gNMI and Cortex Integration
Powerful performance with an easy integration, powered by Telegraf, the open source data connector built by InfluxData.
5B+
Telegraf downloads
#1
Time series database
Source: DB Engines
1B+
Downloads of InfluxDB
2,800+
Contributors
Table of Contents
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 gNMI (gRPC Network Management Interface) Input Plugin collects telemetry data from network devices using the gNMI Subscribe method. It supports TLS for secure authentication and data transmission.
This plugin enables Telegraf to send metrics to Cortex using the Prometheus remote write protocol, allowing seamless ingestion into Cortex’s scalable, multi-tenant time series storage.
Integration details
gNMI
This input plugin is vendor-agnostic and can be used with any platform that supports the gNMI specification. It consumes telemetry data based on the gNMI Subscribe method, allowing for real-time monitoring of network devices.
Cortex
With Telegraf’s HTTP output plugin and the prometheusremotewrite
data format you can send metrics directly to Cortex, a horizontally scalable, long-term storage backend for Prometheus. Cortex supports multi-tenancy and accepts remote write requests using the Prometheus protobuf format. By using Telegraf as the collection agent and Remote Write as the transport mechanism, organizations can extend observability into sources not natively supported by Prometheus—such as Windows hosts, SNMP-enabled devices, or custom application metrics—while leveraging Cortex’s high-availability and long-retention capabilities.
Configuration
gNMI
[[inputs.gnmi]]
## Address and port of the gNMI GRPC server
addresses = ["10.49.234.114:57777"]
## define credentials
username = "cisco"
password = "cisco"
## gNMI encoding requested (one of: "proto", "json", "json_ietf", "bytes")
# encoding = "proto"
## redial in case of failures after
# redial = "10s"
## gRPC Keepalive settings
## See https://pkg.go.dev/google.golang.org/grpc/keepalive
## The client will ping the server to see if the transport is still alive if it has
## not see any activity for the given time.
## If not set, none of the keep-alive setting (including those below) will be applied.
## If set and set below 10 seconds, the gRPC library will apply a minimum value of 10s will be used instead.
# keepalive_time = ""
## Timeout for seeing any activity after the keep-alive probe was
## sent. If no activity is seen the connection is closed.
# keepalive_timeout = ""
## gRPC Maximum Message Size
# max_msg_size = "4MB"
## Enable to get the canonical path as field-name
# canonical_field_names = false
## Remove leading slashes and dots in field-name
# trim_field_names = false
## Guess the path-tag if an update does not contain a prefix-path
## Supported values are
## none -- do not add a 'path' tag
## common path -- use the common path elements of all fields in an update
## subscription -- use the subscription path
# path_guessing_strategy = "none"
## Prefix tags from path keys with the path element
# prefix_tag_key_with_path = false
## Optional client-side TLS to authenticate the device
## Set to true/false to enforce TLS being enabled/disabled. If not set,
## enable TLS only if any of the other options are specified.
# tls_enable =
## Trusted root certificates for server
# tls_ca = "/path/to/cafile"
## Used for TLS client certificate authentication
# tls_cert = "/path/to/certfile"
## Used for TLS client certificate authentication
# tls_key = "/path/to/keyfile"
## Password for the key file if it is encrypted
# tls_key_pwd = ""
## Send the specified TLS server name via SNI
# tls_server_name = "kubernetes.example.com"
## Minimal TLS version to accept by the client
# tls_min_version = "TLS12"
## List of ciphers to accept, by default all secure ciphers will be accepted
## See https://pkg.go.dev/crypto/tls#pkg-constants for supported values.
## Use "all", "secure" and "insecure" to add all support ciphers, secure
## suites or insecure suites respectively.
# tls_cipher_suites = ["secure"]
## Renegotiation method, "never", "once" or "freely"
# tls_renegotiation_method = "never"
## Use TLS but skip chain & host verification
# insecure_skip_verify = false
## gNMI subscription prefix (optional, can usually be left empty)
## See: https://github.com/openconfig/reference/blob/master/rpc/gnmi/gnmi-specification.md#222-paths
# origin = ""
# prefix = ""
# target = ""
## Vendor specific options
## This defines what vendor specific options to load.
## * Juniper Header Extension (juniper_header): some sensors are directly managed by
## Linecard, which adds the Juniper GNMI Header Extension. Enabling this
## allows the decoding of the Extension header if present. Currently this knob
## adds component, component_id & sub_component_id as additional tags
# vendor_specific = []
## YANG model paths for decoding IETF JSON payloads
## Model files are loaded recursively from the given directories. Disabled if
## no models are specified.
# yang_model_paths = []
## Define additional aliases to map encoding paths to measurement names
# [inputs.gnmi.aliases]
# ifcounters = "openconfig:/interfaces/interface/state/counters"
[[inputs.gnmi.subscription]]
## Name of the measurement that will be emitted
name = "ifcounters"
## Origin and path of the subscription
## See: https://github.com/openconfig/reference/blob/master/rpc/gnmi/gnmi-specification.md#222-paths
##
## origin usually refers to a (YANG) data model implemented by the device
## and path to a specific substructure inside it that should be subscribed
## to (similar to an XPath). YANG models can be found e.g. here:
## https://github.com/YangModels/yang/tree/master/vendor/cisco/xr
origin = "openconfig-interfaces"
path = "/interfaces/interface/state/counters"
## Subscription mode ("target_defined", "sample", "on_change") and interval
subscription_mode = "sample"
sample_interval = "10s"
## Suppress redundant transmissions when measured values are unchanged
# suppress_redundant = false
## If suppression is enabled, send updates at least every X seconds anyway
# heartbeat_interval = "60s"
Cortex
[[outputs.http]]
## Cortex Remote Write endpoint
url = "http://cortex.example.com/api/v1/push"
## Use POST to send data
method = "POST"
## Send metrics using Prometheus remote write format
data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"
## Optional HTTP headers for authentication
# [outputs.http.headers]
# X-Scope-OrgID = "your-tenant-id"
# Authorization = "Bearer YOUR_API_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
gNMI
-
Monitoring Cisco Devices: Use the gNMI plugin to collect telemetry data from Cisco IOS XR, NX-OS, or IOS XE devices for performance monitoring.
-
Real-time Network Insights: With the gNMI plugin, network administrators can gain insights into real-time metrics such as interface statistics and CPU usage.
-
Secure Data Collection: Configure the gNMI plugin with TLS settings to ensure secure communication while collecting sensitive telemetry data from devices.
-
Flexible Data Handling: Use the subscription options to customize which telemetry data you want to collect based on specific needs or requirements.
-
Error Handling: The plugin includes troubleshooting options to handle common issues like missing metric names or TLS handshake failures.
Cortex
-
Unified Multi-Tenant Monitoring: Use Telegraf to collect metrics from different teams or environments and push them to Cortex with separate
X-Scope-OrgID
headers. This enables isolated data ingestion and querying per tenant, ideal for managed services and platform teams. -
Extending Prometheus Coverage to Edge Devices: Deploy Telegraf on edge or IoT devices to collect system metrics and send them to a centralized Cortex cluster. This approach ensures consistent observability even for environments without local Prometheus scrapers.
-
Global Service Observability with Federated Tenants: Aggregate metrics from global infrastructure by configuring Telegraf agents to push data into regional Cortex clusters, each tagged with tenant identifiers. Cortex handles deduplication and centralized access across regions.
-
Custom App Telemetry Pipeline: Collect app-specific telemetry via Telegraf’s
exec
orhttp
input plugins and forward it to Cortex. This allows DevOps teams to monitor app-specific KPIs in a scalable, query-efficient format while keeping metrics logically grouped by tenant or service.
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
Related Integrations
HTTP and InfluxDB Integration
The HTTP plugin collects metrics from one or more HTTP(S) endpoints. It supports various authentication methods and configuration options for data formats.
View IntegrationKafka and InfluxDB Integration
This plugin reads messages from Kafka and allows the creation of metrics based on those messages. It supports various configurations including different Kafka settings and message processing options.
View IntegrationKinesis and InfluxDB Integration
The Kinesis plugin allows for reading metrics from AWS Kinesis streams. It supports multiple input data formats and offers checkpointing features with DynamoDB for reliable message processing.
View Integration