Send host metrics to OpenObserve with OxiPulse

OpenObserve receives OTLP/gRPC on port 5081. It needs Basic auth and the organization as headers.

1. Start OpenObserve

docker run -d --name openobserve --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 5080:5080 -p 5081:5081 \
  -v openobserve-data:/data -e ZO_DATA_DIR=/data \
  -e ZO_ROOT_USER_EMAIL=root@example.com -e ZO_ROOT_USER_PASSWORD='<password>' \
  public.ecr.aws/zinclabs/openobserve:latest

5080 is the UI and HTTP API; 5081 is gRPC, which the OpenObserve quickstart does not publish.

2. Point OxiPulse at it

The authorization header is Basic followed by email:password in base64:

printf '%s' 'root@example.com:<password>' | base64

In /etc/oxipulse/config.toml (Windows: C:\ProgramData\oxipulse\config.toml):

endpoint = "http://<openobserve-host>:5081"

[headers]
authorization = "Basic <base64 from above>"
organization = "default"

Then sudo systemctl restart oxipulse. With Docker, pass the same as -e OXIPULSE_HEADERS="authorization=Basic <base64>,organization=default".

Better than the root user: create a service account in OpenObserve (IAM → Service Accounts) and use its email and token.

3. See the metrics

Each metric is its own stream, with dots turned into underscores: system_cpu_utilization, system_memory_usage, and so on. Open Metrics, pick a stream and filter or group by host_name.

To check from the command line:

curl -u 'root@example.com:<password>' \
  "http://<openobserve-host>:5080/api/default/streams?type=metrics&fetchSchema=false"