Interface Counters Processor

The Interface Counters processor selects interfaces according to the configuration and outputs counter stats of the specified types (such as 'tx_bytes').

Parameter Description
Input Types No inputs. This is a source processor.
Output Types Table(number)
Counter Type (counter_type) A type of an interface counter. enum of: tx_unicast_packets, tx_broadcast_packets, tx_multicast_packets, tx_bytes, tx_error_packets, tx_discard_packets, rx_unicast_packets, rx_broadcast_packets, rx_multicast_packets, rx_bytes, rx_error_packets, rx_discard_packets.
Graph Query (graph_query)

One or more queries on graph specified as strings, or a list of such queries. (String will be deprecated in a future release.) Multiple queries should provide all the named nodes referenced by the expression fields (including additional_properties). Graph query is executed on the "operation" graph. Results of the queries can be accessed using the "query_result" variable with the appropriate index. For example, if querying property set nodes under name "ps", the result will be available as "query_result[0]["ps"]".

In collector processors (*_collector, if_counter) it is used to choose a set of nodes for further processing (for example, all leaf devices, or all interfaces between leaf and spine devices)

In other processors it is used for general parameterization and it is only supported as a list of queries.

graph_query: "node("system", role="leaf", name="system").
              out("hosted_interfaces").
              node("interface", name="iface").out("link").
              node("link", role="spine_leaf")"
graph_query: ["node("system", role="leaf", name="system")",
              "node("system", role="spine", name="system")"]
Query Expansion For every path, originally returned by graph queries, passed to each generator the latter one produces a set of items and for each item it produces a new path extended by a corresponding property name which value is set of a value of the produced item.
Query Group by (query_group_by)

List (of strings) of node and relationship names used in the graph query to group query results by. Each element in this list represents a named node or relationship matcher in the graph_query field.It is not an expression to be consistent with existing group_by field in grouping processors. Non-expression is simple and more intuitive.

When grouping is active (query_group_by is not null), query results are d by the specified list of names, where one output item is created per each group. In this case, the expressions can only access matcher names specified in query_group_by and the query results for each group are accessed using a new group_items variable. The group_items variable is a list of query results, where each result has named nodes/relationships, not present in query_group_by.

The following list describes the behavior for various values of this field:

  • Value of query_group_by field - Semantics
  • Omitted or provided as json null (ala None in Python) - No grouping is done. This is equivalent to current behavior of extensible_data_collector. Using ‘group_items’ in this case is not permitted and results in probe error state.
  • Empty list ([]) - Produces one group containing all the query results.
  • One or more matcher names - The query results are grouped by the specified nodes or relationships. If this list covers all available matchers in the query, the number of groups is equal to the number of query results.
Query Tag Filter (query_tag_filter) Filters named nodes in the graph queries by assigned tags.
Interface (interface) Expression mapping from graph query to interface name, e.g. "iface.if_name" if "iface" is a name in the graph query.
System ID Expression mapping from graph query to a system_id, e.g. "system.system_id" if "system" is a name in the graph query.
Additional Keys Each additional key/value pair is used to extend properties of output stages where value is considered as an expression executed in context of the graph query and its result is used as a property value with respective key. The value of this property is evaluated for each item to associate items with metrics provided by a corresponding collector service. The association is done by keys because each collector reports a set of metrics where each metric is identified by a key in a format that is specific for each collector.

Flowchart showing flow from Interface Counters section to Output section, both containing Interface Counters text.
Configuration options:

User interface for configuring the Interface Counters processor with sections for graph query input, telemetry parameters, and action buttons for saving or editing configuration.

Example: Interface Counter

In this example, we create a NSS that has an entry for rx_bytes (per second) per every interface in the system. Each entry is implicitly tagged by "system_id" and "interface". Furthermore, as we have specified an additional property, each entry is also tagged by role of the system.

Related Documentation