[Feature Request] Improve documentation / help to registering new aggregator plugins

[toni-moreno]

Feature Request

We would like to add a new aggregator with basic stats ( mean/stdev/count/max/min/median, etc).
https:/toni-moreno/telegraf/tree/added_new_basicstats_aggregator

The aggregator seems like that:

https:/toni-moreno/telegraf/blob/added_new_basicstats_aggregator/plugins/aggregators/basicstats/basicstats.go

When trying to test I have an unexpected error ( like it was not registered)

C:\Users\Administrator>C:\"Program Files"\Telegraf\telegraf.exe --config C:\"Program Files"\Telegraf\telegraf.conf --test
2016/11/09 12:38:53 I! Using config file: C:\Program Files\Telegraf\telegraf.conf
2016/11/09 12:38:53 E! Error parsing C:\Program Files\Telegraf\telegraf.conf, Undefined but requested aggregator: basicstats

Proposal:

I suggest add some documentation on how to add new plugins ( in my case a new aggregator)

Use case: [Why is this important (helps with prioritizing requests)]

Myself I'm trying to design and code a new aggregator , and I'm not able to load it... sorry.! , this aggregator will let us parse log files like apache_log to get statistics.

my telegraf.conf file for testing looks like

[[inputs.logparser]]

files = ["C:/Bitnami/wampstack-5.6.27-0/apache2/logs/access.log"]
 from_beginning = false
 [inputs.logparser.tags]
  intance = "apachetest80"

 [inputs.logparser.grok]
  patterns = ["%{COMBINED_LOG_FORMAT_WITH_TIME}"]
  measurement = "apache_access_log"
  custom_patterns = '''
  COMMON_LOG_FORMAT2 %{CLIENT:client_ip:drop} %{NOTSPACE:ident:drop} %{NOTSPACE:auth:drop} \[%{HTTPDATE:ts:drop}\] "(?:%{WORD:verb:drop} %{NOTSPACE:request:drop}(?: HTTP/%{NUMBER:http_version:drop})?|%{DATA})" %{NUMBER:resp_code:tag} (?:%{NUMBER:resp_bytes:drop}|-)
  COMBINED_LOG_FORMAT2 %{COMMON_LOG_FORMAT2} %{QS:referrer:drop} %{QS:agent:drop}
  COMBINED_LOG_FORMAT_WITH_TIME %{COMBINED_LOG_FORMAT2} %{INT:resptime:int}
    '''

[[outputs.file]]

    files = ["C:/Program Files/Telegraf/metrics_output.txt","stdout"]
    data_format = "influx"

[[aggregators.minmax]]
    period = "10s"        
    drop_original = false  
    namepass = ["apache_access_log"]

[[aggregators.basicstats]]
  period = "10s"       
  drop_original = false  .
  namepass = ["apache_access_log"]

When I remove the [[aggregators.basicstats]] logparsing and minmax aggregators works ok.

[sparrc]

Thanks @toni-moreno, I'm going to close this issue since it's not something I will likely ever find time to work on.

Feel free to submit a PR for the documentation, but please note for the plugin that I will be working on a statistics aggregator that is scheduled for release 1.2 already: #1662

[toni-moreno]

Hi @sparrc.

I'm happy to know you are already working on the same thing. But I need a solution to get averaged response times and request counts of apache log un windows on a few days (is quite urgent for me), if you let me, I would like to help you in this plugin.

If you have a branch with your aggregator I would like to test for you , and also contribute in code if you let me.

[toni-moreno]

Hi @sparrc, I'm still interesting on work as betatester for your statistics aggregator, can I do it?

[sparrc]

I can't help you there, sorry, I'll update the issue when I'm working on it