About netdata_install: true

[pat-s]

I wonder if netdata_install: true is a good default to have.
Yes, it might be beneficial in some environments, however, I consider it more as an optional "nice to have" as a user if I really want it.
Maybe there can also be a dynamic default which is true for Console installs and false for "automation" installs?

The technical reasoning behind that is that netdata requires quite some CPU and about ~ 300MB memory at runtime. Most users might not even aware that it got installed and is running, consuming resources for no reason. Especially on small nodes this can be ~ 10% of the nodes total capacity.

Last, if one sets netdata_install: false, netdata isn't removed or disabled from the node again as there are no tasks to account for this.

[vitabaks]

We’ve actually received multiple requests in the past to include monitoring system.

While the option to install Netdata has been available for a while (since v1.6.0), it was previously disabled by default. After carefully evaluating various monitoring tools, we settled on Netdata because it offers great visibility into system-level metrics and even some PostgreSQL-specific ones — to be honest, it’s one of the best monitoring tools we’ve seen so far.

In practice, Netdata uses a relatively small amount of resources, and in most environments we barely notice its impact.
But you’re absolutely right — on very small nodes, even that footprint can become significant. That’s why we’ve kept the option to disable its installation by setting netdata_install: false

Best regards,
The Autobase Team

[pat-s]

FYI: netdata has been removed from Debian lately and it is likely that the same will happen for other distros. Apparently they changed their license and moved many of the important features to license-only.

Given this, I am not sure it is a good idea (anymore) to install it by default. In addition, the packaged versions in most distros are quite outdated.

[vitabaks]

We do not use distribution packages; the kickstart.sh script is used for installation.

The license change needs to be reviewed in more detail, thank you for informing us.