Collecting more system data with Telegraf for Influxdb/Grafana / 2021-09-09

Grafana host dashboard with telegraf data including entropy. The dip in entropy is caused by the dnssec-signzone process

I have been collecting certain system data for ages with rrdtool, but now I see what is possible with Telegraf collecting agent and after some initial attempts I'm all in favour and data is flowing.

All the data I collected is already standard in telegraf, including entropy! Other data is also collected that is good to keep an eye on for performance.

I made some tweaks to the standard telegraf configuration: collect every 5 minutes, not exactly on the clock since I read The mystery of load average spikes which reminded me of my own experience Be very careful of what you measure. I also avoid gathering data on nfs filesystems (which come and go thanks to autofs).

I rolled out telegraf over all systems at home, and now there is a nice 'System info' dashboard in Grafana.