The nginx integration collects connection metrics and access logs. Connectionmetrics capture the current state of the connection: active, reading, orwaiting. Access logs are parsed for their connection details, which includefields mapped to request, client, server, and message.

For more information about nginx, see thenginx documentation.

Prerequisites

To collect nginx telemetry, you mustinstall the Ops Agent:

• For metrics, install version 2.1.0 or higher.
• For logs, install version 2.1.0 or higher.

This integration supports nginx versions 1.18 and 1.20.

Configure your nginx instance

You must enable thestub_status module in the nginx configuration file to setup a locally reachable URL, for example,http://www.example.com/nginx_statusfor the status page. To enable thestub_status module, complete the followingsteps:

1. Edit thestatus.conf file, or create the file if it doesn't exist. You canfind this file in the nginx configuration directory, typically found at/etc/nginx/conf.d.

2. Add the following lines to theserver section:

   location /nginx_status {    stub_status on;    access_log off;    allow 127.0.0.1;    deny all;}

   Your configuration file might look like the following example:

   server {   listen 80;   server_name 127.0.0.1;   location /nginx_status {       stub_status on;       access_log off;       allow 127.0.0.1;       deny all;   }   location / {       root /dev/null;   }}

3. Reload the nginx configuration.

   sudoservicenginxreload

You can run the following command to automate the previous steps. It createsastatus.conf file if it doesn't exist or overwrites the existing one if itdoes exist. The command turns onstub_status, reloads nginx, and verifiesthat the expected information is exposed through the endpoint.

sudotee/etc/nginx/conf.d/status.conf >/dev/null <<EOFserver{listen80;server_name127.0.0.1;location/nginx_status{stub_statuson;access_logoff;allow127.0.0.1;denyall;}location/{root/dev/null;}}EOFsudoservicenginxreloadcurlhttp://127.0.0.1:80/nginx_status

The sample output is:

Active connections: 1server accepts handled requests 23 23 74Reading: 0 Writing: 1 Waiting: 0

Following the guide toConfigure the OpsAgent, add the required elementsto collect telemetry from nginx instances, andrestart the agent.

Example configuration

The following commands create the configuration to collect and ingest telemetryfor nginx:

#ConfiguresOpsAgenttocollecttelemetryfromtheapp.Youmustrestarttheagentfortheconfigurationtotakeeffect.set-e#Checkifthefileexistsif[!-f/etc/google-cloud-ops-agent/config.yaml];then#Createthefileifitdoesn'texist.sudomkdir-p/etc/google-cloud-ops-agentsudotouch/etc/google-cloud-ops-agent/config.yamlfi#Createabackupoftheexistingfilesoexistingconfigurationsarenotlost.sudocp/etc/google-cloud-ops-agent/config.yaml/etc/google-cloud-ops-agent/config.yaml.bak#ConfiguretheOpsAgent.sudotee/etc/google-cloud-ops-agent/config.yaml >/dev/null <<EOFmetrics:receivers:nginx:type:nginxstub_status_url:http://127.0.0.1:80/nginx_statusservice:pipelines:nginx:receivers:-nginxlogging:receivers:nginx_access:type:nginx_accessnginx_error:type:nginx_errorservice:pipelines:nginx:receivers:-nginx_access-nginx_errorEOF

For these changes to take effect, you must restart the Ops Agent:

Configure logs collection

To ingest logs from nginx, you must create a receiver for the logsthat nginx produces and then create a pipeline for the new receiver.

To configure a receiver for yournginx_access logs, specify the followingfields:

To configure a receiver for yournginx_error logs, specify the followingfields:

What is logged

ThelogName is derived fromthe receiver IDs specified in the configuration. Detailed fields inside theLogEntryare as follows.

Thenginx_access logs contain the following fields in theLogEntry:

Thenginx_error logs contain the following fields in theLogEntry:

Configure metrics collection

To ingest metrics from nginx, you must create a receiver for the metricsthat nginx produces and then create a pipeline for the new receiver.

This receiver does notsupport the use of multiple instances in the configuration, for example, tomonitor multiple endpoints. All such instances write to the same time series,and Cloud Monitoring has no way to distinguish among them.

To configure a receiver for yournginx metrics, specify the followingfields:

What is monitored

The following table provides the list of metrics that the Ops Agent collectsfrom the nginx instance.

Verify the configuration

This section describes how to verify that you correctly configured thenginx receiver. It might take one or twominutes for the Ops Agent to begin collecting telemetry.

To verify that nginx logs are being sent toCloud Logging, do the following:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to theLogs Explorer page:

   Go toLogs Explorer

   If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading isLogging.

2. Enter the following query in the editor, and then clickRun query:
   

   resource.type="gce_instance"(log_id("nginx_access") OR log_id("nginx_error"))

To verify that nginx metrics are being sent toCloud Monitoring, do the following:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to theleaderboard Metrics explorer page:

   Go toMetrics explorer

   If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading isMonitoring.

2. In the toolbar of thequery-builder pane, select the button whose name is eithercode MQL orcode PromQL.
3. Verify thatPromQL is selectedin theLanguage toggle. The language toggle is in the same toolbar thatlets you format your query.
4. Enter the following query in the editor, and then clickRun query:
   

   {"workload.googleapis.com/nginx.requests", monitored_resource="gce_instance"}

View dashboard

To view your nginx metrics, you must have a chart or dashboardconfigured.The nginx integration includes one or more dashboards for you.Any dashboards are automatically installed after you configure theintegration and the Ops Agent has begun collecting metric data.

You can also view static previews of dashboards withoutinstalling the integration.

To view an installed dashboard, do the following:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dashboards page:

   Go toDashboards

   If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading isMonitoring.

2. Select theDashboard List tab, and then choose theIntegrations category.
3. Click the name of the dashboard you want to view.

If you have configured an integration but the dashboard has not beeninstalled, then check that the Ops Agent is running. When there is nometric data for a chart in the dashboard, installation of the dashboard fails.After the Ops Agent begins collecting metrics, the dashboard is installedfor you.

To view a static preview of the dashboard, do the following:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Integrations page:

   Go toIntegrations

   If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading isMonitoring.

2. Click theCompute Engine deployment-platform filter.
3. Locate the entry for nginx and clickView Details.
4. Select theDashboards tab to see a static preview. If the dashboard is installed, then you can navigate to it by clickingView dashboard.

For more information about dashboards in Cloud Monitoring, seeDashboards and charts.

For more information about using theIntegrations page, seeManage integrations.

Install alerting policies

Alerting policies instruct Cloud Monitoring to notify you whenspecified conditions occur.The nginx integration includes one or more alerting policies foryou to use.You can view and installthese alerting policies from theIntegrations page inMonitoring.

To view the descriptions of available alerting policies and install them, do the following:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Integrations page:

   Go toIntegrations

   If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading isMonitoring.

2. Locate the entry for nginx and clickView Details.
3. Select theAlerts tab. This tab provides descriptions of available alerting policies and provides an interface for installing them.
4. Install alerting policies. Alerting policies need to know where to send notifications that the alert has been triggered, so they require information from you for installation. To install alerting policies, do the following:
   1. From the list of available alerting policies, select those that you want to install.

   2. In theConfigure notifications section, select one or more notification channels. You have the option to disable the use of notification channels, but if you do, then your alerting policies fire silently. You can check their status in Monitoring, but you receive no notifications.

      For more information about notification channels, seeManage notification channels.

   3. ClickCreate Policies.

For more information about alerting policies in Cloud Monitoring, seeIntroduction to alerting.

For more information about using theIntegrations page, seeManage integrations.

Troubleshooting

On most distributions, nginx comes withngx_http_stub_status_module enabled.You can check if the module is enabled by running the following command:

sudo nginx -V 2>&1 | grep -o with-http_stub_status_module

The expected output iswith-http_stub_status_module, which means the moduleis enabled. In rare cases, if the command returns no output, you must compilenginx from source with the-with-http_stub_status_module following the nginxpublic documentation.

What's next

For a walkthrough on how to use Ansible to install the Ops Agent, configurea third-party application, and install a sample dashboard, see theInstall the Ops Agent to troubleshoot third-party applications video.