Linux Sensors (lm-sensors)

Plugin: go.d.plugin Module: sensors

Overview

This collector gathers real-time system sensor statistics, including temperature, voltage, current, power, fan speed, energy consumption, and humidity, utilizing the sensors binary.

This collector is supported on all platforms.

This collector only supports collecting metrics from a single instance of this integration.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

The following type of sensors are auto-detected:

temperature
fan
voltage
current
power
energy
humidity

Limits

The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.

Performance Impact

The default configuration for this integration is not expected to impose a significant performance impact on the system.

Setup

Prerequisites

Install lm-sensors

Install lm-sensors using your distribution’s package manager.
Run sensors-detect to detect hardware monitoring chips.

Configuration

File

The configuration file name for this integration is go.d/sensors.conf.

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config go.d/sensors.conf

Options

The following options can be defined globally: update_every.

Name	Description	Default	Required
update_every	Data collection frequency.	10	no
binary_path	Path to the `sensors` binary. If an absolute path is provided, the collector will use it directly; otherwise, it will search for the binary in directories specified in the PATH environment variable.	/usr/bin/sensors	yes
timeout	Timeout for executing the binary, specified in seconds.	2	no

Examples

Custom binary path

The executable is not in the directories specified in the PATH environment variable.

jobs:
  - name: sensors
    binary_path: /usr/local/sbin/sensors

Metrics

Metrics grouped by scope.

The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.

Per sensor

These metrics refer to the sensor.

Labels:

Label	Description
chip	The hardware component responsible for the sensor monitoring.
feature	The specific sensor or monitoring point provided by the chip.

Metrics:

Metric	Dimensions	Unit
sensors.sensor_temperature	temperature	Celsius
sensors.sensor_voltage	voltage	Volts
sensors.sensor_current	current	Amperes
sensors.sensor_power	power	Watts
sensors.sensor_fan_speed	fan	RPM
sensors.sensor_energy	energy	Joules
sensors.sensor_humidity	humidity	percent

Alerts

There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.

Troubleshooting

Debug Mode

To troubleshoot issues with the sensors collector, run the go.d.plugin with the debug option enabled. The output should give you clues as to why the collector isn’t working.

Navigate to the plugins.d directory, usually at /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that’s not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the plugins setting under [directories].
```
cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/
```
Switch to the netdata user.
```
sudo -u netdata -s
```
Run the go.d.plugin to debug the collector:
```
./go.d.plugin -d -m sensors
```

Getting Logs

If you’re encountering problems with the sensors collector, follow these steps to retrieve logs and identify potential issues:

Run the command specific to your system (systemd, non-systemd, or Docker container).
Examine the output for any warnings or error messages that might indicate issues. These messages should provide clues about the root cause of the problem.

System with systemd

Use the following command to view logs generated since the last Netdata service restart:

journalctl _SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID="$(systemctl show --value --property=InvocationID netdata)" --namespace=netdata --grep sensors

System without systemd

Locate the collector log file, typically at /var/log/netdata/collector.log, and use grep to filter for collector’s name:

grep sensors /var/log/netdata/collector.log

Note: This method shows logs from all restarts. Focus on the latest entries for troubleshooting current issues.

Docker Container

If your Netdata runs in a Docker container named “netdata” (replace if different), use this command:

docker logs netdata 2>&1 | grep sensors

Industry

Technology

Use cases