netdata/collectors/python.d.plugin/exim

Exim collector

Simple module executing exim -bpc to grab exim queue. This command can take a lot of time to finish its execution thus it is not recommended to run it every second.

Requirements

The module uses the exim binary, which can only be executed as root by default. We need to allow other users to exim binary. We solve that adding queue_list_requires_admin statement in exim configuration and set to false, because it is true by default. On many Linux distributions, the default location of exim configuration is in /etc/exim.conf.

1. Edit the exim configuration with your preferred editor and add: queue_list_requires_admin = false
2. Restart exim and Netdata

WHM (CPanel) server

On a WHM server, you can reconfigure exim over the WHM interface with the following steps.

1. Login to WHM
2. Navigate to Service Configuration --> Exim Configuration Manager --> tab Advanced Editor
3. Scroll down to the button Add additional configuration setting and click on it.
4. In the new dropdown which will appear above we need to find and choose: queue_list_requires_admin and set to false
5. Scroll to the end and click the Save button.

It produces only one chart:

1. Exim Queue Emails

   • emails

Configuration is not needed.

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot issues with the exim module, run the python.d.plugin with the debug option enabled. The output will give you the output of the data collection job or error messages on why the collector isn't working.

First, navigate to your plugins directory, usually they are located under /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that's not the case on your system, open netdata.conf and look for the setting plugins directory. Once you're in the plugin's directory, switch to the netdata user.

cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/
sudo su -s /bin/bash netdata

Now you can manually run the exim module in debug mode:

./python.d.plugin exim debug trace