gNMI and Thanos Integration
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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 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 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
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.
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
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"
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
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.
Thanos
-
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
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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
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