This is a template for deploying a single Linux server running Graphite and Statsd.

• A Heat provider that supports the Rackspace OS::Heat::ChefSolo plugin.
• An OpenStack username, password, and tenant id.
• python-heatclient >= v0.2.8:

pip install python-heatclient

We recommend installing the client within a Python virtual environment.

Here is an example of how to deploy this template using the python-heatclient:

heat --os-username <OS-USERNAME> --os-password <OS-PASSWORD> --os-tenant-id \
  <TENANT-ID> --os-auth-url https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/ \
  stack-create Graphite-Stack -f graphite.yaml \
  -P flavor="4 GB Performance"

• For UK customers, use https://lon.identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/ as the --os-auth-url.

Optionally, set environmental variables to avoid needing to provide these values every time a call is made:

export OS_USERNAME=<USERNAME>
export OS_PASSWORD=<PASSWORD>
export OS_TENANT_ID=<TENANT-ID>
export OS_AUTH_URL=<AUTH-URL>

Parameters can be replaced with your own values when standing up a stack. Use the -P flag to specify a custom parameter.

• image: Operating system to install (Default: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin))
• flavor: Cloud server size to use. (Default: 2 GB Performance)
• kitchen: URL for the kitchen to clone with git. The Chef Solo run will copy all files in this repo into the kitchen for the chef run. (Default: https://github.com/rackspace-orchestration-templates/graphite)
• chef_version: Chef client version to install for the chef run. (Default: 11.12.8)

Once a stack comes online, use heat output-list to see all available outputs. Use heat output-show <OUTPUT NAME> to get the value fo a specific output.

• private_key: SSH private that can be used to login as root to the server.
• server_ip: Public IP address of the cloud server
• graphite_password: Password to use when logging into Graphite as root
• graphite_url: URL to use when navigating to the Graphite installation

For multi-line values, the response will come in an escaped form. To get rid of the escapes, use echo -e '<STRING>' > file.txt. For vim users, a substitution can be done within a file using %s/\\n/\r/g.

If you are new to Graphite the Graphite Overview page provides a good description of what Graphite is and what it is not. A good writeup on StatsD is provided by the guys that wrote it.

Navigate to the IP of the server you've created in a browser. Use the login of root and the graphite_password provided in the outputs section.

The private key provided in the passwords section can be used to login as root via SSH. We have an article on how to use these keys with Mac OS X and Linux as well as Windows using PuTTY.

The deployment was stood up using chef-solo. Once the deployment is up, chef will not run again, so it is safe to modify configurations.

The Graphite Webapp runs under Apache as WSGI module on the standard HTTP TCP port of 80. The webapp provides the graphing UI, a simple dashboard, as well as an API to get stored metrics out. It draws graphs with times in the UTC timezone. You can change the timezone by modifying the /opt/graphite/webapp/graphite/local_settings.py file and restarting Apache. You can login to the Webapp using the user root and the graphite_password supplied in the outputs section.

Carbon is a Graphite backend server process that accepts time-series data on TCP port 2003. Carbon can be configured via the /opt/graphite/conf/carbon.conf file. Carbon uses Whisper to store the data on disk which is configured to store data at 1 minute intervals for 3 months and after three months the data is averaged into 5 minute intervals for 2 years. The default storage schema can be changed or added to in the /opt/graphite/conf/storage-schema.conf file.

Statsd is a network daemon that sits along side Graphite also listening for metrics to be written to it on UDP port 8125. It writes its aggregated metrics to the local Graphite Carbon backend. It's configuration can be customized in the /etc/statsd/config.js file.

There are substantial changes still happening within the OpenStack Heat project. Template contribution guidelines will be drafted in the near future.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.