HAProxy Monitoring

HAProxy Monitoring Opspack

HAProxy is an open-source tool offering high availability, load balancing, and proxying for TCP and HTTP-based applications. Well-suited for high traffic websites, HAProxy has become the industry standard open-source load balancer and is often shipped with most mainstream Linux distributions as well as commonly deployed by default in cloud platforms.

Its mode of operation makes integration into existing architectures quite simple and keeps security in mind, ensuring that valuable web servers with private information are not exposed.

What You Can Monitor

This Opspack allows you to monitor all the metrics you need to efficiently run a HAProxy Server, providing HAProxy monitoring service checks for connections, requests, responses and sessions, as well as the number of ingoing and outgoing bytes.

Host Template

The following Host Template is currently provided by this Opspack.

Host Template	Description
Application - Haproxy	Monitor an HAProxy Server

Service Checks

Service Check Name	Description	Default Thresholds (Warning, Critical)	UOM
Haproxy - Bytes	Checks the bytes in and bytes out.	Bytes_In=1000000,2000000 Bytes_Out=1000000,2000000	B
Haproxy - Connect Time	The time in ms for a session to connect.	Connect_Time=1000,2000	ms
Haproxy - Currrent Queue	The current number in the queue.	Current_Queue=200,300	count
Haproxy - Denied Connection	HAProxy 1.7 only The number of denied connections made to the system.	Denied_Connection=10,15	count
Haproxy - Denied Requests	The number of denied requests made to the system.	Denied_Request=10,15	count
Haproxy - Denied Response	The number of denied responses made to the system.	Denied_Response=10,15	count
Haproxy - Denied Sessions	HAProxy 1.7 only The number of denied sessions made to the system.	Denied_Response=10,15	count
Haproxy - Error Connections	The number of error connections.	Error_Connection=10,15	count
Haproxy - Error Requests	The number of error requests.	Error_Request=10,15	count
Haproxy - Error Response	The number of error responses.	Error_Response=10,15	count
Haproxy - Intercepted Requests	HAProxy 1.7 only The number of intercepted requests.	Intercepted_Requests=900,1000	count
Haproxy - Queue Time	The time in ms of the queue session.	Queue_Time=1000,2000	ms
Haproxy - Request Rate	The number of requests per second.	Request_Rate=1000,2000	count/s
Haproxy - Request Time	The time in ms of the session request.	Request_Time=1000,2000	ms
Haproxy - Response Codes	The number of code responses of each type.	Code_4xx=300,450 Code_5xx=300,450 Code_Other=300,450	count
Haproxy - Session Rate	The number of sessions per second.	Session_Rate=1000,2000	count/s
Haproxy - Sessions Used	The percentage of used sessions.	Sessions_Used=70,90	%
Haproxy - Status	Checks the status of the proxy.	N/A	N/A
Haproxy - Warnings Redispatched	The number of redispatched warnings.	Warnings_Redispatched=10,15	count
Haproxy - Warnings Retried	The number of retried warnings.	Warnings_Retried=10,15	count

HAProxy Monitoring Prerequisites

HAProxy has been tested against versions 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7.

HAProxy Monitoring Setup

To configure HAProxy, you need to set up a statistics page on the server as follows.

Update the haproxy.cfg

Update /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg with the lines below for each proxy.

listen stats
    bind <Your haproxy IP>:<Port>
    mode http
    stats enable
    stats hide-version
    stats realm haproxy\ Statistics
    stats uri /haproxy?stats
    stats auth <Username>:<Password>

Restart HAProxy

sudo service haproxy restart

Test the stats are running correctly

Visit http://<Your haproxyIP>:<Port>/haproxy?stats and view the statistics.

Usage Instructions

NOTE: If you are running HAProxy version 1.5 or 1.6 three service checks will need to be deactivated as the metrics are not available for those versions:

Haproxy - Denied Connection
Haproxy - Denied Sessions
Haproxy - Intercepted Requests

Step 1: Add this Host Template

Add the Application - Haproxy Host Template to your Opsview host. If the resource you're monitoring has no hostname or public IP, then open the Advanced settings pane and change Host Check Command to Always assumed to be UP.

For more information, refer to Opsview Knowledge Center - Adding Host Templates to Hosts.

Step 2: Add and configure variables required for this Host Template

The Service Checks in this Host Template use the following variables, and they will be added to your Opsview Monitor instance when you import the Opspack:

HAPROXY

Parameter	Position in Variable	Name	Description	Default Value
-u	Arg1	Username	HAProxy Username. Override with the same value as your `haproxy.cfg` file.
-p	Arg2	Password	HAProxy Password. Override with the same value as your `haproxy.cfg` file.
-P	Arg3	Port	HAProxy Port. Override with the same value as your `haproxy.cfg` file.	80
-s	Arg4	Stats Path	HAProxy Stats Path. Override with the same value as your `haproxy.cfg` file.	`haproxy?stats`

HAPROXY_PROXY

You can add multiple variables to check the status of each proxy individually.

Parameter	Position in Variable	Name	Description
-n	Value	HAProxy Name	Name of the HAProxy you want to monitor.

For more information, refer to Opsview Knowledge Center - Adding Variables to Hosts.

TLS Certificates

Additionally, you can use the following optional variable to pass in your TLS certificates for use when connecting to the service provider to gather metrics. Ensure that the port given in the HAPROXY variable matches the desired endpoint.

HAPROXY_CERTIFICATES

Parameter	Position in Variable	Name	Description
--ca-path	Arg1	CA Certificate Path	Optional path to the CA Certificate (TLS automatically used).
--client-cert	Arg2	Client Certificate Path	Optional path to the Client Certificate (TLS automatically used).
--client-key	Arg3	Client Key Path	Optional path to the Client Key (TLS automatically used).
(See Description)	Arg4	Additional Arguments	Optional extra flags to pass to the plugin script. Flags: `-S` - Use TLS. `-k` - Ignore server certificate verification.