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Upcoming Changes to Plugins in Native Packages

· 6 min read
Austin S. Hemmelgarn

At Netdata, we’re committed to trying to make Netdata work as well as possible for our users. Sometimes though, that means changing things in ways that aren’t exactly seamless. Such a change is coming soon for users of our native DEB and RPM packages, and this blog post will explain what’s happening, why we’re doing it, and what it means for our users.

What’s changing?​

Starting shortly after the v1.39.0 release of the Netdata Agent, we will be splitting most of our external data collection plugins out to their own individual packages instead of bundling them all in the main netdata package. We already have this type of split for our CUPS and FreeIPMI plugins, and this new change will extend that to also provide separate packages for the following plugins:

  • The go.d plugin (in the new netdata-plugin-go package)
  • The python.d plugin (in the new netdata-plugin-python package)
  • The charts.d plugin (in the new netdata-plugin-chartsd package)
  • The slabinfo plugin (in the new netdata-plugin-slabinfo package)
  • The perf plugin (in the new netdata-plugin-perf package)
  • The nfacct plugin (in the new netdata-plugin-nfacct package)
  • The eBPF plugin (in the new netdata-plugin-ebpf and netdata-ebpf-legacy-code packages)
  • The apps plugin (in the new netdata-plugin-apps package)

All of these packages will be listed as optional dependencies for the main Netdata package, with the go.d, python.d, eBPF, and apps plugins being automatically installed by default on most standard configurations.

Why are we making this change?​

With our current approach to packaging Netdata, we actually ship a lot of code that most users never actually use.

For our users, this means that:

  • Netdata takes up more disk space than it really needs to. This usually does not matter much, but can still have an impact on systems where disk space is at a premium.
  • Updating Netdata takes longer and uses more bandwidth than it really needs to.
  • A lot of dependencies that are functionally optional at runtime get pulled in even though they are probably not needed.
  • Their system presents a larger attack surface than it would otherwise.

By splitting our external data collection plugins out to individual packages like this, we’re making it easier for users to ensure that they only have what they actually need on their system, helping to resolve all of the above-mentioned issues.

Additionally, this change will reduce the overhead of hosting our native package repositories, allowing us to dedicate more resources elsewhere.

What do I need to do?​

If you have an existing install of Netdata, you can check whether it is using our official native packages by running netdata -W buildinfo | grep 'Install type'. If the reported install type starts with binpkg-, then that install is using our native packages and is probably affected by this change. If you are not using our official native packages, you should be completely unaffected by this change.

You can check if you have the nfacct, slabinfo, perf, or charts.d plugins running using the following commands:

  • For the nfacct plugin: ps ax | grep -v grep | grep nfacct.plugin
  • For the slabinfo plugin: ps ax | grep -v grep | grep slabinfo.plugin
  • For the perf plugin: ps ax | grep -v grep | grep perf.plugin
  • For the charts.d plugin: ps ax | grep -v grep | grep charts.d.plugin

If the command produces no output, the plugin is not running. Note that just because a plugin is running does not nescesarily mean you are actually using that plugin. To confirm that you need to check the metrics collected by the agent, usually by looking at the agent dashboard.

If you are using our official DEB packages​

Existing installs​

Updating from a version from before this change will result in the external plugins being essentially removed from your system and needing to be manually installed if required.

This is a result of a limitation in how APT handles soft dependencies on updates (in particular, it simply doesn’t).

You can explicitly pull in the default set of external plugins in one of two ways:

  1. Explicitly uninstall and reinstall the netdata package. This will not work though if you have your system set to not install recommended packages by default. Uninstalling and reinstalling this way should not result in any loss of metrics data, though it may remove configuration files if you use apt purge to remove the package or have APT configured to automatically purge configuration files when a package is removed.

  2. Run the following:

    apt-cache depends netdata | \
    awk '/Recommends:/ {system("sudo apt-get install "$2"; sudo apt-mark auto "$2)}'

    That will look through the list of dependencies for Netdata and pull in any optional dependencies that would be installed by default, prompting for each individual package.

Additionally, if you need the nfacct, perf, or slabinfo plugins, or one of the collectors provided by the charts.d plugin, you will need to manually install the associated packages.

New installs​

Most new installs should be unaffected by this change. There are two exceptions:

  1. If you need the nfacct, perf, or slabinfo plugins, or one of the collectors provided by the charts.d plugin, you will need to manually install the associated packages.
  2. If you have your system configured to not install recommended packages by default, then you will need to manually install all the external plugin packages you require (or, alternatively, check the second option above for existing installs to pull in the default set).

If you are using our official RPM packages on most systems​

Existing installs​

Existing installs should be unaffected by this change unless you need the nfacct, perf, or slabinfo plugins, or one of the collectors provided by the charts.d plugin, in which case you will need to manually install the associated packages.

New installs​

New installs should be unaffected by this change unless you need the nfacct, perf, or slabinfo plugins, or one of the collectors provided by the charts.d plugin, in which case you will need to manually install the associated packages.

If you are using our official RPM packages on CentOS 7, RHEL 7, or equivalent systems​

Existing installs​

Updating from a version from before this change will result in the external plugins being essentially removed from your system and needing to be manually installed if required.

This is a result of a lack of support for weak dependencies in the version of RPM included on these systems, combined with technical limitations in our own CI that prevent us from providing packages that automatically handle this case.

New installs​

New installs should be unaffected by this change unless you need the nfacct, perf, or slabinfo plugins, or one of the collectors provided by the charts.d plugin, in which case you will need to manually install the associated packages.

Let us hear from you​

If you have concerns, ideas and/or requests regarding these changes, make sure to reach out to us through GitHub Discussions, the Forums or engage with the community in the Netdata Discord server.