[collectd] Including custom collectd conf without breaking definitions in parent conf

[Otis Gospodnetic]

Hi,

Over at https://apps.sematext.com/ we run a performance monitoring service
that, in part, depends on Collectd.

I am hoping somebody here can guide me in the right direction around the
best way to add custom collectd.conf to an existing Collectd setup.

When people set up our metrics agent we want to enable a certain number of
existing Collectd plugins - things like cpu, disk, load... - so we
can gather this via Collectd's csv output.

But ideally we would not just overwrite their collectd.conf for obvious
reasons.

I know we could:
* plant our own /etc/collectd.d/spm-collectd.conf
* use "Include "/etc/collectd.d/spm-collectd.conf" from the parent conf
* have the same LoadPlugin and <Plugin ...> directives in both parent and
included conf

But my worry is that if in our custom /etc/collectd.d/spm-collectd.conf we
override something from the parent conf, then we'll break it.  For example,
imagine if in the included conf we say:

<Plugin csv>
  DataDir "/our/custom/log/location/here/will/OVERRIDE/the/parent"
</Plugin>

Is there anything one can do to avoid breaking plugin directives defined in
the parent conf?

Thanks,
Otis
--
Solr & ElasticSearch Support
http://sematext.com/
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