[collectd] Plans for collectd 4 [discussion]

[Christophe Kalt]

Hi,

On Apr 11, Florian Forster wrote:
| Hello all,
| 
| the current design of collectd is very inflexible, I'm afraid. Thus,
| such logical things as a Local-Server-hybrid-mode (collect data locally
| _and_ accept network traffic) or an SNMP plugin don't exist. I've though
| about an alternative design for a while and want to share my ideas with
| you for some discussion.

Having looked at some of the code i can see why you feel this
way, but i lack experience using collectd to have a better
pictures of things.  My first reaction though is "Oh no!"

Why add SNMP?  So many other tools already exist.  collectd's
strength could/should be in monitoring the local system.  Such
a tool should be lightweight so as not to affect the system
it's running on (and change the data it's collecting).
I say focus on this, leave SNMP to others.

Already i think there are problems with some of the plugins.
I will soon check whether a hung NFS mount (for example) hangs
the df plugin.  This is very problematic.


You could improve on what you have now, may be separate the
server from the client while keeping it simple.  (KISS)
Instead you're dreaming of a very complex system which makes
"routing decisions" (!?!!) and mangles the data.


Sorry.. this probably isn't what you were hoping for.  I do
hope you'll think this over carefully though.  (And yes, i had
the same dream as you once..  Writing the ultimate data
collection engine.)