Update readme (#4605)
* updated readme * updated readme * updated readme * updated readme * updated readme * updated readme * updated readme * updated readme * updated readme
Costa Tsaousis committed
Nov 11, 2018 at 18:17 UTC
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README.md
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-# netdata [](https://travis-ci.com/netdata/netdata) [](https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/projects/2231) [](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0) [](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Netdata,%20real-time%20performance%20and%20health%20monitoring,%20done%20right!&url=https://my-netdata.io/&via=linuxnetdata&hashtags=netdata,monitoring) []()
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+# netdata [](https://travis-ci.com/netdata/netdata) [](https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/projects/2231) [](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0) []()
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[](https://codeclimate.com/github/netdata/netdata) [](https://www.codacy.com/app/netdata/netdata?utm_source=github.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=netdata/netdata&utm_campaign=Badge_Grade) [](https://lgtm.com/projects/g/netdata/netdata/context:cpp) [](https://lgtm.com/projects/g/netdata/netdata/context:javascript) [](https://lgtm.com/projects/g/netdata/netdata/context:python)
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Netdata is **free, open-source software** and it currently runs on **Linux**, **FreeBSD**, and **MacOS**.
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-## Warning!
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+---
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People get **addicted to netdata**.<br/>
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Once you use it on your systems, **there is no going back**! *You have been warned...*
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+[](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Netdata,%20real-time%20performance%20and%20health%20monitoring,%20done%20right!&url=https://my-netdata.io/&via=linuxnetdata&hashtags=netdata,monitoring)
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## Contents
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1. [How it looks](#how-it-looks) - have a quick look at it
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7. [Features](#features) - what features does it have
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8. [Visualization](#visualization) - unique visualization features
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9. [What does it monitor](#what-does-it-monitor) - which metrics it collects
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-10. [Installation](#installation) - install it on all your systems
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-11. [Documentation](#documentation) - read the docs
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-12. [Community](#community) - disucss with others and get support
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-13. [License](#license) - check the license of netdata
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+10. [Documentation](#documentation) - read the docs
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+11. [Community](#community) - disucss with others and get support
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+12. [License](#license) - check the license of netdata
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## How it looks
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- a **time-series database** - all stored in memory (does not touch the disks while it runs)
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- a **metrics visualizer** - super fast, interactive, modern, optimized for anomaly detection
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- an **alarms notification engine** - an advanced watchdog for detecting performance and availability issues
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-All the above, packaged together in a very flexible, extremely modular, distributed application.
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+All the above, are packaged together in a very flexible, extremely modular, distributed application.
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This is how netdata compares to other monitoring solutions:
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It has been designed by **SysAdmins**, **DevOps** and **Developers** for troubleshooting performance problems,
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not just visualize metrics.
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+### Simplicity
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+> Most monitoring solutions require endless configuration of whatever imaginable.
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+Well... this is a linux box. Why do we need to configure every single metric we need to monitor.
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+Of course it has a CPU and RAM and a few disks, and ethernet ports, it may run a firewall, a web server, or a database server and so on.
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+Why do we need to configure all these metrics?
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+Netdata metrics collection is designed to support **configuration-less** operation. So, you just install and run netdata.
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+You will need to configure something only if it cannot be auto-detected.
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+Of course you can enable, tweak or disable things.
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+But by default, if netdata can connect to a web server you run on your systems, it will automatically
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+collect all performance metrics. This happens for all data collection plugins when technically possible.
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+It will also automatically collect all available system values for CPU, memory, disks, network interfaces,
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+QoS (with labels if you also use [FireQOS](http://firehol.org/)), etc.
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+Even for processes that do not offer performance metrics, it will automatically group the whole process
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+tree and provide metrics like CPU usage, memory allocated, opened files, sockets, disk activity, swap
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+activity, etc per application group.
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+### Performance monitoring
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+According to reports, performance issues are 10x more common compared to outages.
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+> Take any performance monitoring solution and try to troubleshoot a performance problem.
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+> At the end of the day you will have to `ssh` to the server(s) to understand what exactly is happening.
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+> You will have to use `iostat`, `iotop`, `vmstat`, `top`, `ethtool` and probably a few dozen more console tools to figure
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+> out the problem.
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+With netdata, this need is eliminated significantly. Of course you will ssh. Just not for monitoring performance.
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+One key parameter to effectively troubleshoot performance issues, is that the root cause is most probably unknown.
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+If you were aware of the element that affected performance, most probably you would have fixed it already.
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+The approach of most monitoring solutions (including commercial SaaS providers) that instruct their users and customers
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+to collect only the metrics they understand, is contradictory to the nature of performance monitoring. If we knew the metrics
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+before hand, most probably we would have a lot less performance issues.
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+So, Netdata collects everything. The more metrics collected, the more insights we will have when we need them.
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+Netdata is better than most console tools. Netdata visualizes the data, while the console tools just show their values.
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+The detail is the same. Actually, netdata is more precise than most console tools,
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+it will interpolate all collected values to second boundary, so that even if something took a few microseconds more to be
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+collected, netdata will correctly estimate the per second rate.
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+### Realtime monitoring
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+> Any performance monitoring solution that does not go down to per second collection and visualization of the data,
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+> is useless. It will make you happy to have it, but it will not help you more than that.
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+Visualizing the present in **real-time and in great detail**, is the most important value a performance monitoring
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+solution should provide. The next most important is the last hour, again per second. The next is the last 8 hours
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+and so on, up to a week. In my 20+ years in IT, I needed just once or twice to look a year back. And this was mainly
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+out of curiosity.
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+Of course, real-time monitoring requires resources. So netdata is extremely optimized to be very efficient:
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+- collecting performance data is a repeating process - you do the same thing again and again.
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+ Netdata has been designed to learn from each iteration, so that the next one will be faster.
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+ It learns the sizes of files (it even keeps them open when it can), the number of lines and
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+ words per line they contain, the sizes of the buffers it needs to process them, etc.
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+ It adapts, so that everything will be as ready as possible for the next iteration.
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+- internally, it uses hashes and indexes (b-trees), to speed up lookups of metrics, charts, dimensions, settings.
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+- it has an in-memory round robin database based on a custom floating point number that allows it to pack values
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+ and flags together, in 32 bits, to lower its memory footprint.
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+- its internal web server is capable of generating JSON responses from live performance data with speeds comparable
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+ to static content delivery (it does not use printf, it is actually 11 times faster than in generating JSON compared
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+ to printf).
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+Netdata will use some CPU and memory, but it will not produce any disk I/O at all, apart its logs (which you can disable if you like).
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## Quick Start
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You can quickly install netdata on a Linux box (physical, virtual, container, IoT) with the following command:
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- **SNMP** - SNMP devices can be monitored too (although you will need to configure these).
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- **port_check** - checks TCP ports for availability and response time.
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- **IPVS** - collects metrics from the Linux IPVS load balancer.
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+- **LibreSwan** - collects metrics per IPSEC tunnel.
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#### Processes
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- **System Processes** - running, blocked, forks, active.
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And you can extend it, by writing plugins that collect data from any source, using any computer language.
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-## Installation
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-Use our **[automatic installer](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/wiki/Installation)** to build and install it on your system.
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-It should run on **any Linux** system (including IoT). It has been tested on:
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-- Alpine
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-- Arch Linux
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-- CentOS
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-- Debian
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-- Fedora
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-- Gentoo
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-- openSUSE
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-- PLD Linux
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-- RedHat Enterprise Linux
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-- SUSE
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-- Ubuntu
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## Documentation