Running grafana-agent on Synology DSM / NAS

This docker compose file can be used to run the grafana-agent in a container on a Synology NAS.

Tested on a DS420+ (AMD64) with DSM 7.2.1

Disclaimer: Your results might vary, use at own risk, no liability accepted.

Scenario / Steps

Create and login to Free Grafan Cloud
Click Getting Started button
Click Quickstart button (with all the OS icons)
Click Linux

Step 1. Run the Grafana Agent

Click the button and follow the instructions.

I recommend running the commands on a different linux system, or in WSL.

Once you are done make sure any started agent is stopped, then grab the generated grafana-agent.yaml config file. This will become the file we need in docker.

Modify Install Script (optional)

If you do need to run the script on your NAS directly you'll need to manually download the install-linux-binary.sh script and edit it to replace unzip with 7z x as unzip is no longer installed.

--- install-linux-binary.sh     2024-01-20 13:36:08.137819400 +0100
+++ install-linux-binary_nas.sh 2024-01-20 13:35:52.324263900 +0100
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@
   log '--- Verifying package checksum'
   check_sha

-  unzip "${ASSET_NAME}";
+  7z x "${ASSET_NAME}";
   chmod a+x "${ASSET_NAME}";
 }

Step 2. Make configuration selections

Select Other Distribution as your OS and make sure you select the correct architecture. (I only tested this on AMD64)

Step 3. Prepare your agent configuration file

Follow all the instructions to update configuration but stop before it asks you to run/start the grafana-agent.

Configuration For Docker

Because we're planning to run the agent in docker the following updates need to be made to configuration:

The paths for node_exporter to monitor need to be updated to those mapped into the container
Log location needs to be updated (if you are collecting logs)

--- agent_orig.yaml     2024-01-20 13:21:52.078747800 +0100
+++ agent.yaml  2024-01-20 13:20:25.666723500 +0100
@@ -23,6 +23,11 @@
   # For a correct indentation, paste snippets copied from Grafana Cloud at the beginning of the line.
   node_exporter:
     enabled: true
+    # For running in container
+    rootfs_path: /host/root
+    sysfs_path: /host/sys
+    procfs_path: /host/proc
+    udev_data_path: /host/root/run/udev/data
     # disable unused collectors
     disable_collectors:
       - ipvs #high cardinality on kubelet
@@ -82,7 +87,7 @@
         labels:
           instance: 'synnas'
           # For running in container
-          __path__: /var/log/{syslog,messages,*.log}
+          __path__: /var/host-log/{syslog,messages,*.log}
           job: integrations/node_exporter

 metrics:

Start the Agent

Copy the grafana-agent.yaml to this folder (where the compose.yaml is) and name it agent.yaml.

Review the compose.yaml and ensure you know what it does, as it will access potentially sensitive data about your system.

Install/Start the docker compose in your preferred manner (I prefer dockge)

Ensure you are getting log messages in the console from the running agent.

Step 3. (Continued)

With the container successfully started you can now click the Test Connection button and it should succeed.

Conclusion

It's fairly easy to do but does require some tweaking.

MartinSGill/grafana-agent-synology