jsonstats

RESTful back end for querying arbitraty system "facts".

Features

• Minimal set of requirements
• Python 2.4+ compatible
• Access and application logging
• host and environment REST endpoints
• Unit tested

Requirements

• Python 2.4+
• python-simplejson if Python 2.4 or 2.5
• PyYAML if using the facter plugin

Quick Start Guide

Install It

Via distutils:

sudo python ./setup.py install

Via rpm (requires development packages):

make rpm
sudo yum localinstall ./rpm-build/noarch/*.rpm

Run It

Now we'll start jsonstatsd in a terminal. It won't detach from the controlling shell. This means we'll have to ctrl+c the process when we're done.

/usr/bin/jsonstatsd
Loading plugin... <class 'JsonStats.FetchStats.Fetcher'>
Loading plugin... <class 'JsonStats.FetchStats.Plugins.RPM.RPM'>
Loading plugin... <class 'JsonStats.FetchStats.Plugins.Facter.Facter'>
Loading plugin... <class 'JsonStats.FetchStats.Plugins.DEB.DEB'>

Messages like ERROR: Failed to load plugin 'foo' aren't critical. They just mean a required command wasn't found on our system.

Test It

In another terminal you can run a curl command like this to test that the server is running*****:

curl localhost:8008 | python -m json.tool

• The python -m json.tool part is optional and is just there to reformat the output

Runtime Options

jsonstatsd can be configured at runtime with several other options:

$ jsonstatsd --help
Usage: jsonstatsd [options]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -p PORT, --port=PORT  Port to listen on. (Default: 8008)
  -l LISTEN, --listen=LISTEN
                        Address to listen on. (Default: 0.0.0.0)
  --logdir=LOGDIR       Directory to log access requests to. (Default:
                        ./logs/)

More Information

Running As A System Service

To enable jsonstatsd as a system service on hosts still using the service and chkconfig commands:

sudo chkconfig jsonstatsd on
sudo service jsonstatsd start

To enable jsonstatsd as a system service on systemd managed hosts:

$ sudo systemctl enable jsonstatsd.service
ln -s '/usr/lib/systemd/system/jsonstatsd.service' '/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/jsonstatsd.service'

Configuration

If you are running jsonstatsd as a system service (ex: via systemctl or service commands) then you may want to examine the service configuration file in /etc/sysconfig/jsonstatsd

######################################################################
# Listen on all interfaces by default. You might also enjoy: 127.0.0.1
# to just listen locally
INTERFACE=0.0.0.0

######################################################################
# Port to listen on
PORT=8008

######################################################################
# Customize the logging directory
LOGDIR=/var/log/jsonstatsd

######################################################################
# Single line with all options for the SysV init script
OPTIONS="--listen $INTERFACE --port $PORT --logdir $LOGDIR"

Logging

There are two log file which are produced by a running instance.

• jsonstatsd_access.log: Access log similar to apache's access log.
• jsonstatsd.log: Application level logging which logs some logic results.

Tests

Run make tests to execute the test suite.

Making new plugins

• New fact plugins MUST subclass the Fetcher parent class. Example:

    from JsonStats.FetchStats import Fetcher
    class MegaFrobber(Fetcher):
  

• Read the source for the Fetcher base class in JsonStats/FetchStats/__init__.py to see the remaining methods you must implement in your plugin.

• Until we come up with a better way of dynamically loading all plugins, new fact plugin module names MUST be added to the __all__ list in JsonStats/FetchStats/Plugins/__init__.py