[collectd] jcollectd

[Doug MacEachern]

> Hi Doug ;)

Hi Florian,
 
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 07:06:41PM -0500, Doug MacEachern wrote:
> > Looking at ways to integrate Java apps + collectd, I tried Justo's
> jmx
> > plugin, which worked well but decided to try a different approach.
> 
> Oh, right, I need to look into that one some day.. I'm by no means a
> Java person, so I'm having kind of a hard time there ;)

Have you considered github for the collectd repo?  I'm new to both git
and github, but seems like a great way to keep track of patches,
cherry-pick, etc.:
http://github.com/blog/270-the-fork-queue

For example, I have several other small patches I was waiting to bug the
list with till I heard back on the -T switch patch ;)
Anyway, separate discussion, but something to consider.

> > We've uploaded a package to github called 'jcollectd' that
implements
> > the collectd protocol in pure Java and provides JMX integration on
> > top. Rather than embed a JVM in collectd, we use the already running
> > JVM(s) such as tomcat, add the collectd.jar file with a few
> > command-line options and inject data into collectd via the protocol.
> 
> Wow, very cool :) I've added a link to jcollectd on the features page
> and the related projects page of the website. Could you verify that
> what I'm writing is correct?

Nice, looks good to me.  Though keep in mind it doesn't require
JMX/MBeans.  For example, I have an (unfinished) patch to hadoop that
uses the org.collectd.protocol.UdpSender w/o JMX/MBeans, similar to:
http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/hadoop/core/trunk/src/core/org/apache/hadoo
p/metrics/ganglia/

> Right now I regret a little that I don't have more Java processes ;) I
> have one though, my Jabber server (Openfire, an awesome piece of
> software). I'll see if I can get some information out of it ;)

I haven't used openfire, but gave it a quick try, works like so:
OPENFIRE_OPTS="-Djcd.instance=openfire -Djcd.tmpl=javalang
-Djcd.dest=udp://239.192.74.66:25826
-javaagent:/opt/collectd/lib/collectd.jar" openfirectl start

Realized in doing so, contrary to the README, there is no default for
the jcd.dest property.. I will be fixing that in the code.

> > Seemed like this project would be better off on its own rather than
> > the contrib directory, the source is on github:
> > http://github.com/hyperic/jcollectd
> 
> Yeah, I think it's better this way, too.
> 
> > Hope you don't mind I used org.collectd for the Java package and
> > directed discussion to this list :)
> 
> No, no problem at all. *I* won't be able to answer any Java related
> questions, but if you stick around it's probably the best all around
:)

Ok, but us Java folk have core related questions for you that'll help
improve the integration.. but I'll save that for another thread ;)

Best,
-Doug
 
> Best regards,
> -octo
> --
> Florian octo Forster
> Hacker in training
> GnuPG: 0x91523C3D
> http://verplant.org/