IPMI Sensor and Splunk Integration

Input and output integration overview

The IPMI Sensor Plugin facilitates the collection of server health metrics directly from hardware via the IPMI protocol, querying sensor data from either local or remote systems.

This output plugin facilitates direct streaming of Telegraf collected metrics into Splunk via the HTTP Event Collector, enabling easy integration with Splunk’s powerful analytics platform.

Integration details

IPMI Sensor

The IPMI Sensor plugin is designed to gather bare metal metrics via the command line utility ipmitool, which interfaces with the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI). This protocol provides management and monitoring capabilities for hardware components in server systems, allowing for the retrieval of critical system health metrics such as temperature, fan speeds, and power supply status from both local and remote servers. When configured without specified servers, the plugin defaults to querying the local machine’s sensor statistics using the ipmitool sdr command. In scenarios covering remote hosts, authentication is supported through username and password using the command format ipmitool -I lan -H SERVER -U USERID -P PASSW0RD sdr. This flexibility allows users to monitor systems effectively across various environments. The plugin also supports multiple sensor types, including chassis power status and DCMI power readings, catering to administrators needing real-time insight into server operations.

Splunk

Use Telegraf to easily collect and aggregate metrics from many different sources and send them to Splunk. Utilizing the HTTP output plugin combined with the specialized Splunk metrics serializer, this configuration ensures efficient data ingestion into Splunk’s metrics indexes. The HEC is an advanced mechanism provided by Splunk designed to reliably collect data at scale via HTTP or HTTPS, providing critical capabilities for security, monitoring, and analytics workloads. Telegraf’s integration with Splunk HEC streamlines operations by leveraging standard HTTP protocols, built-in authentication, and structured data serialization, optimizing metrics ingestion and enabling immediate actionable insights.

Configuration

IPMI Sensor

[[inputs.ipmi_sensor]]
  ## Specify the path to the ipmitool executable
  # path = "/usr/bin/ipmitool"

  ## Use sudo
  ## Setting 'use_sudo' to true will make use of sudo to run ipmitool.
  ## Sudo must be configured to allow the telegraf user to run ipmitool
  ## without a password.
  # use_sudo = false

  ## Servers
  ## Specify one or more servers via a url. If no servers are specified, local
  ## machine sensor stats will be queried. Uses the format:
  ##  [username[:password]@][protocol[(address)]]
  ##  e.g. root:passwd@lan(127.0.0.1)
  # servers = ["USERID:PASSW0RD@lan(192.168.1.1)"]

  ## Session privilege level
  ## Choose from: CALLBACK, USER, OPERATOR, ADMINISTRATOR
  # privilege = "ADMINISTRATOR"

  ## Timeout
  ## Timeout for the ipmitool command to complete.
  # timeout = "20s"

  ## Metric schema version
  ## See the plugin readme for more information on schema versioning.
  # metric_version = 1

  ## Sensors to collect
  ## Choose from:
  ##   * sdr: default, collects sensor data records
  ##   * chassis_power_status: collects the power status of the chassis
  ##   * dcmi_power_reading: collects the power readings from the Data Center Management Interface
  # sensors = ["sdr"]

  ## Hex key
  ## Optionally provide the hex key for the IMPI connection.
  # hex_key = ""

  ## Cache
  ## If ipmitool should use a cache
  ## Using a cache can speed up collection times depending on your device.
  # use_cache = false

  ## Path to the ipmitools cache file (defaults to OS temp dir)
  ## The provided path must exist and must be writable
  # cache_path = ""

Splunk

[[outputs.http]]
  ## Splunk HTTP Event Collector endpoint
  url = "https://splunk.example.com:8088/services/collector"

  ## HTTP method to use
  method = "POST"

  ## Splunk authentication token
  headers = {"Authorization" = "Splunk YOUR_SPLUNK_HEC_TOKEN"}

  ## Serializer for formatting metrics specifically for Splunk
  data_format = "splunkmetric"

  ## Optional parameters
  # timeout = "5s"
  # insecure_skip_verify = false
  # tls_ca = "/path/to/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/path/to/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/path/to/key.pem"

Input and output integration examples

IPMI Sensor

1. Centralized Monitoring Dashboard: Utilize the IPMI Sensor plugin to gather metrics from multiple servers and compile them into a centralized monitoring dashboard. This enables real-time visibility into server health across data centers. Administrators can track metrics like temperature and power usage, helping them make data-driven decisions about resource allocation, potential failures, and maintenance schedules.

2. Automated Power Alerts: Incorporate the plugin into an alerting system that monitors chassis power status and triggers alerts when anomalies are detected. For instance, if the power status indicates a failure or if watt values exceed expected thresholds, automated notifications can be sent to operations teams, ensuring prompt attention to hardware issues.

3. Energy Consumption Analysis: Leverage the DCMI power readings collected via the plugin to analyze energy consumption patterns of hardware over time. By integrating these readings with analytics platforms, organizations can identify opportunities to reduce power usage, optimize efficiency, and potentially decrease operational costs in large server farms or cloud infrastructures.

4. Health Check Automation: Schedule regular health checks by using the IPMI Sensor Plugin to collect data from a fleet of servers. This data can be logged and compared against historical performance metrics to identify trends, outliers, or signs of impending hardware failure, allowing IT teams to take proactive measures and reduce downtime.

Splunk

1. Real-Time Security Analytics: Utilize this plugin to stream security-related metrics from various applications into Splunk in real-time. Organizations can detect threats instantly by correlating data streams across systems, significantly reducing detection and response times.

2. Multi-Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring: Integrate Telegraf to consolidate metrics from multi-cloud environments directly into Splunk, enabling comprehensive visibility and operational intelligence. This unified monitoring allows teams to detect performance issues quickly and streamline cloud resource management.

3. Dynamic Capacity Planning: Deploy the plugin to continuously push resource metrics from container orchestration platforms (like Kubernetes) into Splunk. Leveraging Splunk’s analytics capabilities, teams can automate predictive scaling and resource allocation, avoiding resource bottlenecks and minimizing costs.

4. Automated Incident Response Workflows: Combine this plugin with Splunk’s alerting system to create automated incident response workflows. Metrics collected by Telegraf trigger real-time alerts and automated remediation scripts, ensuring rapid resolution and maintaining high system availability.

Feedback

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