What's Monitored

• Active Users
• Uptime
• CPU Load total
• Disk Utilization
• Memory Utilization
• CPU Utilization per core (Single Graph)
• Ram Utilization time graph
• Load Average
• Load Average Graph
• CPU and ACPI Temperature Sensors
• pfBlocker IP Stats
• pfBlocker DNS Stats
• Gateway Response time - dpinger
• List of interfaces with IPv4, IPv6, Subnet, MAC, Status and pfSense labels thanks to /u/trumee
• WAN Statistics - Traffic & Throughput (Identified by dashboard variable)
• LAN Statistics - Traffic & Throughput (Identified by dashboard variable)
• Unbound stats - Plugin and config included and working but not implemented

Running on

Grafana 7.4.3
Influxdb 1.8.3

Changelog

This is just a summary, for more details look at the commits.

• Big Performance boost for subqueries in dashboard: https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb/issues/9122
• This update includes plugins, telegraf config and the dashboard
• Added more pfBlocker information in separate panel to keep things organized.
• Replaced telegraphgateways.py with telegraphgateways.php
• Added gateway interface detail table
• If things render weird, drop the following measurements: tailipblocklog, gateways, taildnsbl_log

Heads up!

Due to the update in the Gateway plugin (move from py to php), you may need to drop your gateways measurement.

In the recent commits I updated the telegraf config to use the Tails Input Plugin in place of the Logparser Input Plugin since it's been deprecated.

I renamed many of the columns to reflect what's being logged by pfBlockerNG-devel and fixed some parsing bugs that cause lines to be skipped due to inconsistent log formatting. As a result, the measurements ipblocklog and dnsbllog have been replaced with tailipblocklog and taildnsbllog respectively.

I dropped the old measurements: ipblocklog, dnsbl_log

If you cannot live without this data, you could use the panels from this commit and not update the config. Read my note about the Logparser Input Plugin above!

If you want to load the complete logs files, you could probably change the telegraf config to:

from_beginning = false

to

from_beginning = true

I'm sure you can even rename the measurements, columns and update the tags, but that's beyond my influx capabilities.

Templates of what I currently run in my Kubernetes homelab

Kubernetes deployed locally with these instructions

Stripped yaml templates used to deploy my homelab (including Influx and Grafana) are here

docker-compose example with persistent storage

I've recently migrated my stack to Kubernetes, the image versions are updated but the docker-compose is untested.

  grafana-pfSense:
    image: "grafana/grafana:7.4.3"
    container_name: grafana
    hostname: grafana
    mem_limit: 4gb
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      TZ: "America/New_York"
      GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS: "grafana-clock-panel,grafana-simple-json-datasource,grafana-piechart-panel,grafana-worldmap-panel"
      GF_PATHS_DATA: "/var/lib/grafana"
      GF_DEFAULT_INSTANCE_NAME: "home"
      GF_ANALYTICS_REPORTING_ENABLED: "false"
      GF_SERVER_ENABLE_GZIP: "true"
      GF_SERVER_DOMAIN: "home.mydomain"
    volumes:
      - '/share/ContainerData/grafana:/var/lib/grafana'
    logging:
      driver: "json-file"
      options:
        max-size: "100M"
    network_mode: bridge

  influxdb-pfsense:
    image: "influxdb:1.8.3-alpine"
    container_name: influxdb
    hostname: influxdb
    mem_limit: 10gb
    ports:
      - "2003:2003"
      - "8086:8086"
    environment:
      TZ: "America/New_York"
      INFLUXDB_DATA_QUERY_LOG_ENABLED: "false"
      INFLUXDB_REPORTING_DISABLED: "true"
      INFLUXDB_HTTP_AUTH_ENABLED: "true"
      INFLUXDB_ADMIN_USER: "admin"
      INFLUXDB_ADMIN_PASSWORD: "adminpassword"
      INFLUXDB_USER: "pfsense"
      INFLUXDB_USER_PASSWORD: "pfsenseuserpassword"
      INFLUXDB_DB: "pfsense"
    volumes:
      - '/share/ContainerData/influxdb:/var/lib/influxdb'
    logging:
      driver: "json-file"
      options:
        max-size: "100M"
    network_mode: bridge

Make sure you are using pfBlockerNG-devel

Configuration

Grafana

The Config for the dashboard relies on the variables defined within the dashboard in Grafana. When importing the dashboard, make sure to select your datasource.

Dashboard Settings -> Variables

WAN - $WAN is a static variable defined so that a separate dashboard panel can be created for WAN interfaces stats.  Use a comma-separated list for multiple WAN interfaces.

LANInterfaces - $LANInterfaces uses a regex to remove any interfaces you don't want to be grouped as LAN. The filtering happens in the "Regex" field. I use a negative lookahead regex to match the interfaces I want excluded. It should be pretty easy to understand what you need to do here. I have excluded igb0 (WAN) and igb1,igb2,igb3 (only used to host vlans).

After writing this up, I realize I need to change this variable name, it's just not going to happen right now.

Telegraf

Telegraf Config

In the /config directory you will find all of the additional telegraf config. In pfSense, under Services -> Telegraf, at the bottom of the page with the teeny tiny text box is where you paste in the included config.

I also included the config for Unbound DNS and it's commented out. I'm not currently using it, but it's fully functional, just uncomment if you want to use it.

Plugins

Plugins

Plugins get copied to your pfSense system

I put all my plugins in /usr/local/bin and set them to 555

I also included a wrapper script for Unbound DNS. I'm not currently using it, but it's fully functional.

Troubleshooting

Telegraf Plugins

• You can run most plugins from a shell/ssh session to verify the output. (the environment vars may be different when telegraf is executing the plugin)
• If you're copying from a windows system, make sure the CRLF is correct
• The below command should display unix line endings (\n or LF) as $ and Windows line endings (\r\n or CRLF) as ^M$.

# cat -e /usr/local/bin/telegraf_pfinterface.php

Telegraf Troubleshooting

If you get no good output from running the plugin directly, try the following command before moving to the below step.

# telegraf --test --config /usr/local/etc/telegraf.conf

To troubleshoot plugins further, add the following lines to the agent block in /usr/local/etc/telegraf.conf and send a HUP to the telegraf pid. You're going to need to do this from a ssh shell. One you update the config you are going to need to tell telegraf to read the new configs. If you restart telegraf from pfSense, this will not work since it will overwrite your changes.

Telegraf Config (Paste in to [agent] section)

debug = true
quiet = false
logfile = "/var/log/telegraf/telegraf.log"

Restarting Telegraf

# ps aux | grep '[t]elegraf.conf'
# kill -HUP 

Now go read /var/log/telegraf/telegraf.log

InfluxDB

When in doubt, run a few queries to see if the data you are looking for is being populated.

bash-4.4# influx
Connected to http://localhost:8086 version 1.8.3
InfluxDB shell version: 1.8.3
> auth
username: admin
password:
> show databases
name: databases
name
----
pfsense
_internal
> use pfsense
Using database pfsense
> show measurements
name: measurements
name
----
cpu
disk
diskio
gateways
interface
mem
net
netstat
pf
processes
swap
system
tail_dnsbl_log
tail_ip_block_log
temperature
> select * from system limit 20
name: system
time                host                     load1         load15        load5         n_cpus n_users uptime     uptime_format
----                ----                     -----         ------        -----         ------ ------- ------     -------------
1585272640000000000 pfSense.home         0.0615234375  0.07861328125 0.0791015625  4      1       196870     2 days,  6:41
1585272650000000000 pfSense.home         0.05126953125 0.07763671875 0.076171875   4      1       196880     2 days,  6:41
1585272660000000000 pfSense.home         0.04296875    0.07666015625 0.0732421875  4      1       196890     2 days,  6:41
1585272670000000000 pfSense.home         0.03564453125 0.07568359375 0.0703125     4      1       196900     2 days,  6:41
1585272680000000000 pfSense.home         0.02978515625 0.07470703125 0.0673828125  4      1       196910     2 days,  6:41
1585272690000000000 pfSense.home         0.02490234375 0.07373046875 0.064453125   4      1       196920     2 days,  6:42
...

How to drop influx measurement

bash-4.4# influx
Connected to http://localhost:8086 version 1.8.3
InfluxDB shell version: 1.8.3
> auth
username: admin
password:
> use pfsense
Using database pfsense
> drop measurement ip_block_log

Original Reddit thread

I was going to post this in the thread made by /u/seb6596 since this is based on their dashboard, but I made quite a few changes and wanted to include information that would get lost in the thread.

What I updated:

• Created dashboard wide variables to make the dashboard more portable and easily configurable. You shouldn't need to update any of the queries.
• Took some inspiration and panels from this dashboard
• Included gateway RTT from dpinger thanks to this integration
• Pulled information from the "returngatewaysstatus_text" function in "/etc/inc/gwlb.inc" to return the actual status of the gateway, as well as the current loss/rtt and IP values.
• Used telegraf configs from this post by /u/PeskyWarrior
• Tag, templating - No need to specify all cpus or interfaces in the graph queries. These values are pulled in with queries.
• Added chart to show all adapters, IP, MAC and Status from here
• Added Temperature data based on feedback from /u/tko1982 - CPU Temp and any other ACPI device that reports temp is now collected and reported

TODO

• Include IP and ping methods from /u/seb6596 when they are back online.
• Make it pretty. I've never been good at this part
• Get the RTT calculations right from the dpinger integration. It's in microseconds but for some reason doesn't match the graphs in pfSense when I compare them.
• Figure out if I can show subnet and media speed/duplex for the interfaces
• Use the pfSense labels in the graphs that show network stats - 2 different measurements