Monitoring a macOS host
You can monitor your host with Instana. Instana provides comprehensive insights into the host's performance, health, and resource utilization, enabling efficient troubleshooting, performance optimization, and proactive issue detection.
System information
Instana retrieves various system details from a host. You can view the following details of the host on the Instana GUI in the System pane:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| OS | The details of the operating system, the kernel version, and the architecture. |
| CPU | The details of the CPU and the count. |
| Memory | The amount of system memory in GiB (gigabytes). |
| Max Open Files | The maximum number of concurrent file operations that a system can support. |
| Hostname | The hostname of the machine. |
| FQDN | The fully qualified domain name. It is the complete domain name of the host, including the subdomain and top-level domain. |
| Machine ID | The unique identifier for the host. |
| System ID* | The custom identifier used by Instana to uniquely represent and manage the monitored host within its monitoring. System ID is used for correlation with asset management systems. |
| Host ID | The MAC address of the host's network interface, which is a unique identifier for the network adapter. |
| Started At | The time at which the host machine started. |
*For macOS, you need to enable System ID by using the agent configuration YAML file as shown in the following example:
"com.instana.plugin.host":
"collectSystemId": true
Interfaces
You can find the following details:
- Interfaces: The list of network interfaces and IP addresses.
- Instana agent: The Instana agent for the host.
- Process: The count and details of the processes that are running on the host.
Reporting status
The historical availability of a Mac host is shown in the Reporting Status chart in the Mac host dashboard. You can see three color indicators that identify the status of a host reporting to Instana.
| Status | Description | Color indicator |
|---|---|---|
| Reporting | The host reported to Instana without any interruptions. | Green |
| Reporting - monitoring issues | The host reported to Instana with some interruption (such as, network interruptions or agent monitoring issues) and was not fully available. | Orange |
| Not Reporting | The host was not reporting to Instana at all during this time. | Red |
The metric that is used to show this data on the host dashboard is based on the aggregation of messages received from the agent monitoring the host. A host is classified as Reporting if Instana receives at least 98% of the expected messages in a given timeframe.
For example, if the metric aggregation time window is 5 minutes and the poll rate of the host is once per second, Instana expects to receive 300 messages from the host during that timeframe.
- If at least 294 messages are received (98% of 300), the host status is shown as Reporting.
- If less than 294 but greater than 0 messages are received, the host status is shown as Reporting – Monitoring Issues.
- If no messages are received, the host status is shown as Not Reporting.
Performance metrics
The following performance metrics are displayed for the host.
CPU usage - percentage
The CPU usage values, when combined, provide a detailed view of how the CPU resources are being utilized on the host.
| Metric | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| CPU Usage | The total CPU usage in percentage for the time range that you set. | 1 second |
Memory usage
| Metric | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| Memory Usage | The total memory usage in percentage | 1 second |
CPU load - average
The CPU load metric displays the value on a graph for a selected time period.
Datapoint: Filesystem
Granularity: 1 second
| Metric | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| CPU Load | The average number of processes that are run for the time range that you set. | 1 second |
CPU usage - total
| Metric | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| User | The amount of CPU time spent running user-space processes (applications and services). | 1 second |
| System | The amount of CPU time spent running kernel-space processes (OS core functions). | 1 second |
| Wait | The amount of CPU time spent waiting for input/output operations to complete. | 1 second |
| Nice | The amount of CPU time spent running processes with a lower priority (nice value). | 1 second |
| Steal | The amount of CPU time lost due to the hypervisor managing other virtual machines or containers on the same physical host. | 1 second |
CPU load - peak
| Metric | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| Load | The peak CPU load. The highest number of processes that are run for the time range that you set. | 1 second |
Individual CPU Usage
The CPU usage metric displays the following metrics in percentage on a graph for a selected time period for each CPU:
| Metric | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| User | The amount of CPU time spent running user-space processes (applications and services). | 1 second |
| System | The amount of CPU time spent running kernel-space processes (OS core functions). | 1 second |
| Wait | The amount of CPU time spent waiting for input/output operations to complete. | 1 second |
| Nice | The amount of CPU time spent running processes with a lower priority (nice value). | 1 second |
| Steal | The amount of CPU time lost due to the hypervisor managing other virtual machines or containers on the same physical host. | 1 second |
Datapoint: Filesystem
Memory
The following table outlines the unit for memory:
| Metric | Unit | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Used | Percentage | Amount of memory in use | 1 second |
The values are displayed on a graph for a selected time period.
Datapoint: Filesystem
Open files
Open files usage when available on the operating system; current vs max. The values are displayed on a graph for a selected time period.
| Metric | Unit | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current | Byte | The total memory available for use by the system, including both active and inactive memory. | 1 second |
| Used | Percentage | The memory in use by processes |
Datapoint: Filesystem
Network interfaces
The following table outlines the network traffic and errors per an interface.
| Metric | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | The network interface being used for communication. | 60 seconds |
| Mac | The Media Access Control (MAC) address of the network interface. | 60 seconds |
| IPs | The IP addresses assigned to the network interface. | 60 seconds |
| RX Bytes | The total number of bytes received by the network interface per second. | 1 second |
| RX Errors | The number of errors encountered while receiving data on the network interface. | 1 second |
| TX Bytes | The total number of bytes transmitted by the network interface per second. | 1 second |
| TX Errors | The percentage of transmission attempts that resulted in errors per second. | 1 second |
| Received/s | The number of packets received by the network interface per second. | 1 second |
| Transmitted/s | The number of packets transmitted by the network interface per second. | 1 second |
Datapoint: Filesystem
TCP activity
These metrics provide insights into TCP connection activity, including established connections, segment transmission rates, and error occurrences.
| Metric | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| Established | The number of established TCP connections. | 1 second |
| Open/s | The number of new TCP connections opened per second. | 1 second |
| In Segments/s | The number of incoming TCP segments per second. | 1 second |
| Out Segments/s | The number of outgoing TCP segments per second. | 1 second |
| Established Resets | The percentage of established TCP connections that were reset per second. | 1 second |
| Out Resets | The percentage of outgoing TCP connections that were reset per second. | 1 second |
| Fail | The percentage of failed TCP connection attempts per second. | 1 second |
| Error | The percentage of TCP errors per second. | 1 second |
| Retransmission | The percentage of TCP retransmissions per second. | 1 second |
Datapoint: Filesystem
Process top list
These metrics offer insights into running processes, including their process ID, name, CPU usage, normalized CPU usage, and memory consumption. The top process list is updated every 30 seconds and the list contains only the processes with system usage. For example, the processes with more than 10% CPU usage over the last 30 seconds or processes with more than 512 MB memory usage (RSS) are displayed in the process top list.
To create a combined list of processes from the top 10 CPU and memory usage lists, set combineTopProcesses to true. The processes are included in the combined list even if their CPU usage is less than 10% or memory usage is less than 512 MB. If the same process is listed in the top 10 CPU and top 10 memory usage lists, it is listed only once in the combined list, which can include up to 20 entries.
com.instana.plugin.host:
combineTopProcesses: true
100% CPU refers to full use of a single CPU core, and you can search a history of snapshots from the previous month. The normalized CPU is calculated by dividing the CPU by the number of logical processors.
| Metric | Description | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| PID | The unique identifier that is assigned to each process by the operating system. | 30 seconds |
| Process Name | The name of the process as defined by the application or service. | 30 seconds |
| CPU | The amount of CPU resources consumed by the process. | 30 seconds |
| CPU (normalized) | The CPU usage of the process, normalized to a scale. | 30 seconds |
| Memory | The amount of memory consumed by the process. | 30 seconds |
Datapoint: Filesystem
Health signatures
For each sensor, a knowledge base of health signatures is evaluated continuously against the incoming metrics. They are used to raise issues or incidents depending on user impact.
Built-in events trigger issues or incidents based on failing health signatures on entities, and custom events trigger issues or incidents based on the thresholds of an individual metric of an entity.
For more information about the built-in events for the Host sensor, see Built-in events reference.