netscaler-exporter 1.1.1
A Python-based Citrix Netscaler Exporter for Prometheus

# netscaler_exporter

## Overview

![dashboard overview](./screenshots/netscaler_general.png)

## Description
Prometheus exporter for Netscaler (CITRIX ADC)

This exporter collect metrics from netscaler HTTP REST API.

It is a python HTTP server that exposes metrics to http (default port 9247) that can be then scrapped by Prometheus.

This exporter is strongly inspired from [citrix-adc-metrics-exporter](citrix/citrix-adc-metrics-exporter/)

It allows you collect several netscalers by adding them to the YAML config file and then specifying a target parameter in Prometheus configuration.

**Config**: (see conf/netscaler_exporter.yml)

```yaml
netscalers:
  - host: host.domain
#    port: 443
    user: 'user'
    password: 'password'
#   protocol: https
#   verify_ssl: false
#   timeout: 20
#   keep_session: true # default
#   default_labels:
#     - name: netscaler_specific_data
#       value: my_label
#       proxy:
#         url: http://my.proxy.domain:port/
#         protocol: https

weblisten:
  address: 0.0.0.0
  port: 9259

logger:
  level: info
  facility: syslog

metrics_file: "conf/metrics/*_metrics.yml"
```

## Usage

The exporter may run as a unix command with module installation or as standalone python script without instalation.
i<summary>Usage as a system command</summary>

the easiest way is to install from pip:

```shell
pip3 install --upgrade netscaler_exporter
```

then you can use the entry point create by the installer of the module in /usr/local/bin/netscaler_exporter or in [venv]/bin/netscaler_exporter for venv context.
The recommanded usage is in venv.

<summary>Usage as a Python Script</summary>

<br>

To use the exporter, few packages needs to be installed. This can be done using:

```shell
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
```

<details>

Contents of requirements.txt

```python
Prometheus-client>=0.8.0
requests==2.23.0
PyYAML==5.3.1
tenacity==6.2.0
urllib3>=1.25.9
Jinja2>=2.11.2
python-dateutil>=0.6.12
```

</details>

+ Consider, to extract the archiv file in /tmp folder; this will generate a folder /tmp/netscaler_exporter_[version].
+ create a directory where you want, by example /opt/netscaler_exporter_[version],
+ move the /tmp/netscaler_exporter_[version]/netscaler_exporter_package directory to /opt/eeam_exporter_[version]
+ create a command file to launch the exporter in dir /opt/netscaler_exporter_[version]
```shell
vi /opt/netscaler_exporter_X.Y.Z/netscaler_exporter_cmd
#!/usr/libexec/platform-python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import re
import sys
from netscaler_exporter.netscaler_exporter import main
if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.argv[0] = re.sub(r'(-script\.pyw|\.exe)?$', '', sys.argv[0])
    sys.exit(main())

```
+ Then edit the conf/config.yml file and add your settings.
+ Try your config by executing the command in try mode

example with the default dumy config file:
```shell
python3 veeam_exporter_cmd -n -v
```

## exporter command line options

to start the exporter:

```shell
./netscaler_exporter &
```

By default, it will load the file config.yml to perform action.

<details>
<summary>Detail options</summary>

```shell
usage: netscaler_exporter_cmd [-h] [-b BASE_PATH] [-c CONFIG_FILE]
                              [-F FILTER_PATH] [-f LOGGER.FACILITY]
                              [-l {error,warning,info,debug}]
                              [-o  METRICS_FILE] [-m  METRIC] [-n]
                              [-t  TARGET] [-w WEB.LISTEN_ADDRESS] [-V] [-v]

collector for Citrix Netscaler.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -b BASE_PATH, --base_path BASE_PATH
                        set base directory to find default files.
  -c CONFIG_FILE, --config_file CONFIG_FILE
                        path to config files.
  -F FILTER_PATH, --filter_path FILTER_PATH
                        set filter directory to find filter files.
  -f LOGGER.FACILITY, --logger.facility LOGGER.FACILITY
                        logger facility (syslog or file path).
  -l {error,warning,info,debug}, --logger.level {error,warning,info,debug}
                        logger level.
  -o  METRICS_FILE, --metrics_file METRICS_FILE
                        collect the metrics from the specified file instead of
                        config.
  -m  METRIC, --metric METRIC
                        collect only the specified metric name from the
                        metrics_file.
  -n , --dry_mode       collect the metrics then exit; display results to
                        stdout.
  -t  TARGET, --target TARGET
                        In dry_mode collect metrics on specified target.i
                        Default first from config file.
  -w WEB.LISTEN_ADDRESS, --web.listen-address WEB.LISTEN_ADDRESS
                        Address to listen on for web interface and telemetry.
  -V, --version         display program version and exit..
  -v , --verbose        verbose mode; display log message to stdout.
```

</details>

To test your configuration you can launch the exporter in dry_mode:

```shell
./netscaler_exporter -v -n -t host.domain
```

This command will try to connect to the 'host.domain' netscaler with parameters specified in config.yml, exposes the collected metrics, and eventually the warning or errors, then exits.

## Prometheus config

Since several netscalers can be set in the exporter, Prometheus addresses each server by adding a target
 parameter in the url. The "target" must be the same (lexically) that in exporter config file.

```yaml
  - job_name: "citrix_netscaler"
    scrape_interval: 30s
    scrape_timeout: 20s
    metrics_path: /metrics

    static_configs:
      - targets: [ netscalerhost.domain ]
        labels:
          environment: "PROD"
      - targets: [ netscalerhost2.domain]
        labels:
          environment: "PROD"

#    file_sd_configs:
#      - files: [ "/etc/prometheus/citrix_exp/*.yml" ]
    relabel_configs:
      - source_labels: [__address__]
        target_label: __param_target
      - source_labels: [__param_target]
        target_label: instance
      - target_label: __address__
        replacement: "netscaler-exporter-hostname.domain:9258"  # The netscaler exporter's real hostname.
```

## Metrics

The collected metrics are defined in separeted files positionned in the folder conf/metrics.
All values, computations, labels are defined in the metrics files, meaning that the exporter doesn't nothing internally on values. The configuration fully drive how values are rendered.

### Currently collected metrics are:

All metrics are defined in the configuration files (conf/metrics/*.yml). You can retrive all metric names here. Most of them have help text too.

 STATS | NS nitro name
------ | -------------
LB vserver stats | "lbvserver"
CS vserver stats | "csvserver"
HTTP stats | "protocolhttp"
TCP stats | "protocoltcp"
UDP stats | "protocoludp"
IP stats | "protocolip"
Interface stats | "Interface" (capital 'i')
Service stats | "service"
Service group stats | "services"
Bandwidth Capacity stats | "nscapacity"
SSL stats | "ssl"
SSL Certicates stats | "sslcertkey"
SSL vserver stats | "sslvserver"
System info stats | "system"
System memory stats | "systemmemory"
System cpu stats | "systemcpu"
High Availability stats | "hanode.yml"
AAA stats | "aaa"
ADC Probe success | "1" if login is successful, else "0"

## Extending metrics

Exported metrics, are defined in the YAML config files. The value can use Jinja2 templating language. The format of the configuration is inspired from Ansible tasks representation.
So a metric configuration file, consists in a list of actions to perform.

There are five possible actions:

- url: to collect metrics from HTTP API
- set_fact: to assign value to variables
- actions: to perform a list of (sub-)actions
- metrics: to define metrics to expose/return to Prometheus
- debug: to display debug text to logger.

All actions have default "attributes":

- name: the name of action or metric counter for metrics action.
- vars: to set vars to global symbols' table.
- with_items: to loop on current action with a list of items.
- loop_var: to set the name of the variable that will receive the current value in the loop. Default is 'item'.
- when: a list of condition (and) that must be check and be true to perform the action.

The "attributes" are analyzed in the order specified in previous table; it means that you can't use "item" var (obtained from 'with_items' directive) in the vars section because it is not yet defined when the 'vars' section is evaluated. If you need that feature, you will have to consider 'with_items' in an 'actions' section (see metrics/backup_jobs_sessions_metrics.yml).

action | parameter | description | remark
------ | ----------- | ------ | ------
url | &nbsp; |a string that's representing the entity to collect without '/nitro/v1' | http://host.domain:port/nitro/v1**[url]**. e.g.: /stat/system
 &nbsp; | var_name |the name ofthe variable to store the results. Default is '_root' meaning that the resulting JSON object is directly store in symbols table. | &nbsp;
 &nbsp; | &nbsp; | &nbsp; | &nbsp; 
 set_fact | &nbsp; | list of variable to define | &nbsp; 
 &nbsp; | var_name: value| &nbsp;  
 &nbsp; | &nbsp; | &nbsp; | &nbsp; 
metrics | &nbsp; | define the list of metrics to expose
 &nbsp; | metric_prefix | a prefix to add to all metric name | final name will be [metric_prefix]_[metric_name]
 'a metric' | name | the name of the metric
 &nbsp; | help | the help message added to the metric (and displayed in grafana explorer)
 &nbsp; | type 'gauge' or 'counter' | the type of the prometheus metric | &nbsp;
 &nbsp; | value | the numeric value itself | &nbsp;
 &nbsp; | labels | a list of name value pairs to qualify the metric | &nbsp;

A metric configuration file is so at minimum, an action containing list of two actions, one for collecting values on netscaler with 'url', one to define the resulting metric for prometheusi with 'metrics':

example:
```yaml
---
- name: my_custom_metric
  actions:
    # first action
    - name: collect elements 
      url: /stat/system
    # second action
    - name: proceed elements
      metric_prefix: citrixadc_custmetric
      metrics:
        - name: cpu_number
          help: constant number of cpu for appliance
          type: counter
          value: "{{ system.numcpus }}"

... 
```