Multi Instance PostgreSQL Problem

Help
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1

Problem/Question

I am trying to monitor 3 separate PostgreSQL instances with Netdata’s go.d.plugin on a Raspberry Pi 5.
Each instance has a separate job defined in /etc/netdata/go.d/postgres-*.conf with different name: and dsn: values.
However, when I open the Netdata UI, only a single exporter appears, and all metrics from 3 instances are merged into one screen.

Expected behavior:
Each job (dev, local, test) should appear as a separate PostgreSQL exporter with its own charts.

Relevant docs you followed/actions you took to solve the issue

  • I followed the official Netdata PostgreSQL integration guide[image]
  • Created 3 separate config files:
    • /etc/netdata/go.d/postgres-local.conf
    • /etc/netdata/go.d/postgres-dev.conf
    • /etc/netdata/go.d/postgres-test.conf
  • Each contains:

yaml

jobs:
  - name: dev
    enabled: true
    dsn: postgresql://netdata:PASSWORD@<host>:5432/postgres

(Each job uses different DSN and name)

  • Ensured ownership and permissions:

bash

chown netdata:netdata /etc/netdata/go.d/postgres-*.conf
chmod 644 /etc/netdata/go.d/postgres-*.conf
  • go.d.conf includes:

yaml

enabled: yes
default_run: yes
config_dirs:
  - /etc/netdata/go.d
  • modules.conf:

yaml

enabled: yes
postgres: yes
  • Confirmed config is being loaded with:

bash

sudo -u netdata /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/go.d.plugin -d -m postgres

Only one job appears (either local or dev, not all 3).

Environment/Browser/Agent’s version etc

  • Device: Raspberry Pi 5
  • OS: Ubuntu 24.04
  • Netdata version: v2.3.2
  • Browser: Chrome 123+
  • Accessing directly via local Netdata Agent UI (not Cloud)

bash

netdata -v
netdata -W buildinfo

root@raspberrypi5:/etc/netdata/go.d# netdata -v
netdata -W buildinfo
netdata v2.3.2
time=2025-04-14T21:27:34.841+03:00 comm=netdata source=daemon level=notice errno="2, No such file or directory" tid=393194  msg="CONFIG: cannot load user config '/etc/netdata/stream.conf'. Will try stock config."
time=2025-04-14T21:27:34.841+03:00 comm=netdata source=daemon level=error errno="22, Invalid argument" tid=393194  msg="madvise(MADV_MERGEABLE) of size 16384, failed."
Packaging:
    Netdata Version ____________________________________________ : v2.3.2
    Installation Type __________________________________________ : binpkg-deb
    Package Architecture _______________________________________ : aarch64
    Package Distro _____________________________________________ : ubuntu 24.04
    Configure Options __________________________________________ : cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DCMAKE_C_STANDARD=11 -DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=14 -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS= -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS=' -fexceptions -fexceptions -fno-omit-frame-pointer -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS='  -fexceptions -fexceptions -fno-omit-frame-pointer -funwind-tables -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' -DCMAKE_COMPILE_DEFINITIONS='_GNU_SOURCE' -DCMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS=' -fexceptions -fexceptions -rdynamic' -DCMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS=''
Default Directories:
    User Configurations ________________________________________ : /etc/netdata
    Stock Configurations _______________________________________ : /usr/lib/netdata/conf.d
    Ephemeral Databases (metrics data, metadata) _______________ : /var/cache/netdata
    Permanent Databases ________________________________________ : /var/lib/netdata
    Plugins ____________________________________________________ : /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d
    Static Web Files ___________________________________________ : /usr/share/netdata/web
    Log Files __________________________________________________ : /var/log/netdata
    Lock Files _________________________________________________ : /var/lib/netdata/lock
    Home _______________________________________________________ : /var/lib/netdata
Operating System:
    Kernel _____________________________________________________ : Linux
    Kernel Version _____________________________________________ : 6.8.0-1020-raspi
    Operating System ___________________________________________ : Ubuntu
    Operating System ID ________________________________________ : ubuntu
    Operating System ID Like ___________________________________ : debian
    Operating System Version ___________________________________ : 24.04.2 LTS (Noble Numbat)
    Operating System Version ID ________________________________ : none
    Detection __________________________________________________ : /etc/os-release
Hardware:
    CPU Cores __________________________________________________ : 4
    CPU Frequency ______________________________________________ : 2400000000
    RAM Bytes __________________________________________________ : 8323276800
    Disk Capacity ______________________________________________ : 128177930240
    CPU Architecture ___________________________________________ : aarch64
    Virtualization Technology __________________________________ : none
    Virtualization Detection ___________________________________ : systemd-detect-virt
Container:
    Container __________________________________________________ : none
    Container Detection ________________________________________ : systemd-detect-virt
    Container Orchestrator _____________________________________ : none
    Container Operating System _________________________________ : none
    Container Operating System ID ______________________________ : none
    Container Operating System ID Like _________________________ : none
    Container Operating System Version _________________________ : none
    Container Operating System Version ID ______________________ : none
    Container Operating System Detection _______________________ : none
Features:
    Built For __________________________________________________ : Linux
    Netdata Cloud ______________________________________________ : YES
    Health (trigger alerts and send notifications) _____________ : YES
    Streaming (stream metrics to parent Netdata servers) _______ : YES
    Back-filling (of higher database tiers) ____________________ : YES
    Replication (fill the gaps of parent Netdata servers) ______ : YES
    Streaming and Replication Compression ______________________ : YES (zstd lz4 gzip)
    Contexts (index all active and archived metrics) ___________ : YES
    Tiering (multiple dbs with different metrics resolution) ___ : YES (5)
    Machine Learning ___________________________________________ : YES
    Memory Allocator ___________________________________________ : system
Database Engines:
    dbengine (compression) _____________________________________ : YES (zstd lz4)
    alloc ______________________________________________________ : YES
    ram ________________________________________________________ : YES
    none _______________________________________________________ : YES
Connectivity Capabilities:
    ACLK (Agent-Cloud Link: MQTT over WebSockets over TLS) _____ : YES
    static (Netdata internal web server) _______________________ : YES
    h2o (web server) ___________________________________________ : NO
    WebRTC (experimental) ______________________________________ : NO
    Native HTTPS (TLS Support) _________________________________ : YES
    TLS Host Verification ______________________________________ : YES
Libraries:
    LZ4 (extremely fast lossless compression algorithm) ________ : YES
    ZSTD (fast, lossless compression algorithm) ________________ : YES
    zlib (lossless data-compression library) ___________________ : YES
    Brotli (generic-purpose lossless compression algorithm) ____ : NO
    protobuf (platform-neutral data serialization protocol) ____ : YES (system)
    OpenSSL (cryptography) _____________________________________ : YES
    libdatachannel (stand-alone WebRTC data channels) __________ : NO
    JSON-C (lightweight JSON manipulation) _____________________ : YES
    libcap (Linux capabilities system operations) ______________ : NO
    libcrypto (cryptographic functions) ________________________ : YES
    libyaml (library for parsing and emitting YAML) ____________ : YES
    libmnl (library for working with netfilter) ________________ : YES
    stacktraces (library for getting stack traces) _____________ : libbacktrace (mmap, threads, data)
Plugins:
    apps (monitor processes) ___________________________________ : YES
    cgroups (monitor containers and VMs) _______________________ : YES
    cgroup-network (associate interfaces to CGROUPS) ___________ : YES
    proc (monitor Linux systems) _______________________________ : YES
    tc (monitor Linux network QoS) _____________________________ : YES
    diskspace (monitor Linux mount points) _____________________ : YES
    freebsd (monitor FreeBSD systems) __________________________ : NO
    macos (monitor MacOS systems) ______________________________ : NO
    windows (monitor Windows systems) __________________________ : NO
    statsd (collect custom application metrics) ________________ : YES
    timex (check system clock synchronization) _________________ : YES
    idlejitter (check system latency and jitter) _______________ : YES
    bash (support shell data collection jobs - charts.d) _______ : YES
    debugfs (kernel debugging metrics) _________________________ : YES
    cups (monitor printers and print jobs) _____________________ : YES
    ebpf (monitor system calls) ________________________________ : NO
    freeipmi (monitor enterprise server H/W) ___________________ : YES
    network-viewer (monitor TCP/UDP IPv4/6 sockets) ____________ : YES
    systemd-journal (monitor journal logs) _____________________ : YES
    windows-events (monitor Windows events) ____________________ : NO
    nfacct (gather netfilter accounting) _______________________ : YES
    perf (collect kernel performance events) ___________________ : YES
    slabinfo (monitor kernel object caching) ___________________ : YES
    Xen ________________________________________________________ : YES
    Xen VBD Error Tracking _____________________________________ : NO
Exporters:
    AWS Kinesis ________________________________________________ : NO
    GCP PubSub _________________________________________________ : NO
    MongoDB ____________________________________________________ : YES
    Prometheus (OpenMetrics) Exporter __________________________ : YES
    Prometheus Remote Write ____________________________________ : YES
    Graphite ___________________________________________________ : YES
    Graphite HTTP / HTTPS ______________________________________ : YES
    JSON _______________________________________________________ : YES
    JSON HTTP / HTTPS __________________________________________ : YES
    OpenTSDB ___________________________________________________ : YES
    OpenTSDB HTTP / HTTPS ______________________________________ : YES
    All Metrics API ____________________________________________ : YES
    Shell (use metrics in shell scripts) _______________________ : YES
Debug/Developer Features:
    Trace All Netdata Allocations (with charts) ________________ : NO
    Developer Mode (more runtime checks, slower) _______________ : NO
Runtime Information:
    Profile ____________________________________________________ : standalone
    Stream Parent (accept data from Children) __________________ : NO
    Stream Child (send data to a Parent) _______________________ : NO
    Total System Memory ________________________________________ : 8323276800
    Available System Memory ____________________________________ : 7033450496

What I expected to happen

I expected each PostgreSQL job defined with a unique name to appear as a separate exporter, or at least have a clean separation of charts in the UI.

Instead, all 3 instances appear to be merged into a single PostgreSQL section, making it impossible to monitor them independently.

Please confirm whether:

  • This is expected behavior?
  • There is any config to force each job to be separated visually?
  • Or a known limitation of the current go.d.postgres collector?
2

Hi, @oguzhansrky.

Created 3 separate config files

This is not supported.

You need to use one configuration file, this file can have several data collection jobs (as stated in the documentation).

3

That is how UI works.

4

Hi @ilyam8,

netdata@raspberrypi5:/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d$ cat /etc/netdata/go.d/postgres.conf

All available configuration options, their descriptions and default values:

https://github.com/netdata/netdata/tree/master/src/go/collectors/go.d.plugin/modules/postgres#readme

jobs:

  • name: local
    dsn: ‘postgresql://postgres:password@127.0.0.1:5432/postgres’
  • name: dev
    dsn: ‘postgresql://postgres:password@127.0.0.1:5433/postgres’
  • name: test
    dsn: ‘postgresql://postgres:password@127.0.0.1:5434/postgres’

image
image1859×565 117 KB

Actually, this is the configuration I put it to try it. If you look at the screenshot, it puts all the databases in one place.

There are 2 databases in 3 nodes, but it shows them all in one place and since there is a postgres db for each node I added, it shows the sum of 3 of them. As you can see on the right side there is no separation

5

In your second message, you mentioned that the UI works this way by design. However, I’ve been using Netdata for a long time, and in earlier versions, this wasn’t the case.

When I added multiple PostgreSQL jobs before, the UI would show each job separately, using the name I defined in the config, and display their metrics individually.

Now, all instances are grouped under a single section, which is not healthy or useful at all for monitoring multiple databases.

6

Any reply or update @ilyam8 ??