feat(inputs.system): Add option to specify collected information by bilkoua · Pull Request #18533 · influxdata/telegraf

bilkoua · 2026-03-16T09:55:23Z

Summary

Add a collect option to the existing system input plugin, allowing users to selectively enable or disable metric groups.

Motivation

The system plugin currently always collects all metrics. Adding a collect option gives users control over which groups are gathered. When collect is omitted, the behaviour is identical to the previous version of the plugin.
The collect option is designed to be extensible - future metric groups can be added without changing the configuration interface.
By default both groups are enabled.

Checklist

No AI generated code was used in this PR
AI generated code used in this PR follows the InfluxData Policy on AI-Generated Code Contributions

telegraf-tiger · 2026-03-16T09:55:31Z

Thanks so much for the pull request!
🤝 ✒️ Just a reminder that the CLA has not yet been signed, and we'll need it before merging. Please sign the CLA when you get a chance, then post a comment here saying !signed-cla

bilkoua · 2026-03-16T09:58:39Z

!signed-cla

bilkoua · 2026-03-20T09:06:02Z

@skartikey @srebhan @mstrandboge Hi, could you take a look at this PR when you have a moment?

srebhan · 2026-03-20T11:16:39Z

First of all: Thank you for your nice contribution @bilkoua !

I like the basic idea and see this being helpful, however I feel like merging this into the system input plugin would make the features more discoverable.

What do you think @bilkoua?

bilkoua · 2026-03-21T12:12:54Z

@srebhan I actually had the same idea at first. But then I figured a smaller, separate plugin would be easier to get merged.
That said, your comment gave me more confidence in the original approach, so I went ahead and reworked it.
Also, thanks for your work on this — really appreciate it!

srebhan · 2026-03-23T15:33:53Z

Thanks for rebasing @bilkoua! As this PR is fairly large I suggest to cut it into more digestible pieces. My understanding is that this PR does

Guard existing metrics with user settings
Add metrics for the OS version (Linux only)
Add metrics for DMI information (Linux only)

So my idea would be to split this PR into the three steps above. I'm not really sure if we need step 1 as the metrics exist right now and they can easily be filtered using metric filtering options.

For 2: I suggest you take a look at the gopsutil library as this library can extract the required information in an OS independent way instead of "hand-coding" the stuff.

For 3: How about using the smbios library to read DMI information in an platform independent way (at least for most platforms we support)? This reduces the amount of code we need to maintain and we gain support of at least Linux, Windows and BSD variants...

bilkoua · 2026-03-23T19:24:07Z

@srebhan Thanks for the feedback - splitting the PR into smaller pieces makes sense, and I can restructure it accordingly.

Regarding point 1: my reasoning for guarding existing metrics with user settings is that metric filtering does not fully replace the ability to disable entire metric groups. As I understand it, when filters are used the metrics are still collected and resources are still spent gathering them, even if they are later filtered out and not exposed. With the proposed approach, the metrics would not be collected at all, which avoids unnecessary resource usage. This approach is also already used by several existing metric plugins such as kernel, conntrack, and fritzbox. That said, I’m fine following the preferred approach if you think filtering is sufficient.

For points 2 and 3, I agree that using existing libraries instead of implementing everything manually would make sense.

However, the go-smbios library appears to be largely unmaintained. From a quick look, the alternatives seem to be either relatively unknown forks, platform-specific implementations, or larger libraries such as ghw. The latter might be somewhat heavier than what we need, although it could make sense if we plan to expose additional hardware-related metrics in the future.

What are your thoughts on this?

srebhan · 2026-03-26T09:56:49Z

@bilkoua regarding filtering. Yes some plugins allow to enable feature sets but you seem to go down to a per-field level. From a resource-usage standpoint your approach might make sense, even though here the "cost" for the extra data is really low, but from a maintenance standpoint it is horrible to allow users to specify collection on a per-field basis.

So how about having load and uptime as an option for the two existing metrics and add a os and a hardware/dmi option for your new metrics? Maybe name the new metrics accordingly i.e. system_os and system_dmi?

Regarding usage of libraries, I'm not bound to a particular library, my only criterion is that is should be maintained if necessary (some "old" libraries are maintained but only rarely have issues...). However, using a library is highly encouraged!

bilkoua · 2026-04-03T19:48:08Z

@srebhan Apologies for the delay - didn't have much time to get back to this sooner.

I've reworked the PR based on your suggestions:

What changed in this revision:

Simplified the collect option to two groups: load (gauge metrics: load averages, cpu counts, user counts) and uptime (uptime counter + uptime_format). This avoids per-field granularity as you suggested.
Removed all Linux-specific code (os-release, DMI, uname) from this PR.
Fixed a pre-existing nil-pointer dereference when load.Avg() returns "not implemented".

Plan for follow-up PRs:

os group - OS release and uname info, using gopsutil for cross-platform support.
hardware group - DMI/SMBIOS data, using a maintained library for cross-platform support.

Each will add a new value to the same collect option, so the configuration interface stays consistent.

Hipska

I like the idea, however, I feel like there is too much added in the load group.

bilkoua · 2026-04-07T13:03:38Z

@Hipska Initially, the existing metrics were split into groups: load, users, n_cpus, and uptime.
However, @srebhan pointed out that having that many groups wasn’t ideal, so I regrouped them as suggested here.

It’s possible I didn’t fully understand the original idea, but I’m happy to adjust the implementation however we agree. The main thing is to reach a clear consensus on the structure.

Hipska · 2026-04-07T13:33:25Z

As I read the comment you're pointing at, it looks like the suggestion is to have these 4 groups: load, uptime, os and a hardware/dmi. It even suggests to have the last 2 options as a separate metric, so not including them in the already existing system metric. I don't see that reflected in the code yet.

Edit: Looking at the existing code, it doesn't look like you are adding any new fields, so I would not change metric name for existing ones for backward compatibility.

srebhan

Thanks for the update @bilkoua! The code looks a lot better now. However, I do have some additional comments...

bilkoua · 2026-04-27T14:23:31Z

@srebhan Thanks for the review!
Could you take another look?

Hipska

Looks very good! One small remark regarding the tests.

Hipska · 2026-04-28T08:42:43Z

+		s := &System{Include: include, Log: &testutil.Logger{}}
+		require.NoError(t, s.Init())


Use t.Run when looping over tests

I agree, that would be better to avoid side effects between the tests.

srebhan

Thanks @bilkoua! Almost there, just some minor issues left...

srebhan · 2026-04-28T14:06:02Z

+		s := &System{Include: include, Log: &testutil.Logger{}}
+		require.NoError(t, s.Init())


I agree, that would be better to avoid side effects between the tests.

Co-authored-by: Sven Rebhan <36194019+srebhan@users.noreply.github.com>

srebhan

Thanks a lot @bilkoua!

skartikey

@bilkoua Thanks for the work on this! I have a few concerns before this can land.

telegraf-tiger · 2026-04-30T10:56:48Z

Download PR build artifacts for linux_amd64.tar.gz, darwin_arm64.tar.gz, and windows_amd64.zip.
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☺️ This pull request doesn't significantly change the Telegraf binary size (less than 1%)

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. DEB	. RPM	. TAR . GZ	. ZIP
amd64.deb	aarch64.rpm	darwin_amd64.tar.gz	windows_amd64.zip
arm64.deb	armel.rpm	darwin_arm64.tar.gz	windows_arm64.zip
armel.deb	armv6hl.rpm	freebsd_amd64.tar.gz	windows_i386.zip
armhf.deb	i386.rpm	freebsd_armv7.tar.gz
i386.deb	ppc64le.rpm	freebsd_i386.tar.gz
mips.deb	riscv64.rpm	linux_amd64.tar.gz
mipsel.deb	s390x.rpm	linux_arm64.tar.gz
ppc64el.deb	x86_64.rpm	linux_armel.tar.gz
riscv64.deb		linux_armhf.tar.gz
s390x.deb		linux_i386.tar.gz
		linux_mips.tar.gz
		linux_mipsel.tar.gz
		linux_ppc64le.tar.gz
		linux_riscv64.tar.gz
		linux_s390x.tar.gz

skartikey

@bilkoua Thanks for the contribution!

bilkoua and others added 3 commits March 16, 2026 11:47

init inputs.node_info plugin

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readme

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Merge branch 'influxdata:master' into master

c1b8b5d

bilkoua changed the title ~~Add inputs.node_info plugin~~ feat(inputs.node_info): add node_info plugin Mar 16, 2026

telegraf-tiger Bot added feat Improvement on an existing feature such as adding a new setting/mode to an existing plugin plugin/input 1. Request for new input plugins 2. Issues/PRs that are related to input plugins labels Mar 16, 2026

bilkoua and others added 3 commits March 16, 2026 13:11

fix

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fix broken configHandlingFlags

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Merge branch 'master' into master

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srebhan self-assigned this Mar 20, 2026

move to system

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bilkoua changed the title ~~feat(inputs.node_info): add node_info plugin~~ feat(inputs.system): add collect option and node-identity metrics Mar 21, 2026

telegraf-tiger Bot added the area/system label Mar 21, 2026

bilkoua added 3 commits March 21, 2026 13:05

fix linter

b399363

nolint:unused for non-Linux

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fix linter

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bilkoua changed the title ~~feat(inputs.system): add collect option and node-identity metrics~~ feat(inputs.system): add collect option Apr 3, 2026

1 step

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Hipska reviewed Apr 7, 2026

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Comment thread plugins/inputs/system/system.go Outdated

Comment thread plugins/inputs/system/system.go Outdated

Comment thread plugins/inputs/system/README.md Outdated

bilkoua force-pushed the master branch from 858b2e3 to 5a762b8 Compare April 23, 2026 13:55

srebhan reviewed Apr 27, 2026

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bilkoua force-pushed the master branch 3 times, most recently from 929d7b2 to b161aed Compare April 27, 2026 13:36

feat(inputs.system): add include option for selective metric collection

27b75e9

bilkoua force-pushed the master branch from b161aed to 27b75e9 Compare April 27, 2026 13:49

Hipska reviewed Apr 28, 2026

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srebhan reviewed Apr 28, 2026

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bilkoua and others added 2 commits April 29, 2026 14:41

Update plugins/inputs/system/sample.conf

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Co-authored-by: Sven Rebhan <36194019+srebhan@users.noreply.github.com>

Update plugins/inputs/system/system.go

f9c7aa7

Co-authored-by: Sven Rebhan <36194019+srebhan@users.noreply.github.com>

bilkoua force-pushed the master branch from 85f4475 to bd82d8c Compare April 29, 2026 11:55

srebhan changed the title ~~feat(inputs.system): add collect option~~ feat(inputs.system): Add option to specify collected information Apr 29, 2026

srebhan approved these changes Apr 29, 2026

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srebhan added the ready for final review This pull request has been reviewed and/or tested by multiple users and is ready for a final review. label Apr 29, 2026

srebhan assigned skartikey and unassigned srebhan Apr 29, 2026

skartikey reviewed Apr 29, 2026

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Comment thread plugins/inputs/system/system.go Outdated

Comment thread plugins/inputs/system/system.go Outdated

Comment thread plugins/inputs/system/README.md Outdated

Merge branch 'influxdata:master' into master

3594b6e

bilkoua force-pushed the master branch from bd82d8c to 3594b6e Compare April 30, 2026 10:34

Hipska approved these changes Apr 30, 2026

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skartikey approved these changes Apr 30, 2026

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skartikey merged commit 471c840 into influxdata:master Apr 30, 2026
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github-actions Bot added this to the v1.39.0 milestone Apr 30, 2026

This was referenced May 4, 2026

feat(inputs.system): Add operating-system information #18834

Merged

feat(inputs.system): Add hardware information #18868

Merged

skartikey mentioned this pull request May 13, 2026

fix(inputs.system): Demote missing utmp debug log to trace #18911

Open

2 tasks

Daryes mentioned this pull request May 15, 2026

[inputs.system] new uptime metric with wrong type, renamed cpu metrics and other #18919

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		s := &System{Include: include, Log: &testutil.Logger{}}
		require.NoError(t, s.Init())

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Summary

Motivation

Checklist

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