dovecot - Oct 2021 - stats events for use with prometheus

On 8 October 2021 13.08.11 UTC, Marc <Marc at f1-outsourcing.eu>
wrote:
>> >
>> > I also do not see where this client_connection_finished is
described.
>> >
>> >
>> 
>> Thanks for pointing it out. It was indeed a documentation error as
there
>> is no such event. The page is now updated.
>
>I did not even know, I just picked the first one from the example to search
for
>
>It should be on this page, because I do not see it there?
>https://doc.dovecot.org/admin_manual/list_of_events/#list-of-events
>
>I wonder even if this is correct, because from the event name I would assume
this metric is calculated when a client disconnects. When I use the example, I
have 0 connections. When I change it to client_connection_connected I have 2
connections, which seems to better represent the current situation.
>
>metric client_connections {
>  #filter = event=client_connection_connected
>  filter = event=client_connection_finnished
>}
>
>But this seems to be an always increasing counter. I wonder now if dovecot
is even having a metric that shows the current client connections. Or should one
combine the two metrices client_connection_connected -
client_connection_finnished to get this value? It is not really clear from this
openmetrics page[1]
>
>I think it would be nice to have this example be something useful and long.
It is easier to remove some metrics from the example, than searching for events
fields etc creating your own.
>
>
>[1]
>https://doc.dovecot.org/configuration_manual/stats/openmetrics/
>
Point is to use some external tool for that. Dovecot provides counters.
Prometheus etc are good UI tools for this, and we have a simple cli tool too,
see https://github.com/dovecot/tools/blob/master/watch-stats.py

Aki

> >> >
> >>
> >> Thanks for pointing it out. It was indeed a documentation error as
> there
> >> is no such event. The page is now updated.
> >
> >I did not even know, I just picked the first one from the example to
> search for
> >
> >It should be on this page, because I do not see it there?
> >https://doc.dovecot.org/admin_manual/list_of_events/#list-of-events
> >
> >I wonder even if this is correct, because from the event name I would
> assume this metric is calculated when a client disconnects. When I use
> the example, I have 0 connections. When I change it to
> client_connection_connected I have 2 connections, which seems to better
> represent the current situation.
> >
> >metric client_connections {
> >  #filter = event=client_connection_connected
> >  filter = event=client_connection_finnished
> >}
> >
> >But this seems to be an always increasing counter. I wonder now if
> dovecot is even having a metric that shows the current client
> connections. Or should one combine the two metrices
> client_connection_connected - client_connection_finnished to get this
> value? It is not really clear from this openmetrics page[1]
> >
> >I think it would be nice to have this example be something useful and
> long. It is easier to remove some metrics from the example, than
> searching for events fields etc creating your own.
> >
> >
> >[1]
> >https://doc.dovecot.org/configuration_manual/stats/openmetrics/
> >
> 
> Point is to use some external tool for that. Dovecot provides counters.
> Prometheus etc are good UI tools for this, and we have a simple cli tool
> too, see https://github.com/dovecot/tools/blob/master/watch-stats.py
> 
Yes I have been using a grafana prometheus dashboard with some 'third
party' exporter for dovecot. But I prefer to use your metrics, because I can
define exactly the metrics that I want, and do not dump 70% data, that I am not
using any way (as with so many exporters).
Do you have a more 'production' ready dovecot metrics config and grafana
dashboard?