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+# prometheus-nano-exporter
+
+TODO: one-paragraph description.
+
+## Word of Warning
+
+There are no particularly compelling reasons to use this software over
+the alternatives. On a Real Computerâ„¢, the standard [Prometheus node
+exporter](https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter) is perfectly
+adequate, and has a much larger feature set, not to mention adoption
+rate. On OpenWRT in particular, the standard community-supported
+package repository already has a lightweight Lua rewrite as
+[prometheus-node-exporter-lua](https://openwrt.org/packages/pkgdata/prometheus-node-exporter-lua),
+which is even smaller in disk footprint, if you don't count the Lua
+interpreter.
+
+The only reason why you would *need* this version is if you were
+building for a particularly constrained system, and did not want to
+include the Lua interpreter, or *any* foreign dependencies (other than
+a C runtime library).
+
+Other than that, you might choose to use it for æsthetic reasons.
+
+## Installation
+
+TODO: instructions.
+
+The metrics collection is highly Linux-specific. You probably won't
+have much luck on other operating systems.
+
+## Collectors
+
+For the most part, the produced metrics try to loosely (but not
+slavishly) adhere to the format used by the standard Prometheus node
+exporter (as of version v0.16).
+
+This is an overview of the available collectors. See the [Collector
+Reference](#collector-reference) below for detailed documentation,
+including generated metrics, labels and configuration options.
+
+| Name | Description |
+| ---- | ----------- |
+| [`cpu`](#cpu) | CPU usage from `/proc/stat` and CPU frequency scaling data from sysfs. |
+| [`hwmon`](#hwmon) | Temperature, fan and voltage sensors from `/sys/class/hwmon`. |
+| [`network`](#network) | Network device transmit/receive statistics from `/proc/net/dev`. |
+| [`textfile`](#textfile) | Custom metrics from `.prom` text files dropped in a directory. |
+| [`uname`](#uname) | Node information returned by the `uname` system call. |
+
+## Usage
+
+By default, all collectors are enabled. Use a command line argument of
+the form `--{collector}-off` (e.g., `--cpu-off`) to selectively
+disable specific collectors. Alternatively, if you explicitly enable
+any collector with `--{collector}-on`, only such explicitly enabled
+collectors are actually enabled. You probably don't want to mix both
+`on` and `off` flags in the same invocation.
+
+The general command line arguments are documented below. Specific
+collectors may also accept further arguments, which will always have
+the prefix `--{collector}-`. They are documented in the [Collector
+Reference](#collector-reference) section.
+
+| Flag | Description |
+| ---- | ----------- |
+| `--port=X` | Listen on port *X* instead of the default port (9100). |
+
+## Collector Reference
+
+### `cpu`
+
+Metrics and labels:
+
+* `node_cpu_seconds_total{cpu=N,mode=M}`: Number of CPU seconds spent
+  in various different modes, as reported in `/proc/stat`. *N* is the
+  CPU index, a number between 0 and one less than the number of
+  (logical) CPUs in the system. The mode *M* is one of `user`, `nice`,
+  `system`, `idle`, `iowait`, `irq`, `softirq` or `steal`. There will
+  be one row for each CPU and each mode in the scrape.
+* `node_cpu_frequency_hertz{cpu=N}`: The current CPU clock frequency
+  in Hertz at the time of the scrape. This is the
+  `cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq` value under the CPU-specific sysfs
+  directory.
+
+### `hwmon`
+
+The `hwmon` collector pulls data from all the sysfs subdirectories
+under `/sys/class/hwmon`. The supported entry types are temperature
+(`temp*`), fan (`fan*` and voltage (`in*`) sensors.
+
+Metrics and dimensions:
+
+* `node_hwmon_temp_celsius`: Current temperature in degrees Celsius.
+* `node_hwmon_fan_rpm`: Current fan speed in RPM.
+* `node_hwmon_fan_min_rpm`: Threshold for minimum fan speed.
+* `node_hwmon_fan_alarm`: Active fan alarm signal: `0`/`1`.
+* `node_hwmon_in_volts`: Input voltage measurement.
+* `node_hwmon_in_min_volts`: Lower threshold for a voltage alarm.
+* `node_hwmon_in_max_volts`: Upper threshold for a voltage alarm.
+* `node_hwmon_in_alarm`: Active voltage alarm signal: `0`/`1`.
+
+All the metrics have the same two labels: `chip` and `sensor`. The
+`chip` label is derived from the sysfs directory path, while the
+`sensor` label designates a specific sensor on the same (logical)
+chip.
+
+The values are by default directly as reported in sysfs: there's no
+built-in scaling. TODO: scaling options.
+
+### `network`
+
+Metrics and labels:
+
+* `node_network_receive_X{device=D}`: Metrics related to receiving
+  data on network interface *D*.
+* `node_network_transmit_Y{device=D}`: Metrics related to sending data
+  on network interface *D*.
+
+The exact set of metrics (`X` and `Y` above) depends on the columns
+included in your `/proc/net/dev` file. A normal set is:
+
+| Receive | Transmit | Metric | Description |
+| ------- | -------- | ------ | ----------- |
+| X | X | `bytes` | Byte counter |
+| X | X | `packets` | Packet counter |
+| X | X | `errs` | Errors while receiving/transmitting |
+| X | X | `drop` | Dropped frame count |
+| X | X | `fifo` | ? |
+| X |   | `frame` | ? |
+| X |   | `compressed` | ? |
+| X |   | `multicast` | Byte count |
+|   | X | `colls` | Collisions while transmitting |
+|   | X | `carrier` | ? |
+
+### `textfile`
+
+The `textfile` collector can be used to conveniently export custom
+node-bound metrics. Metrics in any files ending in `.prom` in the
+designated directory are included in the scrape. Generally you should
+write to a file with a different suffix (say `.prom.tmp`) and then
+atomically rename the file, to prevent the server for sending data
+from incomplete metrics files.
+
+The implementation in this program copies the file contents directly
+to the outgoing HTTP response. It is your responsibility to make sure
+the files conform to the Prometheus exposition format. The only
+modification done is to add a terminating newline to the file, is one
+is not already present.
+
+### `uname`
+
+The `uname` collector exports data from the eponymous system call as
+labels attached to the metric `node_uname_info`, which always has the
+value 1. The attached labels are:
+
+* `machine`
+* `nodename`
+* `release`
+* `sysname`
+* `version`
+
+See your `uname(2)` man page for details of the values.