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Plugins for New Relic

Prerequisites

All plugins require the following:

  • A New Relic account. Signup for a free account at http://newrelic.com
  • A configured Java Runtime (JRE) environment Version 1.6 or better
  • Network access to New Relic (authenticated proxies are not currently supported, but see workaround below)

The Cassandra plugin for New Relic requires the following:

  • A cassandra cluster version 1.2.X+

The Varnish plugin for New Relic requires the following:

  • One or more varnish instances

The JMX Remote plugin for New Relic requires the following:

Download

Download and unpack the New Relic plugin you want from Plugin Central: https://rpm.newrelic.com/plugins/ or from https://github.com/threelegs/newrelic-plugins/tree/master/dist (click on the file name and select Raw from the gray menu bar)

Linux example:

$ mkdir /path/to/newrelic-plugin
$ cd /path/to/newrelic-plugin
$ tar xfz newrelic_3legs_plugin-[version].tar.gz

Configuring your agent environment

The New Relic plugin runs an agent process to collect and report metrics to New Relic. Configure your New Relic license and plugin information.

Configure your New Relic license

Specify your license key in the appropriate file. Your license key can be found under Account Settings at https://rpm.newrelic.com see https://newrelic.com/docs/subscriptions/license-key for more help.

Linux example:

$ cp config/newrelic.template.json config/newrelic.json
# vim config/newrelic.json (and paste in your license key)

Additionally, in this file you can configure the logging properties as specified here: https://github.com/newrelic-platform/metrics_publish_java/tree/serened/beta_branch_v2

Configure your Plugin properties

Linux example:

$ cp config/plugin.template.json config/plugin.json
# vim config/plugin.json

The unpacked plugin contains all supported plugins, all you need to activate them is configure their corresponding node in the configuration json you just renamed. If you don't want the Varnish plugin to run for example, simply remove it from your configuration.

All plugins support the plugin_name and plugin_version property, which you can use if you wish to create your own dashboards instead of using the plugin's default, just change the plugin_name parameter to anything you would like that is unique. The plugin will then report with the classname you define here.

IMPORANT - To use the Remote JMX plugin:

  • You MUST set pluginname="your.arbitrary.name.here" in application.conf, in order to setup custom dashboards and summary metrics.

    • If you leave the default, then it will appear with a default dashboard, which can't be edited and won't be presenting your JMX counters.

  • Once you set your own plugin name and it reports in as a new plugin, you'll need to create dashboards and summary metrics to expose your JMX counters. The New Relic Docs offer the best explanation of these capabilities:

  • The host, port and name (instance name to appear in New Relic UI) are required for each instance in application.conf.

  • Wildcards ARE permissable in an Object Name, for example: java.lang:type=GarbageCollector,name=*

  • Multiple Attributes ARE permissable under an Object Name, for example: ["CollectionCount", "CollectionTime"]

  • If polling a single Attribute in an Object Name, you will still need to put it inside of '[' and ']', like so: ["CollectionCount"]

  • type is optional. If used, all of the attributes in that ObjectName definition will be typed with what you define here.

  • If type is not used, the default "value" will be used for the attribute values in that Object Name.

Running the agent

To run the plugin in from the command line: $ java -jar plugin.jar

If your host needs a proxy server to access the Internet, you can specify a proxy server & port: $ java -Dhttps.proxyHost=proxyhost -Dhttps.proxyPort=8080 -jar plugin.jar

To run the plugin in from the command line and detach the process so it will run in the background: $ nohup java -jar plugin.jar &

Note: we currently only support Cassandra version 1.2.X or above

Another note: You may use a init.d script to start the New Relic plugin at system startup. Read more below.

Keep in mind that the plugin connects to your cassandra nodes using RMI, so check if you need to edit cassandra-env.sh and alter the rmi hostname configuration (may not be needed, it depends on your network)
Look for this section:
# jmx: metrics and administration interface # # add this if you're having trouble connecting: # JVM_OPTS="$JVM_OPTS -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=

Keep this process running

You can use services like these to manage this process.

Create a init.d file

The plugin comes with a init.d file to start and stop the plugin form the command line. The first thing you need to do to install the script is to copy it to /etc/init.d/ and make it executable.

cp /path/to/repo/resources/varnish-new-relic.init-file /etc/init.d/varnish-new-relic
chmod 744 /etc/init.d/varnish-new-relic

Look at the beginning of the /etc/init.d/varnish-new-relic file. There is three parameters that you may have to change. They are

  • PLUGIN_PATH - This is the path to where you unzipped the plugin
  • FILE_NAME - This is the name of the .jar
  • USER - This is the user that will execute the .jar. Make sure he has permission to read and execute the PLUGIN_PATH and the FILE_NAME.

Now you need to tell the system that the file exists and that you want to use it.

insserv /etc/init.d/varnish-new-relic

You are all set. The plugin will automatically start with you system. You may also run these commands as root:

/etc/init.d/varnish-new-relic start
/etc/init.d/varnish-new-relic stop
/etc/init.d/varnish-new-relic status
/etc/init.d/varnish-new-relic restart

For support

Plugin support for troubleshooting assistance can be obtained by visiting the official New Relic Community Forum or the plugin issues page.
You can ping me directly in the forums by mentioning my username @juanformoso in any post, but any member of the community will be able to help you.