FAQs

Sensu Frequently Asked Questions

Please note the following frequently asked questions about Sensu Core, Sensu Enterprise, Sensu Training, Professional Services for Sensu, and more. If you need support for Sensu, please consider giving Sensu Enterprise a try.

What platforms does Sensu support?

Platform & Version	64bit	32bit	Arch	Comments
Ubuntu 12.04			x86
Ubuntu 14.04			x86
Ubuntu 16.04			x86	No official 32bit images
Ubuntu 18.04			x86	No official 32bit images
Debian 8			x86	No official 32bit images
Debian 9			x86	No official 32bit images
CentOS 5			x86	32 and 64bit images built with sensu-omnibus-packer
CentOS 6			x86	Using unofficial 32bit image
CentOS 7			x86	No official 32bit images
FreeBSD 10			x86	Official 32bit images are out of date
FreeBSD 11			x86	No official 32bit images
Solaris 10			sparc
Solaris 11			sparc
IBM AIX 6.1 +			powerpc
Windows 2012r2			x86	32bit artifact built on 64bit platform
Mac OS X 10.10			x86	See Mac platform notes for instructions
Mac OS X 10.11			x86	See Mac platform notes for instructions
Mac OS X 10.12			x86	See Mac platform notes for instructions

Do I need RabbitMQ to be installed on every system I wish to monitor?

No. Sensu uses RabbitMQ as a Transport. Sensu services require access to a shared instance of the defined Sensu Transport (e.g. a RabbitMQ cluster) to function. Sensu check requests and check results are published as “messages” to the Sensu Transport, and the corresponding Sensu services receive these messages by subscribing to the appropriate subscription topics.

Does Redis need to be installed on every system I wish to monitor?

No. Sensu uses Redis as a data store, and the Sensu server services (i.e. sensu-server & sensu-api for Sensu Core; sensu-enterprise for Sensu Enterprise) require access to the same Redis instance (or cluster) to store and access the Sensu client registry, check results, check execution history, and current event data.

Do check definitions need to exist on every system I wish to monitor?

No. Check definitions can be written as publish/subscribe (pubsub) or standalone. Pubsub checks, which specify a list of subscribers, need only be configured on the Sensu server. Standalone checks, which are scheduled and executed by the Sensu client, need only be configured on the client(s) where they should be run.

Where should check plugin executables be installed?

Regardless of where checks are defined, the actual check executables need to exist on the filesystem for the Sensu client to execute them. Check plugin executables can be installed in /etc/sensu/plugins or /opt/sensu/embedded/bin, the latter being the location where plugin executables are installed via sensu-install.

What is a standalone check?

A standalone check is a check definition that is installed on and executed by the Sensu client without being scheduled by the Sensu server. Standalone checks defer Check execution scheduling responsibilities to Sensu clients, enabling decentralized management of monitoring checks and distribution of scheduling responsibilities. Standalone checks may be used in conjunction with pubsub checks, and are distinguished from pubsub checks by inclusion of the "standalone": true configuration parameter.

What happens if a single check is defined on both the Sensu server and client?

When a check request is published for a check defined on the Sensu server, the Sensu client will look for a local definition matching the check name prior to executing the check. If a local definition exists, it is merged with the definition provided by the server, with any local definition attributes overriding the definition provided by the Sensu server.

What is Sensu Client safe_mode?

In safe_mode a client will not run a check published by a Sensu server unless that check is also defined on the client. Safe mode must be enabled on the Sensu Client via the safe_mode configuration attribute.

Can multiple Sensu servers be run concurrently, in a cluster?

Yes. Sensu is designed to be scaled horizontally (i.e. by adding additional Sensu servers). It supports fully automated leader election (ensuring that a single Sensu server acts as a centralized Check Execution Scheduler), automated failover (automatically electing a new leader if the previous leader is unexpectedly unavailable), and distributed event processing (check results are distributed across all Sensu servers in a round-robin fashion). Running more than one Sensu server is highly recommended for performance and availability.

How are new systems registered?

Automatically. Sensu clients register themselves when they start up. The Sensu client process requires access to the Sensu Transport (by default, this is RabbitMQ; see Sensu Configuration), and some minimal client configuration (e.g. a name, address, and one or more subscriptions) in order to start. When the Sensu client process starts, it begins sending “keepalives” – a special type of check result containing client configuration data – which the Sensu server uses to know that a client is still connected. When a client keepalive is received for a client name that is not currently registered with Sensu, the client is added to the registry and a registration event is created automatically.

Do system clocks need to be synchronized?

Yes. The Sensu services (i.e. sensu-client, sensu-server, sensu-api, sensu-enterprise) use the local/system clock for generating timestamps. When system clocks are out of sync between Sensu clients (where data is collected) and the Sensu server (where data is processed), Sensu may generate false positive client keepalive events, among other potentially unexpected behaviors. Time synchronization can be facilitated with NTP.

Is Sensu Enterprise available as a hosted / SaaS solution?

No. Like Sensu Core, Sensu Enterprise is installed on your organization’s infrastructure alongside other applications and services. Sensu Enterprise packages are available for major Linux distributions including RHEL, CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu.

Is Sensu available for Microsoft Windows?

IMPORTANT: Sensu Core reached end-of-life (EOL) on December 31, 2019, and we permanently removed the Sensu EOL repository on February 1, 2021. This means the Sensu Core packages are no longer available. To migrate to Sensu Go, read the Sensu Core migration guide.

Yes. An MSI installer package is available. Please visit the Sensu documentation for more information on configuring Sensu on Windows.

How do I increase log verbosity?

You can toggle debug logging on and off by sending the Sensu process a TRAP signal.

For example:

$ ps aux | grep [s]ensu-server
sensu     5992  1.7  0.3 177232 24352 ...
$ kill -TRAP 5992

How can I print my Sensu configuration for troubleshooting?

Frequently, Sensu staff or community members may ask you to print your configuration. It’s fairly easy to print the configuration for your Sensu deployment:

Sensu Core: /opt/sensu/bin/sensu-client --print_config | tee sensu-core-config.json

Sensu Enterprise sudo -u sensu java -jar /usr/lib/sensu-enterprise/sensu-enterprise.jar -c /etc/sensu/config.json -d /etc/sensu/conf.d --print_config | tee se-config.json

RabbitMQ is giving me an error about wrong credentials, but everything seems correct. What do I do?

Due to AMQP’s implementation in RabbitMQ, it’s often difficult to distinguish a SSL handshake failure from a bad username/password combination. If you’ve ensured that the username/password combination in your configuration is correct, we encourage you to check your RabbitMQ/Erlang versions against RabbitMQ’s “Which Erlang” article to see if your versions are able to reliably support TLS.

It’s also worth noting that as of Sensu 0.27, our build processes changed and we upgraded the version of OpenSSL, and upgrading your client (if < 0.27) may solve the issue.

What Firewall Rules Does Sensu Require?

See the below table for a listing of services, ports, and protocols Sensu uses.

What configuration files does Sensu require?

See the table below for the location of the respective files needed:

Filename	Client	Server
api.json
client.json
config.json (see note)
dashboard.json
rabbitmq.json
redis.json
transport.json

NOTE: For config.json, it is not necessary to have this file present on either a Sensu client or server, provided that you have the rest of the configuration files present.