What is Synthesize?

Want to try out Graphite? Installing any software can be a burden when you just want to give it a trial run. That's why one of the Graphite developers created the Synthesize project.

Synthesize is a fully automated installation and configuration script for the Graphite stack. It was initially designed as a guide for new users, demonstrating how to install Graphite manually, but evolved into a bespoke deployment mechanism in its own right. Although Synthesize targets Ubuntu 14.04 LTS specifically, it includes a Vagrantfile to allow anyone to easily and painlessly try out Graphite on their laptop or development system.

The Synthesize installation includes the following software components:

  • Graphite-web (using Apache webserver)
  • Carbon
  • Whisper
  • Memcached (caching service used to speed up data queries)
  • Statsite (high-performance StatsD implementation)
  • Collectd (host and service metrics agent)

Running in DigitalOcean

If you're a DigitalOcean customer, deploying Graphite is literally as easy as clicking the Install on DigitalOcean button below. You'll have the option to change the default instance size (512MB) or region (New York 3). For most users the default are fine. Accept the terms and click the big blue button to launch your own Graphite instance.

Running in Vagrant

Synthesize's Vagrant script launches a small Ubuntu 14.04 LTS virtualbox instance on your host. Once this is fully booted it will run the Synthesize install script. Depending on your internet connection this process will usually finish in under five minutes.

$ wget https://github.com/obfuscurity/synthesize/archive/master.zip
$ unzip master.zip
$ cd synthesize-master/
$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest
$ vagrant up
$ open https://127.0.0.1:8443/

Installing in an existing Ubuntu 14.04 LTS host

In some cases you may prefer to install Synthesize manually with the provided install script. Running these commands will install the Graphite stack on your host in an unobtrusive manner (git source checkouts in /usr/local/src, installation in /opt/graphite).

$ wget https://github.com/obfuscurity/synthesize/archive/master.zip
$ unzip master.zip
$ cd synthesize-master/
$ sudo ./install

Uninstalling Synthesize

If you deployed Synthesize to a new DigitalOcean or Vagrant instance, you can simply destroy the host. If you need to remove Synthesize from an existing server, just run the provided uninstall script in your Synthesize source directory.

$ cd synthesize-master/
$ sudo ./uninstall

Install Graphite and Get Started

Install