Reconsider collectd frontend

[mgedmin]

Currently I use collection.cgi, which, I think is properly called "Collection 3 2".

https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/List_of_front-ends shows a bunch of alternatives.

My requirements:

• web based
• works out of the box (no manual configuration needed)
• no PHP
• simple deployment (rules out Django/Ruby)
• pretty
• client-side dynamic graphs preferred

After having looked at all the alternatives listed here, I think Facette is closest to what I want. Some blockers:

• crash on startup ([CRASH] During start-up ... randomly (~ 75% of the time) facette/facette#235)
• no PPA, which makes installation difficult (Ubuntu PPA facette/facette#261)
• default configuration is blank (Presets for collectd? facette/facette#266), which breaks the "no manual configuration required" requirement

I'll have to investigate if it's possible to define universal graphs/collections and then place them in /var/lib/facette in a postinst script or something.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: collectd-web
GitHub: https://github.com/httpdss/collectd-web
Backend: CGI (Perl)
Frontend: jQueryUI
Status: pining for the Fjords (last commit in 2014, official website link is a 404)
Screenshot:

It's unmaintained. Why swap one unmaintained Perl blob with another?

[mgedmin]

Candidate: collection.cgi (v2) <-- the one I'm using right now
GitHub: https://github.com/collectd/collectd/blob/master/contrib/collection.cgi
Backend: CGI (Perl)
Status: pining for the Fjords (last commit in 2014, many graphs don't work)
Screenshot:

To do:

• fix broken graphs (collection.cgi: contextswitch graph broken on Ubuntu 14.04 #8)

[mgedmin]

Candidate: collection 3
GitHub: https://github.com/collectd/collectd/tree/master/contrib/collection3
Backend: CGI (Perl)
Frontend:
Status: pining for the Fjords (last commit in 2014)

No screenshot available.

Unmaintained is no good for me.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: collection 4
GitHub: https://github.com/octo/c4 or maybe http://git.verplant.org/?p=collection4.git;a=summary
Backend: CGI (C)
Status: pining for the Fjords (last commit in 2012; 2013 in the non-GH repo)
Screenshot:

Oh god look at it, can this be real? Looks utterly unfinished.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: Collectd-carbon
GitHub: ???
Backend: Django

I can't find it, and it mentions Carbon, which is a dependency I don't want.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: collectw
GitHub: n/a
Backend: C
Frontend: Javascript
Status: hosted on SourceForge! SourceForge!
Screenshot:

[mgedmin]

Candidate: EcoStats
GitHub: n/a
Status: dead dead dead (maintained in svn; homepage on google code)

Weird paradigm, doesn't look like the sort of thing I'm looking for.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: Facette
GitHub: https://github.com/facette/facette/
Backend: Go
Status: active
Screenshot:

Very much looks like the thing I want.

Deployment to arm servers is questionable: does launchpad provide public PPAs for arm?

I've tried it out. Looks nice!

Stumbled upon facette/facette#235, had to apply patch and rebuild.

Discovered that while it finds my collectd and all the sources/metrics, it lacks any graphs! If I have to create the graphs one by one on each host, that's not fun at all.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: Heymon
GitHub: n/a

Looks uninspired.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: Jarmon
GitHub: n/a
Frontend: jQuery, Flot
Status: last commit in 2011

Looks interesting-ish (download .rrd, parse/draw in JS code) but code hosted in Bazaar on Launchpad? Nah.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: Visage
GitHub: https://github.com/auxesis/visage
Backend: Ruby on Rails
Status: last commit in 2013

Ruby.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: Vizir
GitHub: n/a
Backend: Ruby

Ruby. No screenshot, no GitHub repo link, no interest.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: Sick muse
GitHub: https://github.com/mlavin/sickmuse
Backend: Python
Frontend: jQuery, Backbone.js, Flot
Status: last commit in 2013

Seems dead. Shame, looked promising.

[mgedmin]

Candidate: RRDScout
GitHub: https://github.com/isginf/rrdscout
Backend: Python
Status: last commit in 2013

Seems dead.

[mgedmin]

There's also http://javascriptrrd.sourceforge.net/ in case I decide to roll my own client-side version.

Downsides: SourceForge. Last release in 2013.