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Enable an exporting connector

Now that you found the right connector for your external time-series database, you can now enable the exporting engine and the connector itself. We'll walk through the process of enabling the exporting engine itself, followed by two examples using the OpenTSDB and Graphite connectors.

When you enable the exporting engine and a connector, the Netdata Agent exports metrics beginning from the time you restart its process, not the entire database of long-term metrics.

Once you understand the process of enabling a connector, you can translate that knowledge to any other connector.

Enable the exporting engine​

Use edit-config from your Netdata config directory to open exporting.conf:

sudo ./edit-config exporting.conf

Enable the exporting engine itself by setting enabled to yes:

[exporting:global]
    enabled = yes

Save the file but keep it open, as you will edit it again to enable specific connectors.

Example: Enable the OpenTSDB connector​

Use the following configuration as a starting point. Copy and paste it into exporting.conf.

[opentsdb:http:my_opentsdb_http_instance]
    enabled = yes
    destination = localhost:4242

Replace my_opentsdb_http_instance with an instance name of your choice, and change the destination setting to the IP address or hostname of your OpenTSDB database.

Restart your Agent with sudo systemctl restart netdata, or the appropriate method for your system, to begin exporting to your OpenTSDB database. The Netdata Agent exports metrics beginning from the time the process starts, and because it exports as metrics are collected, you should start seeing data in your external database after only a few seconds.

Any further configuration is optional, based on your needs and the configuration of your OpenTSDB database. See the OpenTSDB connector doc and exporting engine reference for details.

Example: Enable the Graphite connector​

Use the following configuration as a starting point. Copy and paste it into exporting.conf.

[graphite:my_graphite_instance]
    enabled = yes
    destination = 203.0.113.0:2003

Replace my_graphite_instance with an instance name of your choice, and change the destination setting to the IP address or hostname of your Graphite-supported database.

Restart your Agent with sudo systemctl restart netdata, or the appropriate method for your system, to begin exporting to your Graphite-supported database. Because the Agent exports metrics as they're collected, you should start seeing data in your external database after only a few seconds.

Any further configuration is optional, based on your needs and the configuration of your Graphite-supported database. See exporting engine reference for details.

What's next?​

If you want to further configure your exporting connectors, see the exporting engine reference.

For a comprehensive example of using the Graphite connector, read our guide: Export and visualize Netdata metrics in Graphite. Or, start using host labels on exported metrics.

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