windows_exporter/docs/collector.process.md

Process collector

The process collector exposes metrics about processes.

Metric name prefix	process
Data source	Perflib
Counters	Process
Enabled by default?	No

Flags

--collector.process.whitelist

Regexp of processes to include. Process name must both match whitelist and not match blacklist to be included. Recommended to keep down number of returned metrics.

--collector.process.blacklist

Regexp of processes to exclude. Process name must both match whitelist and not match blacklist to be included. Recommended to keep down number of returned metrics.

Example

To match all firefox processes: --collector.process.whitelist="firefox.*". Note that multiple processes with the same name will be disambiguated by Windows by adding a number suffix, such as firefox#2. Your regexp must take these suffixes into consideration.

⚠️ The regexp is case-sensitive, so --collector.process.whitelist="FIREFOX.*" will NOT match a process named firefox .

To specify multiple names, use the pipe | character:

--collector.process.whitelist="(firefox|FIREFOX|chrome).*"

This will match all processes named firefox, FIREFOX or chrome .

IIS Worker processes

The process collector also queries the root\\WebAdministration WMI namespace to check for running IIS workers. If it successfully retrieves a list from this namespace, it will append the name of the worker's application pool to the corresponding process. Whitelist/blacklist matching occurs before this name is appended, so you don't have to take this name in consideration when writing your expression.

Note that this specific feature only works if the IIS Management Scripts and Tools are installed. If they are not installed then all worker processes return as just w3wp.

Example

Given an IIS server with two websites called "Prometheus.io" and "Example.com" running under the application pools "Public website" and "Test", the process names returned will look as follows:

w3wp_Public website
w3wp_Test

Metrics

Name	Description	Type	Labels
windows_process_start_time	Time of process start	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_cpu_time_total	Returns elapsed time that all of the threads of this process used the processor to execute instructions by mode (privileged, user). An instruction is the basic unit of execution in a computer, a thread is the object that executes instructions, and a process is the object created when a program is run. Code executed to handle some hardware interrupts and trap conditions is included in this count.	counter	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_handles	Total number of handles the process has open. This number is the sum of the handles currently open by each thread in the process.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_io_bytes_total	Bytes issued to I/O operations in different modes (read, write, other). This property counts all I/O activity generated by the process to include file, network, and device I/Os. Read and write mode includes data operations; other mode includes those that do not involve data, such as control operations.	counter	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_io_operations_total	I/O operations issued in different modes (read, write, other). This property counts all I/O activity generated by the process to include file, network, and device I/Os. Read and write mode includes data operations; other mode includes those that do not involve data, such as control operations.	counter	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_page_faults_total	Page faults by the threads executing in this process. A page fault occurs when a thread refers to a virtual memory page that is not in its working set in main memory. This can cause the page not to be fetched from disk if it is on the standby list and hence already in main memory, or if it is in use by another process with which the page is shared.	counter	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_page_file_bytes	Current number of bytes this process has used in the paging file(s). Paging files are used to store pages of memory used by the process that are not contained in other files. Paging files are shared by all processes, and lack of space in paging files can prevent other processes from allocating memory.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_pool_bytes	Pool Bytes is the last observed number of bytes in the paged or nonpaged pool. The nonpaged pool is an area of system memory (physical memory used by the operating system) for objects that cannot be written to disk, but must remain in physical memory as long as they are allocated. The paged pool is an area of system memory (physical memory used by the operating system) for objects that can be written to disk when they are not being used. Nonpaged pool bytes is calculated differently than paged pool bytes, so it might not equal the total of paged pool bytes.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_priority_base	Current base priority of this process. Threads within a process can raise and lower their own base priority relative to the process base priority of the process.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_private_bytes	Current number of bytes this process has allocated that cannot be shared with other processes.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_threads	Number of threads currently active in this process. An instruction is the basic unit of execution in a processor, and a thread is the object that executes instructions. Every running process has at least one thread.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_virtual_bytes	Current size, in bytes, of the virtual address space that the process is using. Use of virtual address space does not necessarily imply corresponding use of either disk or main memory pages. Virtual space is finite and, by using too much, the process can limit its ability to load libraries.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_working_set_private_bytes	Size of the working set, in bytes, that is use for this process only and not shared nor shareable by other processes.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_working_set_peak_bytes	Maximum size, in bytes, of the Working Set of this process at any point in time. The Working Set is the set of memory pages touched recently by the threads in the process. If free memory in the computer is above a threshold, pages are left in the Working Set of a process even if they are not in use. When free memory falls below a threshold, pages are trimmed from Working Sets. If they are needed they will then be soft-faulted back into the Working Set before they leave main memory.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id
windows_process_working_set_bytes	Maximum number of bytes in the working set of this process at any point in time. The working set is the set of memory pages touched recently by the threads in the process. If free memory in the computer is above a threshold, pages are left in the working set of a process even if they are not in use. When free memory falls below a threshold, pages are trimmed from working sets. If they are needed, they are then soft-faulted back into the working set before they leave main memory.	gauge	process, process_id, creating_process_id

Example metric

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Useful queries

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Alerting examples

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