Collect Process Metrics with the procstat Plugin

The procstat plugin enables you to collect metrics from individual processes. The plugin is supported on Linux servers and Windows Server. This document explains how to configure the CloudWatch agent for procstat, view imported metrics, and lists the metrics that procstat collects.

Note The procstat plugin is not supported for the Fargate launch type in Amazon ECS environments.

Topics

• Configure the CloudWatch Agent for procstat
• Metrics Collected by procstat

Configure the CloudWatch Agent for procstat

To use the procstat plugin, add a procstat section under the metrics_collected section in the CloudWatch agent configuration file. You can specify processes to monitor using one of the following methods (only one method is used even if multiple are specified):

• pid_file: Selects processes by PID file name.
• exe: Selects processes with names matching a specified string (regex).
• pattern: Selects processes by the full command-line string (regex).

If multiple sections are specified, CloudWatch agent uses:

• pid_file (if present)
• Otherwise, exe
• Otherwise, pattern

• On Linux, exe and pattern are evaluated as regular expressions.
• On Windows Server, they are evaluated as WMI queries (e.g., pattern: "%apache%").

You can optionally include metrics_collection_interval (in seconds). Default is 60.

Configure with pid_file

{
  "metrics": {
    "metrics_collected": {
      "procstat": [
        {
          "pid_file": "/var/run/example1.pid",
          "measurement": ["cpu_usage", "memory_rss"]
        },
        {
          "pid_file": "/var/run/example2.pid",
          "measurement": ["read_bytes", "read_count", "write_bytes"],
          "metrics_collection_interval": 10
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Configure with exe

{
  "metrics": {
    "metrics_collected": {
      "procstat": [
        {
          "exe": "agent",
          "measurement": ["cpu_time", "cpu_time_system", "cpu_time_user"]
        },
        {
          "exe": "plugin",
          "measurement": ["cpu_time", "cpu_time_system", "cpu_time_user"]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Configure with pattern

{
  "metrics": {
    "metrics_collected": {
      "procstat": [
        {
          "pattern": "config",
          "measurement": [
            "rlimit_memory_data_hard",
            "rlimit_memory_data_soft",
            "rlimit_memory_stack_hard",
            "rlimit_memory_stack_soft"
          ]
        },
        {
          "pattern": "-c",
          "measurement": [
            "rlimit_memory_data_hard",
            "rlimit_memory_data_soft",
            "rlimit_memory_stack_hard",
            "rlimit_memory_stack_soft"
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Metrics Collected by procstat

The following table lists metrics collected by the procstat plugin. For Linux, metric names are prefixed with procstat_. For Windows Server, a space is used (e.g., procstat cpu_time).

Ref: AWS DOCS (opens in a new tab)