VM Host Metrics & Logging

Overview

In this guide, we'll walk you through the process of setting up an Azure Virtual Machine to send logs, traces and metrics to SigNoz, an open-source observability platform. By following these steps, you'll be able to monitor your Azure VM's performance and troubleshoot issues using SigNoz.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure that you have the following:

1. SigNoz Cloud Account
2. An Azure subscription with permissions to create and manage Virtual Machines.
3. Central Collector Setup
4. Azure Linux VM with SSH access enabled. Follow SSH Keys Guide to enable SSH access.

Setup

This document assumes that you have already set up your Azure VM and have SSH access to it. If not, follow the steps outlined in the Azure VM Guide and SSH Keys Guide to create VM and enable SSH access.

Connect to the VM

The SSH Keys Guide has steps on how to connect to your VM via SSH.

Install OpenTelemetry Collector

Follow the OpenTelemetry SigNoz Guide to install the OpenTelemetry Collector.

Configure Collector

The configuration file for the OpenTelemetry Collector is located at /etc/otelcol-contrib/config.yaml. We send the logs, traces and metrics to the central collector instead of SigNoz directly, in order to adopt a scalable architecture pattern. We recommend to our users to use the same pattern in your Azure subscription.

cat > /etc/otelcol-contrib/config.yaml << EOF
receivers:
  filelog:
    include: [ <file paths> ] # /var/log/myservice/*.json 
    operators:
      - type: json_parser
        timestamp:
          parse_from: attributes.time
          layout: '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'
  otlp:
    protocols:
      grpc:
        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317
      http:
        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4318
  hostmetrics:
    collection_interval: 60s
    scrapers:
      cpu: {}
      disk: {}
      load: {}
      filesystem: {}
      memory: {}
      network: {}
      paging: {}
      process:
        mute_process_name_error: true
        mute_process_exe_error: true
        mute_process_io_error: true
      processes: {}
  prometheus:
    config:
      global:
        scrape_interval: 60s
      scrape_configs:
        - job_name: otel-collector-binary
          static_configs:
            - targets:
              # - localhost:8888
processors:
  batch:
    send_batch_size: 1000
    timeout: 10s
  # Ref: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/blob/main/processor/resourcedetectionprocessor/README.md
  resourcedetection:
    detectors: [env, azure, system] 
    # Using OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES envvar, env detector adds custom labels.
    timeout: 2s
    system:
      hostname_sources: [dns, os] 
extensions:
  health_check: {}
  zpages: {}
exporters:
  otlp:
    endpoint: "<Central Collector DNS Name>:4318"
  logging:
    verbosity: normal
service:
  telemetry:
    metrics:
      address: 0.0.0.0:8888
  extensions: [health_check, zpages]
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [batch]
      exporters: [otlp]
    metrics/internal:
      receivers: [prometheus, hostmetrics]
      processors: [resourcedetection, batch]
      exporters: [otlp]
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [batch]
      exporters: [otlp]
    logs:
      receivers: [otlp, filelog]
      processors: [batch]
      exporters: [otlp]
EOF

OLTP Exporter Configuration

Make sure to replace <Central Collector DNS Name> with the DNS name of your central collector. If you don't have a central collector yet, follow the Central Collector Setup guide to set one up.

File Logs Receiver Configuration

The file logs receiver needs to be configured with the paths to the log files that you want to stream to SigNoz. You can specify multiple paths by separating them as a array.

You can also specify globed path patterns to match multiple log files. For example, /var/log/myservice/*.json will match all log files in the /var/log/myservice directory with a .json extension.

Start the OpenTelemetry Collector

Once we are done with the above configurations, we can now run the collector service with the following command:

./otelcol-contrib --config ./config.yaml &> otelcol-output.log & echo "$!" > otel-pid

SigNoz Dashboard

Once the collector is running, you can go to the SigNoz instance to view the logs and metrics from your Azure VM.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues during the setup process, here are a few troubleshooting steps:

• Check the OpenTelemetry Collector logs for any errors:

  tail -f -n 50 otelcol-output.log 
  

• Verify that the necessary outbound ports (4317 for gRPC, 4318 for HTTP) are open in the Azure VM's out network security group.

• Verify that the central collector is running and configured correctly.

That's it! You have now successfully set up your Azure Virtual Machine to send logs and metrics to SigNoz. You can start monitoring your VM's performance and troubleshooting any issues using the SigNoz dashboard.