Realtime Monitoring

Gatling (Open-Source)
1

I am trying to setup realtime monitoring using InfluxDB, Grafana and collectd. When I run my tests I keep getting the following error and I am not sure what I am missing:

[ERROR] [01/09/2015 09:57:11.498] [GatlingSystem-akka.actor.default-dispatcher-4] [akka://GatlingSystem/user/GraphiteDataWriter/graphiteSender-19] Connection refused
java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused

Do I also need Graphite installed if I use the stack I listed above or is that all I need to make this work? I followed the instructions I found at http://gatling.io/docs/2.1.2/realtime_monitoring/index.html except for the Graphite section.

Thanks,
Steve

2

Hi,

Are you sure you enabled graphite in the ‘input-plugins’ section of InfluxDB’s config file ?
InfluxDB does support Graphite protocol for ingesting data, but it’s not enabled by default.

Cheers,

Pierre

3

It seems that your connection set up is invalid.
Are the host and port you configured in gatling.conf the right ones?
Did you properly enabled Graphite support in InfluxDB?

4

Hi Pierre/Stephane,

Here are the steps I took:

  1. Modifed gatling.conf like so:

data {
writers = “console, file, graphite” # The lists of DataWriters to which Gatling write simulation data (currently supported : “console”, “file”, “graphite”, “jdbc”)
reader = file # The DataReader used by the charting engine for reading simulation results

graphite {
#light = false # only send the all* stats
host = “gatling.cliqueintelligence.com” # The host where the Carbon server is located
port = 2003 # The port to which the Carbon server listens to
#protocol = “tcp” # The protocol used to send data to Carbon (currently supported : “tcp”, “udp”)
#rootPathPrefix = “gatling” # The common prefix of all metrics sent to Graphite
#bufferSize = 8192 # GraphiteDataWriter’s internal data buffer size, in bytes
}

  1. Modifed my config.toml for InfluxDB as so:

[input_plugins]

Configure the graphite api

[input_plugins.graphite]
enabled = true

address = “0.0.0.0” # If not set, is actually set to bind-address.

port = 2003
database = “gatling” # store graphite data in this database

udp_enabled = true # enable udp interface on the same port as the tcp interface

  1. Modifed collectd.conf like so:

LoadPlugin write_graphite

Host "localhost" Port "2003" Protocol "tcp" LogSendErrors true Prefix "collectd" Postfix "collectd" StoreRates true AlwaysAppendDS false EscapeCharacter "_"
  1. Modified config.js in Grafana like so:

// InfluxDB example setup (the InfluxDB databases specified need to exist)
datasources: {
influxdb: {
type: ‘influxdb’,
url: “http://localhost:8086/db/gatling”,
username: ‘root’,
password: ‘root’,
},
grafana: {
type: ‘influxdb’,
url: “http://localhost:8086/db/grafana”,
username: ‘root’,
password: ‘root’,
grafanaDB: true
},
},

I am sure there is something I am missing. I noticed there is a collectd section in the InfluxDB config file. So I also have to configure that? What should be running on port 2003?

I am not sure if I am supposed to do this or not but I did create a gatling and grafana database in InfluxDB through the admin console. I can load Grafana and I see an import option for influxdb so I believe I have that setup properly.

Any info will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve

5

I git it working!

I didn’t realize that InfluxDB has a config file under current and shared. I modified the one in current but I needed to modify the one in shared. All is working great now.

Thanks!

–Steve

6

Great news!

7

Why do we need collectd configuration? And where do you do it - in Influxdb or in Gatling? I am trying to set up a small demo, by having gatling/influxdb/graffana in a multi-container docker setup, and despite having correct configuration couldnt get it to work. The only missing piece in my setup is collectd. Do we really need it?
Thanks!
Gautam

8

I have some documentation on Gatling and real-time monitoring here:
https://github.com/bbc/notes-on-perf-testing/blob/master/ch/gatling/real_time_graphs.md

I will sumbit a PR on the official Gatling documentation next week.