Influx-capacitor collects metrics from windows machines using Performance Counters. Data is sent to influxDB to be viewable by grafana.

It is installed as a windows service named Influx-Capacitor. There is also a console application called Influx-Capacitor.Console that can be used for configuration, to check status and run commands manually.

Data is collected and sent to a InfluxDB database of your choice. Grafana is a great way of looking at the data.

Install using chocolatey https://chocolatey.org/packages/Influx-Capacitor

By default configurations for a few Performance Counters are provided. Setup for counters are stored in xml-files in the same folder as the executables, or in the ProgramData folder (IE. C:\ProgramData\Thargelion\Influx-Capacitor) and are named with the file extension xml.

You can configure any Performance Counter available to be monitored. When you have added or changed a configuration file you need to restart the service for it to take effect. You can test and run manually using the console application.

<Influx-Capacitor>
  <CounterGroups>
    <CounterGroup Name="[YourCounterGroupName]" SecondsInterval="[SecondsInterval]" RefreshInstanceInterval="[RefreshInstanceInterval]" CollectorEngineType="[CollectorEngineType]">
      <Counter>
        <CategoryName>[CategoryName]</CategoryName>
        <CounterName>[CounterName]</CounterName>
        <InstanceName Alias="[Alias]">[InstanceName]</InstanceName>
      </Counter>
    </CounterGroup>
  </CounterGroups>
</Influx-Capacitor>

• YourCounterGroupName - You own common name for the group of counters (This will be the table name in InfluxDB)
• SecondsInterval - The interval in seconds that the group of counters will be collected.
• RefreshInstanceInterval - An optional attribute for the interval used to refresh the list of instances for the counter. If set to 1, the counters are refreshed everytime. If set to 2, every other time and so on. To disable the refresh set this value to 0. The default value is 0, if the attribute is left out.
• CollectorEngineType - Specifies the strategy of collecting data. Can be set to Safe or Exact, default is Safe. The Safe collector engine collects all counters and waits the specified SecondsInterval until the next read (SecondsInterval is actually seconds in between reads). Exact setting will read counter on the exact same time each interval. (SecondsInterval is actually seconds from start to next start read) Because of this the Exact setting will have to drop reads if the previous read takes too long to perform, since it then cannot start when it is supposed to.
• CategoryName - Category name of the performance counter (Ex. Processor)
• CounterName - Name of the counter (Ex. % Processor Time). Wild cards such as * and ? can be used heres. Using * will use all counters.
• InstanceName - Name of the instance (Ex. _Total). Wild cards such as * and ? can be used heres. For counters that does not have any instances, this element can be left out or left empty. Using * will give all instances. The instances are refreshed on every read so that new instances are added and obsolete ones removed.
• Alias - This is an optional value that will be used as field name for the Instance specification. The value of this field will be the same as of the "instance" field.

If you want to get the name of the counters right, simply open perfmon and find the counter that you want there. The names to put in the config files are exactly the same as the ones in perfmon.

There are some application settings that can be configured. The configuration can be made in any xml-config file in the programdata folder. The default location of this configuration is application.xml.

• FlushSecondsInterval - The interval that data is sent to the database. This is an optional value, default is 10 seconds.
• Metadata - Metadata about Influx-Capacitor is sent to the measurement named Influx-Capacitor. This feature can be turned off by setting Metadata to false, by default this feature is on.
• MaxQueueSize - The largest size allowed for the queue. If Influx-Capacitor is not able to send the queued data to the server, it will not keep collecting forever. The limit can be set to an optional value, default is 20000.

<Influx-Capacitor>
  <Application>
    <FlushSecondsInterval>10</FlushSecondsInterval>
    <Metadata>true</Metadata>
    <MaxQueueSize>20000</MaxQueueSize>
  </Application>
</Influx-Capacitor>

The settings are typically stored in the file database.xml located in hte ProgramData folder (IE. C:\ProgramData\Thargelion\Influx-Capacitor). The settings can be located in any other xml configuration file, but then you will not be able to manage the settings using the management console. You can change settings directly in the file and restert the service, or you can use the command "setup change" in the console application, and the service will be restarted for you. It is also possible to have multiple database targets. Add another Database element in the config file and restart the service. When using multiple targets the console application cannot be used to change the confguration.

You can add constant tags on a global, counter group and counter level. This can be done in any of the configuration files. The name of the tag has to be unique.

Global tags that will be added to all points sent to the database can be added like this.

<Influx-Capacitor>
  <Tag>
	<Name>[TagName]</Name>
	<Value>[TagValue]</Value>
  </Tag>
</Influx-Capacitor>

It is also possible to add a tags for a specific counter group, these tags can be added like this.

<Influx-Capacitor>
  <CounterGroups>
    <CounterGroup Name="[YourCounterGroupName]" SecondsInterval="[SecondsInterval]">
      <Counter>
        <CategoryName>[CategoryName]</CategoryName>
        <CounterName>[CounterName]</CounterName>
        <InstanceName>[InstanceName]</InstanceName>
      </Counter>
	  <Tag>
		<Name>[TagName]</Name>
		<Value>[TagValue]</Value>
	  </Tag>
    </CounterGroup>
  </CounterGroups>
</Influx-Capacitor>

Tags for a specific counter is added like this.

<Influx-Capacitor>
  <CounterGroups>
    <CounterGroup Name="[YourCounterGroupName]" SecondsInterval="[SecondsInterval]">
      <Counter>
        <CategoryName>[CategoryName]</CategoryName>
        <CounterName>[CounterName]</CounterName>
        <InstanceName>[InstanceName]</InstanceName>
	    <Tag>
		  <Name>[TagName]</Name>
		  <Value>[TagValue]</Value>
	    </Tag>
      </Counter>
    </CounterGroup>
  </CounterGroups>
</Influx-Capacitor>

The console version is named Tharga.Influx-Capacitor.Console.exe and provided together with the installation. The program can be started with command parameters, or you can type the commands you want in the program.

• List - Lists all available configuration files.
• Auto - Will check if the connection works, if it does not then the user will be queried parameters needed for the setup. This command will start (or restart) the service if installed on the machine.
• Change - This is the command to use if you want to change configuration settings. This command will start (or restart) the service if installed on the machine.
• Show - Will show and test the connection. You will also get the version number of the influxDB database connected.
• Database - Change what database is used but keep the same server.

• Status - Shows the status of the windows service.
• Stop - Stops the windows service if it is running.
• Start - Starts the windows service.
• Restart - Restarts (or starts) the windows service.

• List - Lists all performance counter configurations that exists.
• Read - Reads the value from the performance counter to be displayed on screen.
• Collect - Reads the value from the performance counter once and send it to the database.
• Initiate - Initiates some default counters (If the files and counter group does not already exist).
• Create - Create a new performance counter config file for a counter.

The currently supported version of InfluxDB is 0.9x.

By default metadata is sent fron Influx-Capacitor to influxDB. (There is an Application that can turn this off if you do not want it) The data is register as measurement named Influx-Capacitor-Metadata.

Mainly the collecting of data and the status of the queue is what can be monitored. Use the counter tag in the where statement to select the metadata you want to analyze.

####Tags that appears for all metadata measurements

• hostname - Name of the machine that collects the data
• version - Version of Influx-Capacitor
• counter - Name of the metadata counter (queueCount, readCount, readTime or configuration)
• action - Action that triggered metadata measurement

For measurements where counter = queueCount

Use this measurement to monitor the queue. How data is piled up and how it is sent to the server. If you have more than one server you are sending data to, you can see all servers metadata on all servers. This makes it easy to see if the queue is increasing because data cannot be sent to one of the servers.

####Tags

• action - Triggered when one of the following actions occurred (Enqueue, Send)
• targetServer - Url to the server where data is sent
• targetDatabase - Name of the database where data is sent
• failMessage - Error message when sending data. (Only messages that does not prevent metadata from beeing sent)

####Values

• value - Total number of items in queue
• queueCountChange - Number of items added or removed from the queue
• sendTimeMs - The time in milliseconds it took to send data to the server

For measurements where counter = readCount

This one can be used to monitor the collection of data. Number of data and how long it takes.

####Tags

• action - always the value collect
• performanceCounterGroup - Name of the performace counter group
• engineName - name of the engine collecting data (SafeCollectorEngine or ExactCollectorEngine)

####Values

• value - Number of counters read
• elapseOffsetTimeMs - If the ExactCollectorEngine is used, the offset time from when the read was supposed to happen.
• totalTimeMs - Total time it took for all reader steps; synchronize, prepare, read, format, enque and cleanup.

For measurements where counter = readTime

The collecting of data involves several steps. Here you can monitor the time it takes for each step.

• synchronize - When using the ExactCollectorEngine, Influx-Capacitor tries to read data at the exact same time. This value shows how long it takes to compensate for the actual time it takes to read the data.
• prepare - Shows the time it takes to prepare the counters. The counters are refreshed using RefreshInstanceInterval, the time it takes will show up here.
• read - This is the time it takes for the actual read of all counters. If there are many counters to read, this will take longer.
• format - The time it takes to format the data that is to be sent to influxDB.
• enque - This is the time it takes to put the data in the queue.
• cleanup - The final step times the removal of obsolete counters. An example of this could be a counter for a SqlDatabase that has been removed or a process that does no longer exist.

####Tags

• action - always the value collect
• performanceCounterGroup - Name of the performace counter group
• engineName - name of the engine collecting data (SafeCollectorEngine or ExactCollectorEngine)
• step - Name of the step (with order number) for the data collector (Hint. Use this in graphana for grouping and stack the values)

####Values

• value - Time in milliseconds for each step (Use the total sum to get the total time for the collector)

For measurements where counter = configuration

####Tags action - The action that performed the configuration test (config_auto, config_database, config_change)

####Values value - The value 1

• zeugfr
• discoduck2x
• ziyasal/InfluxDB.Net