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Grafana Cloud

Fleet Management glossary

This topic explains the key terminology and concepts of Grafana Fleet Management.

Attribute, local
A key-value pair set by users in the remotecfg block of a collector’s local configuration. Local attributes are not unique identifiers. Attribute keys are limited to 100 characters, while attribute values are limited to 150 characters. When used as matchers, attributes are limited to 200 characters, including key, value, and operator. The same attribute can be assigned to multiple collectors. collector.ID is a virtual local attribute with a value equal to the collector’s ID and cannot be modified. Remote attributes set in the Fleet Management interface take precedence over local attributes.
Attribute, matching
Also known as a matcher. Inspired by Alertmanager, this conditional determines which configuration pipelines are applied at collector runtime. A matching attribute has three parts:
  • An attribute name formatted as an unquoted literal or a double-quoted string.
  • An operator. There are 4 possibilities:
    • =: is equal to
    • !=: is not equal to
    • =~: matches the regular expression
    • !~: does not match the regular expression
  • An attribute value or regular expression formatted as an unquoted literal or a double-quoted string.

Note

Unquoted literals can contain all UTF-8 characters other than whitespace and the following reserved characters: {, }, !, =, ~, ", ', \.

The maximum length of a matching attribute is 200 characters, including key, value, and operator.

For example, the matching attribute collector.os!=windows applies a configuration pipeline to all collectors where the operating system is not Windows. Here are some additional examples of matching attributes:

  • namespace=~"dev|staging"
  • team!~"team-.*"
  • profiling_enabled=true
  • arch!=amd64
  • collector.version=~"v1.2.0|v1.3.0"
  • collector.os=~".+"

The last matching attribute, collector.os=~".+", is a useful regular expression that matches all collectors, as the regular expression matches non-empty collector.os attributes and collectors always report this reserved attribute

Matching attributes use AND logic, so all attributes must match for a collector to use a configuration pipeline. For example, if a configuration pipeline has matching attributes ["os=linux", "env=prod", "cluster=prod-us-east-0"], collectors must have os=linux AND env=prod AND cluster=prod-us-east-0 attributes to receive this pipeline. You can assign attributes to a collector without affecting the selection process. The collector-pipeline pairing is determined by the matching attributes assigned in a configuration pipeline.

Attribute, remote
Also known as an attribute override or a user-defined attribute. A key-value pair created by users and assigned to collectors through the Fleet Management user interface. Remote attributes are not unique identifiers. Attribute keys are limited to 100 characters, while attribute values are limited to 150 characters. When used as matchers, attributes are limited to 200 characters, including key, value, and operator. The same attribute can be assigned to multiple collectors. Remote attributes cannot begin with collector., which is a reserved namespace. Remote attributes take precedence over local attributes.
Attribute, reserved
A key-value pair set automatically by the Fleet Management service in the remotecfg block of a collector’s local configuration. The reserved attribute keys are collector.os, collector.version, and collector.ID. Users cannot create attribute keys beginning with collector. because it is a reserved namespace.
Collector
Software that pulls or receives telemetry from your applications or infrastructure, processes the data, and sends it to a backend for analysis. Collectors are made up of components defined in a configuration file. Fleet Management must be used with Alloy collectors and is recommended for use with Alloy v1.7.2 or later. If you’re using an earlier version, make sure to include the --stability.level=public-preview flag when running Alloy.
Configuration pipeline
A piece of configuration created in Fleet Management and remotely assigned to collectors based on attribute matching. Configuration pipelines are made up of a unique name, a content body, and matching attributes. All configuration pipelines that match to a collector are merged on the server side to form the remote configuration for that collector. Configuration pipelines are highly customizable. You can turn them on or off with a switch, share components between them, and inject attributes with variable values.
Fleet
Aggregate term for multiple collector instances.
Inventory
The list view of your collector fleet.
Remote configuration
The set of one or more configuration pipelines matched to a collector’s attributes. Remote configurations are run in parallel with a collector’s local configuration.
remotecfg
A block of configuration added to a collector’s local configuration file that registers the collector with the Fleet Management service. Several arguments make up the remotecfg block, including one for attributes. For the complete list of supported arguments, refer to the documentation.