documentation: "path" vs "paths" for file input

[vmpjdc]

trafficstars

The documentation says "path is used if you want to monitor a single path. If you want to monitor a list of paths, use paths instead" but does not explain why.

I've inherited a grok_exporter setup that uses multiple "file" inputs, apparently successfully, and I'm interested to know why this is discouraged.

[matze1508]

Hello, is it possible have 3 paths of logs and match some metrics with log1 and some other metrics to log 2. paths: - log0 - log1

metric - type: counter name: HTTP_Request help: number of log lines match: '*' file.path: log0

- type: counter
  name: HTTP_Request
  help: number of log lines 
  match: *
  file.path: log 1

[fstab]

@jetpackdanger the difference between path and paths is that with path you can only specify a single value like this:

path: /tmp/example/example.log

while with paths you can specify a list of values like this

paths:
  - /tmp/example/example1.log
  - /tmp/example/example2.log

I think the YAML parser does not support the same key path for both a list and a single value, so I used path for the single value and paths for the list.

I'm not sure what you mean by multiple "file" inputs. Could you paste an example?

[fstab]

@matze1508 yes, this should be possible like this:

- type: counter
  name: HTTP_Request
  help: number of log lines
  match: .*
  path: log1

Note that match is .* and not *, because it's a regular expression and not a Glob.