Monitoring Nginx with nginx‑status, Telegraf, InfluxDB, and Grafana

After building an Nginx cluster, the next step is to set up continuous monitoring of Nginx.

The simplest way to obtain Nginx metrics is to enable the nginx-status module (also known as stub_status ).

1. Enable nginx‑status

When compiling Nginx from source, include the module:

./configure --with-http_stub_status_module

You can view available modules with ./configure --help . If you installed Nginx via apt-get install , check support with:

nginx -V

Look for --with-http_stub_status_module in the output.

Then add the following location block to the server configuration:

location /nginx-status {
    allow 127.0.0.1; // allowed IP
    deny all;
    stub_status on;
    access_log off;
}

Reload Nginx and verify the endpoint (e.g., curl http://127.0.0.1/nginx-status ).

The status page shows fields such as active connections , server accepts handled requests , reading , writing , and waiting .

2. Install and configure Telegraf

Download and install Telegraf (example for RPM‑based systems):

wget https://dl.influxdata.com/telegraf/releases/telegraf-1.4.3-1.x86_64.rpm
sudo yum localinstall telegraf-1.4.3-1.x86_64.rpm

Edit telegraf.conf to add an InfluxDB output and enable the nginx input plugin, pointing to the nginx-status URL.

After saving the configuration, restart the Telegraf service.

3. Visualize with Grafana

In Grafana, add InfluxDB as a data source, select the nginx measurement, and create panels using fields such as accepts . The article shows example screenshots of the dashboard.

Finally, the author provides additional resources and promotional links, but the core technical content is the end‑to‑end setup for Nginx monitoring.