Hi,

I'm trying to create a dynamic REST template for monitoring aspects of PowerDNS recursor. One of the metrics counts how long each thread has spent on queries - as threads are dynamic and vary depending on the machine I thought I'd try to build a placeholder but I think either the format of the PowerDNS API is foiling me or PRTG.

These are the entries I'm trying to monitor with the template:

[
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-0",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "88195007"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-1",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "23439221"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-10",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "26430890"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-11",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "24616980"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-12",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "25795722"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-2",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "25027948"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-3",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "25910209"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-4",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "25116874"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-5",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "24945352"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-6",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "25538823"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-7",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "25172107"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-8",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "25194866"
  },
  {
    "name": "cpu-msec-thread-9",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "23597720"
  },
  {
    "name": "fd-usage",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "114"
  },
  {
    "name": "malloc-bytes",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "0"
  },
  {
    "name": "real-memory-usage",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "1257447424"
  },
  {
    "name": "security-status",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "1"
  },
  {
    "name": "sys-msec",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "193078605"
  },
  {
    "name": "uptime",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "2455604"
  },
  {
    "name": "user-msec",
    "type": "StatisticItem",
    "value": "196111840"
  }
]

I'm trying to get PRTG to work out how many "cpu-msec-thread-n" gauges to create.

The current version of the template looks like this:

{
  "prtg": {
    "description" : {
      "device": "PowerDNS Recursor (System)",
      "query": ":8082/api/v1/servers/localhost/statistics",
      "comment": "PowerDNS Recursor system stats"
    },
    "result": [
      {
        "channel": "Recursor CPU thread Time",
        "Unit": "Custom",
        "CustomUnit": "ms",
        "Mode": "Difference",
        "value": {$["cpu-msec-thread-"][#0]}
      },
      {
        "channel": "Recursor CPU system Time",
        "Unit": "Custom",
        "CustomUnit": "ms",
        "Mode": "Difference",
        "value": $["sys-msec"]
      },
      {
        "channel": "Recursor CPU user Time",
        "Unit": "Custom",
        "CustomUnit": "ms",
        "Mode": "Difference",
        "value": $["user-msec"]
      },
      {
        "channel": "Recursor Memory Usage",
        "VolumeSize": "KiloByte",
        "value": $["real-memory-usage"]
      },
      {
        "channel": "Recursor File Descriptors",
        "Unit": "Count",
        "value": $["fd-usage"]
      },
      {
        "channel": "Recursor Software Update Status",
        "ValueLookup": "cleminan.pccw.powerdns.security.status",
        "ShowChart": "0",
        "ShowTable": "1",
        "value": $["security-status"]
      },
      {
        "channel": "Recursor Process Uptime",
        "Unit": "TimeSeconds",
        "value": $.uptime
      }
    ]
  }
}

I've had a play around with the format of the query string both:

"value": {$["cpu-msec-thread-"][#0]}

and

"value": {$["cpu-msec-thread-"[#0]]}

But with PRTG's handling of hyphens requiring a combination of punctuation it muddies the examples given.

https://www.paessler.com/manuals/prtg/rest_custom_sensor#jsonpath_expressions

Any help would be gratefully received.

Many thanks a.

Article Comments

Unfortunately, - (dashes) within the selector will always cause the Sensor to think it's a mathematic equation, rather than a selector. Could you try $.*["cpu-msec-thread"][*][0] ? Not sure if that'll work though. Rule of thumb is to put the selector containing the dashes into [" and "].


Jan, 2020 - Permalink

Thanks for the response, however I think I may have larger problems.

I suspect PRTG is expecting:

"label": "value"

But PowerDNS recursor stats are all in the form:

{ "name": "cpu-msec-thread-0", "type": "StatisticItem", "value": "88195007" },

The dnsdist load balancer has a JSON API for stats in the former format, but neither the PowerDNS Recursor or Authoritative servers utilise it.


Jan, 2020 - Permalink

The format is perfectly fine from what I can tell, but the name is somewhat difficult to get correctly. Did you have any success with the string I provided?


Jan, 2020 - Permalink