windows_exporter prometheus-community

Prometheus exporter for Windows machines

README

windows_exporter

A Prometheus exporter for Windows machines.

Collectors

Name | Description | Enabled by default ---------|-------------|-------------------- ad | Active Directory Domain Services | adcs | Active Directory Certificate Services | adfs | Active Directory Federation Services | cache | Cache metrics | cpu | CPU usage | ✓ cpu_info | CPU Information | cs | "Computer System" metrics (system properties, num cpus/total memory) | ✓ container | Container metrics | diskdrive | Diskdrive metrics | dfsr | DFSR metrics | dhcp | DHCP Server | dns | DNS Server | exchange | Exchange metrics | fsrmquota | Microsoft File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) Quotas collector | hyperv | Hyper-V hosts | iis | IIS sites and applications | logical_disk | Logical disks, disk I/O | ✓ logon | User logon sessions | memory | Memory usage metrics | mscluster_cluster | MSCluster cluster metrics | mscluster_network | MSCluster network metrics | mscluster_node | MSCluster Node metrics | mscluster_resource | MSCluster Resource metrics | mscluster_resourcegroup | MSCluster ResourceGroup metrics | msmq | MSMQ queues | mssql | SQL Server Performance Objects metrics | netframework_clrexceptions | .NET Framework CLR Exceptions | netframework_clrinterop | .NET Framework Interop Metrics | netframework_clrjit | .NET Framework JIT metrics | netframework_clrloading | .NET Framework CLR Loading metrics | netframework_clrlocksandthreads | .NET Framework locks and metrics threads | netframework_clrmemory | .NET Framework Memory metrics | netframework_clrremoting | .NET Framework Remoting metrics | netframework_clrsecurity | .NET Framework Security Check metrics | net | Network interface I/O | ✓ os | OS metrics (memory, processes, users) | ✓ printer | Printer metrics | process | Per-process metrics | remote_fx | RemoteFX protocol (RDP) metrics | scheduled_task | Scheduled Tasks metrics | service | Service state metrics | ✓ smb | SMB Server | smbclient | SMB Client | smtp | IIS SMTP Server | system | System calls | ✓ tcp | TCP connections | teradici_pcoip | Teradici PCoIP session metrics | time | Windows Time Service | thermalzone | Thermal information terminal_services | Terminal services (RDS) textfile | Read prometheus metrics from a text file | ✓ vmware_blast | VMware Blast session metrics | vmware | Performance counters installed by the Vmware Guest agent |

See the linked documentation on each collector for more information on reported metrics, configuration settings and usage examples.

Filtering enabled collectors

The windows_exporter will expose all metrics from enabled collectors by default. This is the recommended way to collect metrics to avoid errors when comparing metrics of different families.

For advanced use the windows_exporter can be passed an optional list of collectors to filter metrics. The collect[] parameter may be used multiple times. In Prometheus configuration you can use this syntax under the scrape config.

  params:
    collect[]:
      - foo
      - bar

This can be useful for having different Prometheus servers collect specific metrics from nodes.

Flags

windows_exporter accepts flags to configure certain behaviours. The ones configuring the global behaviour of the exporter are listed below, while collector-specific ones are documented in the respective collector documentation above.

| Flag | Description | Default value | |--------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------| | --web.listen-address | host:port for exporter. | :9182 | | --telemetry.path | URL path for surfacing collected metrics. | /metrics | | --telemetry.max-requests | Maximum number of concurrent requests. 0 to disable. | 5 | | --collectors.enabled | Comma-separated list of collectors to use. Use [defaults] as a placeholder which gets expanded containing all the collectors enabled by default." | [defaults] | | --collectors.print | If true, print available collectors and exit. | | | --scrape.timeout-margin | Seconds to subtract from the timeout allowed by the client. Tune to allow for overhead or high loads. | 0.5 | | --web.config.file | A web config for setting up TLS and Auth | None | | --config.file | Using a config file from path or URL | None | | --config.file.insecure-skip-verify | Skip TLS when loading config file from URL | false |

Installation

The latest release can be downloaded from the releases page.

Each release provides a .msi installer. The installer will setup the windows_exporter as a Windows service, as well as create an exception in the Windows Firewall.

If the installer is run without any parameters, the exporter will run with default settings for enabled collectors, ports, etc. The following parameters are available:

| Name | Description | |----------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | ENABLED_COLLECTORS | As the --collectors.enabled flag, provide a comma-separated list of enabled collectors | | LISTEN_ADDR | The IP address to bind to. Defaults to an empty string. (any local address) | | LISTEN_PORT | The port to bind to. Defaults to 9182. | | METRICS_PATH | The path at which to serve metrics. Defaults to /metrics | | TEXTFILE_DIRS | As the --collector.textfile.directories flag, provide a directory to read text files with metrics from | | REMOTE_ADDR | Allows setting comma separated remote IP addresses for the Windows Firewall exception (allow list). Defaults to an empty string (any remote address). | | EXTRA_FLAGS | Allows passing full CLI flags. Defaults to an empty string. | | ADD_FIREWALL_EXCEPTION | Setup an firewall exception for windows_exporter. Defaults to yes. | | ENABLE_V1_PERFORMANCE_COUNTERS | Enables V1 performance counter on modern systems. Defaults to yes. |

Parameters are sent to the installer via msiexec. Example invocations:

msiexec /i <path-to-msi-file> ENABLED_COLLECTORS=os,iis LISTEN_PORT=5000

Example service collector with a custom query.

msiexec /i <path-to-msi-file> ENABLED_COLLECTORS=os,service --% EXTRA_FLAGS="--collector.service.services-where ""Name LIKE 'sql%'"""

On some older versions of Windows, you may need to surround parameter values with double quotes to get the installation command parsing properly:

msiexec /i C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\windows_exporter.msi ENABLED_COLLECTORS="ad,iis,logon,memory,process,tcp,textfile,thermalzone" TEXTFILE_DIRS="C:\custom_metrics\"

To install the exporter with creating a firewall exception, use the following command:

msiexec /i <path-to-msi-file> ADD_FIREWALL_EXCEPTION=yes

To repair an installation, e.g force re-creating Windows service:

msiexec /fa <path-to-msi-file>

Powershell versions 7.3 and above require PSNativeCommandArgumentPassing to be set to Legacy when using --% EXTRA_FLAGS:

$PSNativeCommandArgumentPassing = 'Legacy'
msiexec /i <path-to-msi-file> ENABLED_COLLECTORS=os,service --% EXTRA_FLAGS="--collector.service.services-where ""Name LIKE 'sql%'"""

Docker Implementation

The windows_exporter can be run as a Docker container. The Docker image is available on

• Docker Hub: ghcr.io/prometheus-community/windows-exporter
• GitHub Container Registry: docker.io/prometheuscommunity/windows-exporter

Kubernetes Implementation

See detailed steps to install on Windows Kubernetes here.

Supported versions

windows_exporter supports Windows Server versions 2016 and later, and desktop Windows version 10 and 11 (21H2 or later).

Windows Server 2012 and 2012R2 are supported as best-effort only, but not guaranteed to work.

Usage

go get -u github.com/prometheus/promu
go get -u github.com/prometheus-community/windows_exporter
cd $env:GOPATH/src/github.com/prometheus-community/windows_exporter
promu build -v
.\windows_exporter.exe

The prometheus metrics will be exposed on localhost:9182

Examples

Enable only service collector and specify a custom query

.\windows_exporter.exe --collectors.enabled "service" --collector.service.services-where "Name='windows_exporter'"

Enable only process collector and specify a custom query

.\windows_exporter.exe --collectors.enabled "process" --collector.process.include="firefox.+"

When there are multiple processes with the same name, WMI represents those after the first instance as process-name#index. So to get them all, rather than just the first one, the regular expression must use .+. See process for more information.

Using [defaults] with --collectors.enabled argument

Using [defaults] with --collectors.enabled argument which gets expanded with all default collectors.

.\windows_exporter.exe --collectors.enabled "[defaults],process,container"

This enables the additional process and container collectors on top of the defaults.

Using a configuration file

YAML configuration files can be specified with the --config.file flag. e.g. .\windows_exporter.exe --config.file=config.yml. If you are using the absolute path, make sure to quote the path, e.g. .\windows_exporter.exe --config.file="C:\Program Files\windows_exporter\config.yml"

It is also possible to load the configuration from a URL. e.g. .\windows_exporter.exe --config.file="https://example.com/config.yml"

If you need to skip TLS verification, you can use the --config.file.insecure-skip-verify flag. e.g. .\windows_exporter.exe --config.file="https://example.com/config.yml" --config.file.insecure-skip-verify

collectors:
  enabled: cpu,cs,net,service
collector:
  service:
    services-where: "Name='windows_exporter'"
log:
  level: warn

An example configuration file can be found here.

Configuration file notes

Configuration file values can be mixed with CLI flags. E.G.

.\windows_exporter.exe --collectors.enabled=cpu,logon

log:
  level: debug

CLI flags enjoy a higher priority over values specified in the configuration file.

License

Under MIT