Docs » Supported integrations in Splunk Observability Cloud » Configure application receivers for hosts and servers » systemd

systemd 🔗

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector uses the Smart Agent receiver with the collectd/systemd monitor type to collect metrics about the state of configured systemd services.

This integration is available on Kubernetes and Linux.

Benefits 🔗

After you configure the integration, you can access these features:

Requirements 🔗

This integration reads the status of systemd services from /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket. You must mount the host location to the container in which the Collector or the Smart Agent is running. The agent container must also run in privileged mode. The following example shows an excerpt of the docker run command:

docker run ...\
  --privileged \
  -v /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket:/var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket:ro \
...

Installation 🔗

Follow these steps to deploy this integration:

  1. Deploy the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector to your host or container platform:

  2. Configure the monitor, as described in the Configuration section.

  3. Restart the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector.

Configuration 🔗

To use this integration of a Smart Agent monitor with the Collector:

  1. Include the Smart Agent receiver in your configuration file.

  2. Add the monitor type to the Collector configuration, both in the receiver and pipelines sections.

Example 🔗

To activate this integration, add the following to your Collector configuration:

receivers:
  smartagent/systemd:
    type: collectd/systemd
    ...  # Additional config

Next, add the monitor to the service.pipelines.metrics.receivers section of your configuration file:

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers: [smartagent/systemd]

Advanced examples 🔗

The following is an excerpt of a YAML configuration for monitoring the state of docker and ubuntu-fan services:

receivers:
  smartagent/systemd:
    type: collectd/systemd
    intervalSeconds: 10
    services:
      - docker
      - ubuntu-fan

By default, the gauge.substate.running metrics, which indicates whether a service is running or not, is the only metric reported. Configure additional metrics using the sendActiveState, sendSubState, and sendLoadState configuration flags, as shown in the following example:

receivers:
  smartagent/systemd:
    type: collectd/systemd
    intervalSeconds: 10
    services:
      - docker
      - ubuntu-fan
    sendActiveState: true

Configuration settings 🔗

The following table shows the configuration options for this monitor:

Option

Required

Type

Description

services

Yes

list of strings

Services to report on.

sendActiveState

No

bool

Flag for sending metrics about the state of systemd services.

The default value is false.

sendSubState

No

bool

Flag for sending more detailed metrics about the state of

systemd services. The default value is false.

sendLoadState

No

bool

Flag for sending metrics about the load state of systemd

services. The default value is false.

A service is in the state that a metric represents if the metric value is 1 and not in that state if the metric value is 0. The integration assigns the name of monitored services to the systemd_service dimension.

Metrics 🔗

The following metrics are available for this integration:

Notes 🔗

  • To learn more about the available in Observability Cloud see Metric types

  • In host-based subscription plans, default metrics are those metrics included in host-based subscriptions in Observability Cloud, such as host, container, or bundled metrics. Custom metrics are not provided by default and might be subject to charges. See Metric categories for more information.

  • In MTS-based subscription plans, all metrics are custom.

  • To add additional metrics, see how to configure extraMetrics in Add additional metrics

Troubleshooting 🔗

If you are a Splunk Observability Cloud customer and are not able to see your data in Splunk Observability Cloud, you can get help in the following ways.

Available to Splunk Observability Cloud customers

Available to prospective customers and free trial users

  • Ask a question and get answers through community support at Splunk Answers .

  • Join the Splunk #observability user group Slack channel to communicate with customers, partners, and Splunk employees worldwide. To join, see Chat groups in the Get Started with Splunk Community manual.

To learn about even more support options, see Splunk Customer Success .