The flask-rrd project is a simple Flask web application that acts as an API to create, update and graph RRD databases using rrdtool.

The following is helpful for setting up a development environment or getting started with a sample RRD. For actual deployment, see the deployment section.

Several native dependencies need to be installed so that the Python rrdtool module can be compiled. Install them using the package manager of your choice:

1. python-dev
2. librrd-dev
3. libxml2-dev
4. libglib2.0-dev
5. libcairo2-dev
6. libpango1.0-dev

Included in flask-rrd's manage.py script are a few commands to help create a test RRD, update the test RRD, and lastly, graph the test RRD. All of the manage.py commands depend on the flask-rrd web application being up and healthy.

Start the web application.

manage.py runserver

Update the RRD. Note, this also creates the RRD the first time you run it. This loops indefinitely (until you press CTRL+C) and will update the RRD database every second.

manage.py update_rrd

Graph the RRD.

manage.py graph_rrd

Alternatively, you can navigate to http://localhost:5000/graph/test to see the RRD graph itself instead of the response code.

The RRD collectors provided in the bin directory depend on CRONd to invoke them every minute. I'm not a huge fan of this, but this is easier for now.

VENV=/path/to/venv
FLASK_RRD_GIT=/path/to/flask-rrd/
* * * * * $VENV/bin/python $FLASK_RRD_GIT/bin/meminfo-to-rrd
* * * * * $VENV/bin/python $FLASK_RRD_GIT/bin/stat-to-rrd
* * * * * $VENV/bin/python $FLASK_RRD_GIT/bin/netdev-to-rrd eth0
* * * * * $VENV/bin/python $FLASK_RRD_GIT/bin/df-to-rrd