NGINX exporter metrics

The NGINX exporter metrics input plugin scrapes metrics from the NGINX stub status handler.

Metrics collected with NGINX Exporter Metrics flow through a separate pipeline from logs, and current filters don't operate on top of metrics.

Configuration parameters

The plugin supports the following configuration parameters:

Key	Description	Default
host	Name of the target host or IP address.	localhost
nginx_plus	Turn on NGINX Plus mode.	true
port	Port of the target NGINX service to connect to.	80
scrape_interval	The interval to scrape metrics from the NGINX service.	5s
status_url	The URL of the stub status handler.	/status
threaded	Indicates whether to run this input in its own thread.	false

TLS / SSL

The NGINX exporter metrics input plugin supports TLS/SSL. For more details about the properties available and general configuration, refer to Transport Security.

Get started

NGINX must be configured with a location that invokes the stub status handler. The following is an example configuration with such a location:

server {
  listen       80;
  listen  [::]:80;
  server_name  localhost;
  location / {
    root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
    index  index.html index.htm;
  }
  # Configure the stub status handler.
  location /status {
    stub_status;
  }
}

Configuration with NGINX Plus REST API

Another metrics API is available with NGINX Plus. You must first configure a path in NGINX Plus.

server {
  listen       80;
  listen  [::]:80;
  server_name  localhost;

  # Enable /api/ location with appropriate access control in order
  # to make use of NGINX Plus API.
  location /api/ {
    api write=on;
    # Configure to allow requests from the server running Fluent Bit.
    allow 192.168.1.*;
    deny all;
  }
}

Command line

From the command line you can let Fluent Bit generate the checks with the following options:

fluent-bit -i nginx_metrics -p host=127.0.0.1 -p port=80 -p status_url=/status -p nginx_plus=off -o stdout

To gather metrics from the command line with the NGINX Plus REST API, turn on the nginx_plus property:

fluent-bit -i nginx_metrics -p host=127.0.0.1 -p port=80 -p nginx_plus=on -p status_url=/api -o stdout

Configuration file

In your main configuration file append the following:

fluent-bit.yaml

pipeline:
  inputs:
    - name: nginx_metrics
      host: 127.0.0.1
      port: 80
      status_url: /status
      nginx_plus: off
      scrape_interval: 5s

  outputs:
    - name: stdout
      match: '*'

fluent-bit.conf

And for NGINX Plus API:

fluent-bit.yaml

pipeline:
  inputs:
    - name: nginx_metrics
      host: 127.0.0.1
      port: 80
      status_url: /api
      nginx_plus: on
      scrape_interval: 5s

  outputs:
    - name: stdout
      match: '*'

fluent-bit.conf

Test your configuration

You can test against the NGINX server running on localhost by invoking it directly from the command line:

fluent-bit -i nginx_metrics -p host=127.0.0.1 -p nginx_plus=off -o stdout -p match=* -f 1

This returns output similar to the following:

...
2021-10-14T19:37:37.228691854Z nginx_connections_accepted = 788253884
2021-10-14T19:37:37.228691854Z nginx_connections_handled = 788253884
2021-10-14T19:37:37.228691854Z nginx_http_requests_total = 42045501
2021-10-14T19:37:37.228691854Z nginx_connections_active = 2009
2021-10-14T19:37:37.228691854Z nginx_connections_reading = 0
2021-10-14T19:37:37.228691854Z nginx_connections_writing = 1
2021-10-14T19:37:37.228691854Z nginx_connections_waiting = 2008
2021-10-14T19:37:35.229919621Z nginx_up = 1
...

Exported metrics

For a list of available metrics, see the NGINX Prometheus Exporter metrics documentation on GitHub.