Plugin.json reference¶

Metadata¶

Each plugin has the following properties:

If both technologies and processTypeNames/processType fields are set they all must match for a plugin to activate. Technologies can viewed on Technology overview page:

The preffered way of using Metric Group is adding prefix "tech" before your metric group definition. For example "tech.elasticsearch". Thanks to this other users will be able to find additional metrics alnogside with others in contex of technology like in this example on Custom Charts page:

MetricGroup field can be also used to create completely new entry. Note that you can use dots to create subgroups, like here in example "My_Metrics.plugins":

However, setting metricGroup field it is not needed for already exisiting and running plugins without it. In this case metricGroup will be set to be the same as plugin name automatically not to break continuity of your data.

Source section:

If activation_name_pattern is defined the pattern has to match Process Group name to activate plugin. Process Group Names is visible on Technology overview page:

Metrics¶

This part of the JSON defines which metrics are collected by the plugin. Each metric is defined by JSON in a format similar to the following:

{
        "metrics": [
                {
                        "entity": "PROCESS_GROUP_INSTANCE",
                        "timeseries": {
                                "key": "idx_tup_fetch",
                                "unit": "PerSecond",
                                "aggregation": "avg",
                                "dimensions": ["database"],
                                "displayname":"Fetch"
                        },
                        "source": {
                                "query": "db_stats['objects']"
                        }
                }
        ]
}

This part specifies the metadata of a metric:

Specification for metric timeseries is defined using following fields:

Available units: NanoSecond, MicroSecond, MilliSecond, Second, Byte, KiloByte, MegaByte, BytePerSecond, BytePerMinute, KiloBytePerSecond, KiloBytePerMinute, MegaBytePerSecond, MegaBytePerMinute, Ratio, Percent, Promille, Count, PerSecond, PerMinute

Metrics alerts¶

This part of the JSON defines metrics alerts generated by Dynatrace Cluster Node. It is possible to define several alert settings per timeseries that is produced by the plugin.

This part specifies the metadata of metric alerts:

An example is shown below:

{
        "timeseries":
        {
                "key":"TimeInGC",
                "unit":"Percent",
                "displayname":".NET GC time",
                "dimensions":["rx_pid"]
        },
        "alert_settings": [
                {
                        "alert_id": "custom_gc_alert_high",
                        "event_type": "PERFORMANCE_EVENT",
                        "event_name": "High GC time",
                        "description": "The {metricname} of {severity} is {alert_condition} the threshold of {threshold}",
                        "threshold": 35.0,
                        "alert_condition": "ABOVE",
                        "samples":5,
                        "violating_samples":3,
                        "dealerting_samples":5
                }
        ],
}

In this case alert will be raised if 3 out of 5 samples will be above 35%. Alert will be deactivated if 5 samples in the row will be below 35%.

Visualization¶

This part of the JSON defines how metrics are charted on each Process page. It contains an optional charts section and an optional keycharts section. Each section has the same format and looks like this:

{
        "ui" :
        {
                "keymetrics" : [
                        {
                        "key" : "requestCount",
                        "aggregation" : "avg",
                        "mergeaggregation" : "sum",
                        "displayname" : "Requests"
                        }
                ],
                "keycharts" : [ ],
                "charts": [ ]
        }
}

The keymetrics section is completely optional and allows you to define up to two metrics that should be part of the Process infographic. It has the following attributes.

Here is an example of a keymetric in web UI:

Each chart and keychart sections have the same format and look like this:

{
    "group": "Section Name",
    "title": "Chart Name",
    "series": [
     {
            "key": "MetricName",
            "aggregation": "avg",
            "displayname": "Display name for metric",
            "seriestype": "area"
     },
     {
            "key": "Other Metric Name",
            "aggregation": "avg",
            "displayname": "Display name for metric",
            "color": "rgba(42, 182, 244, 0.6)",
            "seriestype": "area"
     }
    ]
}

The charts section describes how to chart each metric in the details section of the process page (available by clicking Further details).

Both sections allow an array of charts to be defined. A chart has the following required attributes:

A series has the following attributes:

Keycharts are visible on each Process page. They look like this:

Other charts are available after drilling down into the Further details section of each Process page.

Plugin configuration¶

The plugin configuration section controls the plugin appearance in web UI at Settings > Monitored technologies and its configuration, for example: user name, password, connection string, etc. The configUI section defines the configuration fields that are displayed in the UI. The properties section defines the configuration properties that are sent to the plugin.

The following sample shows how to define a plugin configuration:

{
        "configUI" :{
                "displayName": "HAProxy",
                "properties" : [
                        { "key" : "url", "displayName": "URL", "displayOrder": 3, "displayHint": "http://localhost:8080/haproxy-statistics" },
                        { "key" : "auth_user", "displayName": "User", "displayOrder": 1 },
                        { "key" : "auth_password", "displayName": "Password", "displayOrder": 2 }
                ]
         }
}

The ConfigUI section has the following attributes:

If plugin configuration is required, the properties corresponding to the configuration UI must be defined. These properties carry the configuration values set in the UI for the plugin. Please refer to Providing configuration for further details regarding how to handle the configuration in plugin code.

Each property is defined by JSON in a format similar to the following:

{
        "properties" : [
                 {
                          "key" : "url",
                          "type" :  "String",
                          "defaultValue" : "https://localhost/haproxy_stats_ssl"
                 },
                 {
                          "key" : "auth_user",
                          "type" :  "String",
                 },
                 {
                          "key" : "auth_password",
                          "type" :  "Password",
                          "defaultValue" : "password"
                 }
          ]
}

The properties section has the following attributes: