Replacement for Netdata

MikeyG

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Dec 8, 2017
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It's my understanding based on the notes for 11.3 that TrueCommand is meant to be a replacement for Netdata, as Netdata is being taken out. If that's true, is there a place in TrueCommand to see live data (updated once a second) the way there is in Netdata? I've found Netdata to be very useful troubleshooting all manner of things and would be sad to lose that live view. I know there are command line tools such as htop and gstat that can be used to track things, but they are not quite as easy for me or visually friendly.

Are similar features as seen in Netdata planned for TrueCommand (or exist and I don't see them)? Right now, it looks to be mostly reporting data, and a way to see that data on multiple systems.
 

survive

Behold the Wumpus
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I gotta say this sucks. Any reason for removing it?

I know they haven't been keeping it up to date since they added it.

Booooooo!

-Will
 

survive

Behold the Wumpus
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Somewhat ironically, I think Netdata has the ability to designate a "central server" that indexes other Netdata instances.

A perfect role for a TrueNAS box if they updated Netdata to something newer.

-Will
 

kenmoore

TrueCommand Project Lead
iXsystems
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So after a cursory look at netdata on FreeNAS, it appears to just be a "heartbeat" statistics reporting system with no historical retention of data or even system state monitoring.

While TrueCommand does gather data at a bit slower of a rate (30s by default, 10s minimum via tuning option in general TC configuration), TrueCommand does a whole lot more with that data for the user:
  • Customized alert notifications based on stat thresholds (netdata *might* do something similar if you start digging into the internals and getting messy)
  • Alert notices can be forwarded to external messaging services for each individual user as desired (email and PagerDuty at the moment: more to come later)
  • Alert notices can be marked as "resolved" and archived for later reference.
  • Each alert notice has a dedicated "comment stream" for TrueCommand users to talk about the alert and work out a solution (or even just leave a note for later reference if the issue comes up again)
  • Each alert notice provides context information at the time of the alert (system processes running at that time, charts of basic system stats for analysis, etc)
That is only touching on the alert system within TrueCommand. There is a whole lot more administrative functionality as well as the whole multi-user and multi-system functionality that TrueCommand provides as well. Hopefully this gives you a quick "taste" of some of the things that TrueCommand can do for you.
 

MikeyG

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Thanks @kenmoore. I did install TrueCommand and have been playing with the features in it - what you mention sounds great. However, what I really want is actually the "heartbeat" type statistics, real time, at a granular level, that netdata provides. There have been countless times when I'm trying to figure out where a bottleneck is or see exactly what's going on in my system that it's been extremely useful. Being able to see that when I take a specific action, it causes a certain amount of CPU usage, network usage, disk usage, ARC hits, etc without having to use the variety of command line tools has been great. For example, let's say I download a 2GB file on my 10gbe network, and it's slower than I expect. That entire transfer is likely much smaller than the 10 second window. Those actions may only last for a few seconds, and usually the historical data I need to view only needs to go back a couple of hours.

Now, I could have htop open, with iostat/gstat running, and then use the arc summary script, and something else to capture network usage, but compared to the ease of netdata that seems like a huge step back, and it misses the short term historical abilities (and ability to correlate data) that netdata provides.

It seems like TrueCommand is geared more towards seeing higher level trends, and for multiple systems at a time. I think that's great! But unless it can do pretty much exactly what netdata does now, well, it can't do the same thing I'm looking for.
 

kenmoore

TrueCommand Project Lead
iXsystems
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Messages
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Have you looked at the dashboard on the most recent version of FreeNAS? There has been a lot of effort to put live system stats directly into the dashboard with a fairly quick interval - that might work as a replacement for your manual polling of system stats. Another alternative would be to watch SNMP stats for the system - that is another "live" system monitoring solution that is available right now.

All this to say: If TrueCommand does not work as a functional replacement for the desired "heartbeat" statistics you are looking for, then there are other options available as well.
 

MikeyG

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The dashboard for FreeNAS in 11.3 does look much improved, but it's still not anywhere near what I was able to get out of netdata. Perhaps with just a little more development and customization available it would be enough.

I appreciate the SNMP idea - I may look into collecting my own that way.
 

Dariusz1989

Contributor
Joined
Aug 22, 2017
Messages
185
Hey

I'm sorry to dig it out but... yeah +1 to netData. Why was it removed ?! Why can't we have it as well as TrueCommand?

I love netData it give me the quick/easy to understand data statistics. And this trueCommand I can't even run it in windows. I need to VM it etc etc!!! Ehhhh Why whywhywhywhywhyhwy?!¬!?!?!?!?!?!?

@kenmoore you say there are "other options" what other options?

Why could we not keep netData as altertnative, was it soo hard to maintain code or what?

!!!!! :- ((((((
 

club79

Dabbler
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Jan 13, 2019
Messages
14
I would also like to know that the "other options" are. Please let us know.

Another +1 for netdata, what an awesome tool for monitoring and diagnostics. It has been so valuable to us, please bring it back.

Also, the thing no one seems to have mentioned yet is that true command is not free (unless you have less than 50 hard drives) It's not exactly a replacement for net-data and the cost is high for what does. I expect netdata was removed to drive sales of true command.
 

MikeyG

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There is already a community plugin available that I've been using. Most of it seems to work for me except for the network meters.
 

morganL

Captain Morgan
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Netdata was removed because it had memory leaks which could not be fixed and was reducing reliability of systems. It had a good UI and so it was added back as an optional plugin where it is less likely to cause problems on production systems.
 

aghadjip

Dabbler
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Jan 22, 2012
Messages
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I see the optional plugin as a community one, are you referencing that one or something more iX maintained. There is no netdata in the iX collection.
 

Ericloewe

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It's in the community plugins.
 

Redcoat

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Ericloewe

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Where is the community/plugin/git that I could read?
commplug.gif
 
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