Daemon configuration

The daemon configuration file is read from `/etc/netdata/netdata.conf`.

Depending on your installation method, Netdata will have been installed either directly under `/`, or under `/opt/netdata`. The paths mentioned here and in the documentation in general assume that your installation is under `/`. If it is not, you will find the exact same paths under `/opt/netdata` as well. (i.e. `/etc/netdata` will be `/opt/netdata/etc/netdata`).

This config file is not needed by default. Netdata works fine out of the box without it. But it does allow you to adapt the general behavior of Netdata, in great detail. You can find all these settings, with their default values, by accessing the URL https://netdata.server.hostname:19999/netdata.conf. For example check the configuration file of netdata.firehol.org. HTTP access to this file is limited by default to private IPs, via the web server access lists.

netdata.conf has sections stated with [section]. You will see the following sections:

1. [global] to configure the Netdata daemon.
2. [web] to configure the web server.
3. [plugins] to configure which collectors to use and PATH settings.
4. [health] to configure general settings for health monitoring
5. [registry] for the Netdata registry.
6. [statsd] for the general settings of the stats.d.plugin.
7. [plugin:NAME] sections for each collector plugin, under the comment Per plugin configuration.
8. [CHART_NAME] sections for each chart defined, under the comment Per chart configuration.

The configuration file is a name = value dictionary. Netdata will not complain if you set options unknown to it. When you check the running configuration by accessing the URL /netdata.conf on your Netdata server, Netdata will add a comment on settings it does not currently use.

Applying changes

After netdata.conf has been modified, Netdata needs to be restarted for changes to apply:

sudo systemctl restart netdata

If the above does not work, try the following:

sudo killall netdata; sleep 10; sudo netdata

Please note that your data history will be lost if you have modified history parameter in section [global].

Sections

[global] section options

setting	default	info
process scheduling policy	keep	See Netdata process scheduling policy
OOM score	0
glibc malloc arena max for plugins	1	See Virtual memory.
glibc malloc arena max for Netdata	1	See Virtual memory.
hostname	auto-detected	The hostname of the computer running Netdata.
history	3996	Used with memory mode = save/map/ram/alloc, not the default memory mode = dbengine. This number reflects the number of entries the netdata daemon will by default keep in memory for each chart dimension. This setting can also be configured per chart. Check Memory Requirements for more information.
update every	1	The frequency in seconds, for data collection. For more information see the performance guide.
config directory	/etc/netdata	The directory configuration files are kept.
stock config directory	/usr/lib/netdata/conf.d
log directory	/var/log/netdata	The directory in which the log files are kept.
web files directory	/usr/share/netdata/web	The directory the web static files are kept.
cache directory	/var/cache/netdata	The directory the memory database will be stored if and when Netdata exits. Netdata will re-read the database when it will start again, to continue from the same point.
lib directory	/var/lib/netdata	Contains the alarm log and the Netdata instance guid.
home directory	/var/cache/netdata	Contains the db files for the collected metrics
plugins directory	"/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d" "/etc/netdata/custom-plugins.d"	The directory plugin programs are kept. This setting supports multiple directories, space separated. If any directory path contains spaces, enclose it in single or double quotes.
memory mode	dbengine	dbengine: The default for long-term metrics storage with efficient RAM and disk usage. Can be extended with page cache size and dbengine disk space. save: Netdata will save its round robin database on exit and load it on startup. map: Cache files will be updated in real-time. Not ideal for systems with high load or slow disks (check man mmap). ram: The round-robin database will be temporary and it will be lost when Netdata exits. none: Disables the database at this host, and disables health monitoring entirely, as that requires a database of metrics.
page cache size	32	Determines the amount of RAM in MiB that is dedicated to caching Netdata metric values.
dbengine disk space	256	Determines the amount of disk space in MiB that is dedicated to storing Netdata metric values and all related metadata describing them.
dbengine multihost disk space	256	Same functionality as dbengine disk space, but includes support for storing metrics streamed to a parent node by its children. Can be used in single-node environments as well.
host access prefix		This is used in docker environments where /proc, /sys, etc have to be accessed via another path. You may also have to set SYS_PTRACE capability on the docker for this work. Check issue 43.
memory deduplication (ksm)	yes	When set to yes, Netdata will offer its in-memory round robin database to kernel same page merging (KSM) for deduplication. For more information check Memory Deduplication - Kernel Same Page Merging - KSM
TZ environment variable	:/etc/localtime	Where to find the timezone
timezone	auto-detected	The timezone retrieved from the environment variable
debug flags	0x0000000000000000	Bitmap of debug options to enable. For more information check Tracing Options.
debug log	/var/log/netdata/debug.log	The filename to save debug information. This file will not be created if debugging is not enabled. You can also set it to syslog to send the debug messages to syslog, or none to disable this log. For more information check Tracing Options.
error log	/var/log/netdata/error.log	The filename to save error messages for Netdata daemon and all plugins (stderr is sent here for all Netdata programs, including the plugins). You can also set it to syslog to send the errors to syslog, or none to disable this log.
access log	/var/log/netdata/access.log	The filename to save the log of web clients accessing Netdata charts. You can also set it to syslog to send the access log to syslog, or none to disable this log.
errors flood protection period	1200	Length of period (in sec) during which the number of errors should not exceed the errors to trigger flood protection.
errors to trigger flood protection	200	Number of errors written to the log in errors flood protection period sec before flood protection is activated.
run as user	netdata	The user Netdata will run as.
pthread stack size	auto-detected
cleanup obsolete charts after seconds	3600	See monitoring ephemeral containers, also sets the timeout for cleaning up obsolete dimensions
gap when lost iterations above	1
cleanup orphan hosts after seconds	3600	How long to wait until automatically removing from the DB a remote Netdata host (child) that is no longer sending data.
delete obsolete charts files	yes	See monitoring ephemeral containers, also affects the deletion of files for obsolete dimensions
delete orphan hosts files	yes	Set to no to disable non-responsive host removal.
enable zero metrics	no	Set to yes to show charts when all their metrics are zero.

[web] section options

Refer to the web server documentation

[plugins] section options

In this section you will see be a boolean (yes/no) option for each plugin (e.g. tc, cgroups, apps, proc etc.). Note that the configuration options in this section for the orchestrator plugins python.d and charts.d control all the modules written for that orchestrator. For instance, setting python.d = no means that all Python modules under collectors/python.d.plugin will be disabled.

Additionally, there will be the following options:

setting	default	info
PATH environment variable	auto-detected
PYTHONPATH environment variable		Used to set a custom python path
enable running new plugins	yes	When set to yes, Netdata will enable detected plugins, even if they are not configured explicitly. Setting this to no will only enable plugins explicitly configured in this file with a yes
check for new plugins every	60	The time in seconds to check for new plugins in the plugins directory. This allows having other applications dynamically creating plugins for Netdata.
checks	no	This is a debugging plugin for the internal latency

[health] section options

This section controls the general behavior of the health monitoring capabilities of Netdata.

Specific alarms are configured in per-collector config files under the health.d directory. For more info, see health monitoring.

Alarm notifications are configured in health_alarm_notify.conf.

setting	default	info
enabled	yes	Set to no to disable all alarms and notifications
in memory max health log entries	1000	Size of the alarm history held in RAM
script to execute on alarm	/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/alarm-notify.sh	The script that sends alarm notifications. Note that in versions before 1.16, the plugins.d directory may be installed in a different location in certain OSs (e.g. under /usr/lib/netdata).
stock health configuration directory	/usr/lib/netdata/conf.d/health.d	Contains the stock alarm configuration files for each collector
health configuration directory	/etc/netdata/health.d	The directory containing the user alarm configuration files, to override the stock configurations
run at least every seconds	10	Controls how often all alarm conditions should be evaluated.
postpone alarms during hibernation for seconds	60	Prevents false alarms. May need to be increased if you get alarms during hibernation.
rotate log every lines	2000	Controls the number of alarm log entries stored in <lib directory>/health-log.db, where <lib directory> is the one configured in the [global] section

[registry] section options

To understand what this section is and how it should be configured, please refer to the registry documentation.

Per-plugin configuration

The configuration options for plugins appear in sections following the pattern [plugin:NAME].

Internal plugins

Most internal plugins will provide additional options. Check Internal Plugins for more information.

Please note, that by default Netdata will enable monitoring metrics for disks, memory, and network only when they are not zero. If they are constantly zero they are ignored. Metrics that will start having values, after Netdata is started, will be detected and charts will be automatically added to the dashboard (a refresh of the dashboard is needed for them to appear though). Use yes instead of auto in plugin configuration sections to enable these charts permanently. You can also set the enable zero metrics option to yes in the [global] section which enables charts with zero metrics for all internal Netdata plugins.

External plugins

External plugins will have only 2 options at netdata.conf:

setting	default	info
update every	the value of [global].update every setting	The frequency in seconds the plugin should collect values. For more information check the performance guide.
command options	empty	Additional command line options to pass to the plugin.

External plugins that need additional configuration may support a dedicated file in /etc/netdata. Check their documentation.

Per-chart configuration

In this area of netdata.conf you can find configuration options for individual charts. They appear in sections following the pattern [NAME].

Using the settings and values under these sections, you can control all aspects of a specific chart. You can change its title, make it appear higher in Netdata's menu, tweak its dimensions, and much more.

To find the name of a given chart, and thus the name of its section in netdata.conf, look at the top-left corner of a chart:

Every per-chart configuration section has several common settings, which are listed in the table just below. Beneath that is information about lines that begin with dim, which affect a chart's dimensions.

Setting	Function
history	Override the history setting in the [global] options for this particular chart. Should be less than or equal to the global history setting.
enabled	A boolean (yes or no) that explicitly enables or disables the chart in question.
cache directory	The directory where cache files for this plugin, if needed, are stored.
chart type	Defines what type of chart to display. It can be line, area, or stacked. If empty or missing, line will be used.
type	Uniquely identify which metrics menu on the Netdata dashboard this chart should appear under. Some examples include system (System), disk (Disks), net (Network Interfaces), and netdata (Netdata Monitoring).
family	Change the chart's family from its default. For example, you could force a disk space chart to collect metrics for family sdb instead of family sda.
units	Text for the label of the vertical axis of the chart. This means all dimensions should have the same unit of measurement.
context	Change the default context of the chart. Changing this setting will affect what metrics and metrics the chart displays, and which alarms are attached to it.
priority	Define where the chart should appear on the Netdata dashboard. Lower values equal higher priority, so a priority of 1 will place the chart highest, while a priority of 9999999 would place the chart at the bottom of the Netdata dashboard.
name	The name of the chart that appears in the top-left corner, after the chart's title. You can also use this name when writing health entities.
title	The text that appears above the chart in the Netdata dashboard.

Dimension settings

You may notice some settings that begin with dim beneath the ones defined in the table above. These settings determine which dimensions appear on the given chart and how Netdata calculates them.

Each dimension setting has the following structure: dim [DIMENSION ID] [OPTION] = [VALUE]. The available options are name, algorithm, multiplier, and divisor.

Setting	Function
name	The name of the dimension as it will appear in the legend of the chart. If left empty, or is missing, Netdata will use the [DIMENSION ID] instead.
algorithm	Can be absolute, incremental, percentage-of-absolute-row, or percentage-of-incremental-row. If this setting is empty, invalid, or missing, Netdata will use absolute. See the list beneath this table for descriptions of what each algorithm does.
multiplier	An integer value by which to multiply the collected value. If empty or missing, Netdata will use 1. This setting is often used with the value 1024 to convert metabytes to kilobytes, kilobytes to bytes, and so on.
divisor	An integer value by which to divide the collected value. If empty or missing, Netdata will use 1. This setting is often used with the value 1024 to convert bytes to kilobytes, kilobytes to megabytes, and so on.

Here are the options for the algorithm setting:

• absolute: The value is drawn as-is (interpolated to second boundary).
• incremental: To be used when the value always increases over time, such as the I/O on a disk. Netdata takes the difference between the current metric and the past metric to calculate a per-second figure.
• percentage-of-absolute-row: The % of this value compared to the total of all dimensions.
• percentage-of-incremental-row: The % of this value compared to the incremental total of all dimensions.

For example, the system.io chart has the following default settings:

        # dim in name = in
        # dim in algorithm = incremental
        # dim in multiplier = 1
        # dim in divisor = 1
        # dim out name = out
        # dim out algorithm = incremental
        # dim out multiplier = -1
        # dim out divisor = 1

These dim settings produce two dimensions, in and out, both of which use the incremental algorithm. By multiplying the value of out by -1, Netdata creates the negative values seen in the following area chart: