The main configuration file, harvest.yml, consists of the following sections, described below:

Pollers¶

All pollers are defined in harvest.yml, the main configuration file of Harvest, under the section Pollers.

parameter	type	description	default
Poller name (header)	required	Poller name, user-defined value
`datacenter`	required	Datacenter name, user-defined value
`addr`	required by some collectors	IPv4 or FQDN of the target system
`collectors`	required	List of collectors to run for this poller
`exporters`	required	List of exporter names from the `Exporters` section. Note: this should be the name of the exporter (e.g. `prometheus1`), not the value of the `exporter` key (e.g. `Prometheus`)
`auth_style`	required by Zapi* collectors	Either `basic_auth` or `certificate_auth` See authentication for details	`basic_auth`
`username`, `password`	required if `auth_style` is `basic_auth`
`ssl_cert`, `ssl_key`	optional if `auth_style` is `certificate_auth`	Paths to SSL (client) certificate and key used to authenticate with the target system. If not provided, the poller will look for `<hostname>.key` and `<hostname>.pem` in `$HARVEST_HOME/cert/`. To create certificates for ONTAP systems, see using certificate authentication
`ca_cert`	optional if `auth_style` is `certificate_auth`	Path to file that contains PEM encoded certificates. Harvest will append these certificates to the system-wide set of root certificate authorities (CA). If not provided, the OS's root CAs will be used. To create certificates for ONTAP systems, see using certificate authentication
`use_insecure_tls`	optional, bool	If true, disable TLS verification when connecting to ONTAP cluster	false
`credentials_file`	optional, string	Path to a yaml file that contains cluster credentials. The file should have the same shape as `harvest.yml`. See here for examples. Path can be relative to `harvest.yml` or absolute.
`credentials_script`	optional, section	Section that defines how Harvest should fetch credentials via external script. See here for details.
`tls_min_version`	optional, string	Minimum TLS version to use when connecting to ONTAP cluster: One of tls10, tls11, tls12 or tls13	Platform decides
`labels`	optional, list of key-value pairs	Each of the key-value pairs will be added to a poller's metrics. Details below
`log_max_bytes`		Maximum size of the log file before it will be rotated	`10 MB`
`log_max_files`		Number of rotated log files to keep	`5`
`log`	optional, list of collector names	Matching collectors log their ZAPI request/response
`prefer_zapi`	optional, bool	Use the ZAPI API if the cluster supports it, otherwise allow Harvest to choose REST or ZAPI, whichever is appropriate to the ONTAP version. See rest-strategy for details.
`conf_path`	optional, `:` seperated list of directories	The search path Harvest uses to load its templates. Harvest walks each directory in order, stopping at the first one that contains the desired template.	conf

Defaults¶

This section is optional. If there are parameters identical for all your pollers (e.g., datacenter, authentication method, login preferences), they can be grouped under this section. The poller section will be checked first, and if the values aren't found there, the defaults will be consulted.

Exporters¶

All exporters need two types of parameters:

exporter parameters - defined in harvest.yml under Exporters section
export_options - these options are defined in the Matrix data structure emitted from collectors and plugins

The following two parameters are required for all exporters:

parameter	type	description	default
Exporter name (header)	required	Name of the exporter instance, this is a user-defined value
`exporter`	required	Name of the exporter class (e.g. Prometheus, InfluxDB, Http) - these can be found under the `cmd/exporters/` directory

Note: when we talk about the Prometheus Exporter or InfluxDB Exporter, we mean the Harvest modules that send the data to a database, NOT the names used to refer to the actual databases.

Prometheus Exporter ¶

InfluxDB Exporter ¶

Tools¶

This section is optional. You can uncomment the grafana_api_token key and add your Grafana API token so harvest does not prompt you for the key when importing dashboards.

Tools:
  #grafana_api_token: 'aaa-bbb-ccc-ddd'

Poller_files¶

Harvest supports loading pollers from multiple files specified in the Poller_files section of your harvest.yml file. For example, the following snippet tells harvest to load pollers from all the *.yml files under the configs directory, and from the path/to/single.yml file.

Paths may be relative or absolute.

Poller_files:
    - configs/*.yml
    - path/to/single.yml

Pollers:
    u2:
        datacenter: dc-1

Each referenced file can contain one or more unique pollers. Ensure that you include the top-level Pollers section in these files. All other top-level sections will be ignored. For example:

# contents of configs/00-rtp.yml
Pollers:
  ntap3:
    datacenter: rtp

  ntap4:
    datacenter: rtp
---
# contents of configs/01-rtp.yml
Pollers:
  ntap5:
    datacenter: blr
---
# contents of path/to/single.yml
Pollers:
  ntap1:
    datacenter: dc-1

  ntap2:
    datacenter: dc-1

At runtime, all files will be read and combined into a single configuration. The example above would result in the following set of pollers in this order.

- u2
- ntap3
- ntap4
- ntap5
- ntap1
- ntap2

When using glob patterns, the list of matching paths will be sorted before they are read. Errors will be logged for all duplicate pollers and Harvest will refuse to start.

Configuring collectors¶

Collectors are configured by their own configuration files (templates), which are stored in subdirectories in conf/. Most collectors run concurrently and collect a subset of related metrics. For example, node related metrics are grouped together and run independently of the disk-related metrics. Below is a snippet from conf/zapi/default.yaml

In this example, the default.yaml template contains a list of objects (e.g., Node) that reference sub-templates (e.g., node.yaml). This decomposition groups related metrics together and at runtime, a Zapi collector per object will be created and each of these collectors will run concurrently.

Using the snippet below, we expect there to be four Zapi collectors running, each with a different subtemplate and object.

collector:          Zapi
objects:
  Node:             node.yaml
  Aggregate:        aggr.yaml
  Volume:           volume.yaml
  SnapMirror:       snapmirror.yaml

At start-up, Harvest looks for two files (default.yaml and custom.yaml) in the conf directory of the collector (e.g. conf/zapi/default.yaml). The default.yaml is installed by default, while the custom.yaml is an optional file you can create to add new templates.

When present, the custom.yaml file will be merged with the default.yaml file. This behavior can be overridden in your harvest.yml, see here for an example.

For a list of collector-specific parameters, refer to their individual documentation.

Zapi and ZapiPerf ¶

Rest and RestPerf ¶

EMS ¶

StorageGRID ¶

Unix ¶

Labels¶

Labels offer a way to add additional key-value pairs to a poller's metrics. These allow you to tag a cluster's metrics in a cross-cutting fashion. Here's an example:

  cluster-03:
    datacenter: DC-01
    addr: 10.0.1.1
    labels:
      - org: meg       # add an org label with the value "meg"
      - ns:  rtp       # add a namespace label with the value "rtp"

These settings add two key-value pairs to each metric collected from cluster-03 like this:

node_vol_cifs_write_data{org="meg",ns="rtp",datacenter="DC-01",cluster="cluster-03",node="umeng-aff300-05"} 10

Keep in mind that each unique combination of key-value pairs increases the amount of stored data. Use them sparingly. See PrometheusNaming for details.

Authentication¶

When authenticating with ONTAP and StorageGRID clusters, Harvest supports both client certificates and basic authentication.

These methods of authentication are defined in the Pollers or Defaults section of your harvest.yml using one or more of the following parameters.

parameter	description	default	Link
`auth_sytle`	One of `basic_auth` or `certificate_auth` Optional when using `credentials_file` or `credentials_script`	`basic_auth`	link
`username`	Username used for authenticating to the remote system		link
`password`	Password used for authenticating to the remote system		link
`credentials_file`	Relative or absolute path to a yaml file that contains cluster credentials		link
`credentials_script`	External script Harvest executes to retrieve credentials		link

Precedence¶

When multiple authentication parameters are defined at the same time, Harvest tries each method listed below, in the following order, to resolve authentication requests. The first method that returns a non-empty password stops the search.

When these parameters exist in both the Pollers and Defaults section, the Pollers section will be consulted before the Defaults.

section	parameter
`Pollers`	auth_style: `certificate_auth`
`Pollers`	auth_style: `basic_auth` with username and password
`Pollers`	`credentials_script`
`Pollers`	`credentials_file`
`Defaults`	auth_style: `certificate_auth`
`Defaults`	auth_style: `basic_auth` with username and password
`Defaults`	`credentials_script`
`Defaults`	`credentials_file`

Credentials File¶

If you would rather not list cluster credentials in your harvest.yml, you can use the credentials_file section in your harvest.yml to point to a file that contains the credentials. At runtime, the credentials_file will be read and the included credentials will be used to authenticate with the matching cluster(s).

This is handy when integrating with 3rd party credential stores. See #884 for examples.

The format of the credentials_file is similar to harvest.yml and can contain multiple cluster credentials.

Example:

Snippet from harvest.yml:

Pollers:
  cluster1:
    addr: 10.193.48.11
    credentials_file: secrets/cluster1.yml
    exporters:
      - prom1

File secrets/cluster1.yml:

Pollers:
  cluster1:
    username: harvest
    password: foo

Credentials Script¶

You can fetch authentication information via an external script by using the credentials_script section in the Pollers section of your harvest.yml as shown in the example below.

At runtime, Harvest will invoke the script referenced in the credentials_script path section. Harvest will call the script with two arguments like so: ./script $addr $username.

The first argument is the address of the cluster taken from your harvest.yaml file, section Pollers addr
The second argument is the username of the cluster taken from your harvest.yaml file, section Pollers username

The script should use the two arguments to look up and return the password via the script's standard out. If the script doesn't finish within the specified timeout, Harvest will kill the script and any spawned processes.

Credential scripts are defined in your harvest.yml under the Pollers credentials_script section. Below are the options for the credentials_script section

parameter	type	description	default
path	string	absolute path to script that takes two arguments: addr and username, in that order
schedule	go duration or `always`	schedule used to call the authentication script. If the value is `always`, the script will be called everytime a password is requested, otherwise use the earlier cached value	24h
timeout	go duration	amount of time Harvest will wait for the script to finish before killing it and descendents	10s

Example¶

Pollers:
    ontap1:
        datacenter: rtp
        addr: 10.1.1.1
        collectors:
            - Rest
            - RestPerf
        credentials_script:
            path: ./get_pass
            schedule: 3h
            timeout: 10s

Troubleshooting¶

Make sure your script is executable
Ensure the user/group that executes your poller also has read and execute permissions on the script. su as the user/group that runs Harvest and make sure you can execute the script too.