
-
Capacity Planning and Resource Optimization: Use the metrics collected by the Docker input plugin to perform capacity planning for Docker deployments. Analyzing usage patterns helps identify underutilized resources and over-provisioned containers, guiding decisions on scaling up or down based on actual usage trends.
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Automated Alerting for Container Anomalies: Set up alerting rules based on the metrics collected through the Docker plugin to notify teams of unusual spikes in resource usage or service disruptions. This proactive monitoring approach helps maintain service reliability and optimize the performance of containerized applications.
Thanos
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Agentless Cloud Monitoring: Deploy Telegraf agents across cloud VMs to collect system and application metrics, then stream them directly into Thanos using Remote Write. This provides centralized observability without requiring Prometheus nodes at each location.
-
Scalable Windows Host Monitoring: Use Telegraf on Windows machines to collect OS-level metrics and send them via Remote Write to Thanos Receive. This enables observability across heterogeneous environments with native Prometheus support only on Linux.
-
Cross-Region Metrics Federation: Telegraf agents in multiple geographic regions can push data to region-local Thanos Receivers using this plugin. From there, Thanos can deduplicate and query metrics globally, reducing latency and network egress costs.
-
Integrating Third-Party Data into Thanos: Collect metrics from custom telemetry sources such as REST APIs or proprietary logs using Telegraf inputs and forward them to Thanos via Remote Write. This brings non-native data into a Prometheus-compatible, long-term analytics pipeline.
Feedback
Thank you for being part of our community! If you have any general feedback or found any bugs on these pages, we welcome and encourage your input. Please submit your feedback in the InfluxDB community Slack.
Powerful Performance, Limitless Scale
Collect, organize, and act on massive volumes of high-velocity data. Any data is more valuable when you think of it as time series data. with InfluxDB, the #1 time series platform built to scale with Telegraf.
See Ways to Get Started
Related Integrations
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