Host System Monitoring Integration

Monitor your host machine’s health by collecting system metrics and viewing them in the LogTide Metrics Explorer. LogTide accepts metrics via the standard OpenTelemetry (OTLP) endpoint, so you can use Fluent Bit (included in Docker Compose), or any OTLP-compatible tool you already have.

Standard OTLP Endpoint

LogTide exposes a standard OpenTelemetry metrics endpoint:

POST /v1/otlp/metrics
Content-Type: application/json
X-API-Key: <your-api-key>

This means you are not limited to Fluent Bit. Any tool that speaks OTLP can send metrics to LogTide:

Tool	Description
Fluent Bit	Included in Docker Compose (--profile metrics), zero config
OpenTelemetry Collector	The standard OTel collector with otlphttp exporter
Grafana Alloy / Agent	Grafana’s collector, supports OTLP export
Vector	Datadog’s collector, supports OTLP export
Prometheus + OTLP remote write	Export Prometheus metrics to LogTide
Application OTel SDKs	Node.js, Python, Go, Java — send custom metrics directly

Option A: Fluent Bit (included, zero config)

The Docker Compose setup includes a pre-configured Fluent Bit metrics container that collects CPU, memory, disk, and network metrics automatically.

1. Download configuration files

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/logtide-dev/logtide/main/docker/fluent-bit-metrics.conf
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/logtide-dev/logtide/main/docker/format_metrics.lua

Place these in the same directory as your docker-compose.yml.

2. Set your API key

# Add to your .env file (if not already set)
echo "FLUENT_BIT_API_KEY=lp_your_api_key_here" >> .env

3. Start with metrics profile

# Metrics only
docker compose --profile metrics up -d

# Or combine with Docker log collection
docker compose --profile logging --profile metrics up -d

Option B: OpenTelemetry Collector

If you already run an OpenTelemetry Collector, add LogTide as an OTLP HTTP exporter:

# otel-collector-config.yaml
receivers:
  hostmetrics:
    collection_interval: 30s
    scrapers:
      cpu:
      memory:
      disk:
      network:

exporters:
  otlphttp/logtide:
    endpoint: http://<logtide-host>:8080
    headers:
      X-API-Key: "lp_your_api_key_here"

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers: [hostmetrics]
      exporters: [otlphttp/logtide]

Option C: Grafana Alloy

otelcol.receiver.hostmetrics "default" {
  collection_interval = "30s"
  scrapers {
    cpu {}
    memory {}
    disk {}
    network {}
  }
}

otelcol.exporter.otlphttp "logtide" {
  client {
    endpoint = "http://<logtide-host>:8080"
    headers  = { "X-API-Key" = "lp_your_api_key_here" }
  }
}

Option D: Any OTLP-compatible tool

Point any OTLP HTTP exporter at:

http://<logtide-host>:8080/v1/otlp/metrics

With header X-API-Key: <your-api-key>. Both JSON and Protobuf content types are supported.

What gets collected (Fluent Bit)

The included Fluent Bit configuration sends OTLP gauge metrics every 30-60 seconds:

Metric Name	Interval	Description
system.cpu.utilization	30s	Total CPU usage %
system.cpu.user	30s	User CPU %
system.cpu.system	30s	System CPU %
system.memory.utilization	30s	Memory usage %
system.memory.usage	30s	Memory used (MB)
system.memory.total	30s	Total memory (MB)
system.disk.read	60s	Disk read throughput (KB)
system.disk.write	60s	Disk write throughput (KB)
system.network.rx	30s	Network received per interval (KB)
system.network.tx	30s	Network transmitted per interval (KB)

All metrics appear under service host-system in the Metrics Explorer.

Auto-detection (Fluent Bit)

The Lua script automatically detects the primary disk device and network interface by reading /proc:

• Disk: Reads /proc/diskstats, selects the device with the most I/O activity. Skips partitions (sda1), loop devices, and device-mapper entries.
• Network: Reads /proc/net/dev, selects the interface with the most traffic. Skips lo (loopback).

Detection runs once and caches the result for the lifetime of the container. If your primary device changes, restart the metrics container:

docker compose restart fluent-bit-metrics

Viewing metrics

Metrics appear in the Metrics Explorer in the LogTide dashboard (/dashboard/metrics). You can:

• Browse all metric names
• Filter by service (host-system for Fluent Bit, or your custom service name)
• View time-series charts for any metric
• Compare metrics across services

Configuration

Adjusting collection intervals (Fluent Bit)

Edit fluent-bit-metrics.conf to change how often metrics are collected:

[INPUT]
    Name         cpu
    Tag          metrics.cpu
    Interval_Sec 10   # Every 10 seconds instead of 30

Flush interval

The Flush setting in the [SERVICE] section controls how often metrics are sent to LogTide. Default is 30 seconds.

Troubleshooting

Metrics not appearing

1. Check the container is running:

docker compose ps fluent-bit-metrics

2. Check logs for errors:

docker compose logs fluent-bit-metrics

3. Verify API key is set:

grep FLUENT_BIT_API_KEY .env

4. Look for HTTP status codes in the logs — 200 means metrics are being accepted.

Platform limitations

System metrics via Fluent Bit require Linux /proc filesystem. They won’t work on macOS or Windows Docker Desktop (the container sees the VM’s /proc, not the host’s). Use the OpenTelemetry Collector with hostmetrics receiver as an alternative on those platforms.

Next Steps

• Docker Log Collection - Collect container logs alongside metrics
• OpenTelemetry - Send traces and logs via OTLP
• Real-Time Alerting - Set up alerts for metric thresholds
• systemd Journal - Collect system service logs