Step 4: Configure the Collector

Configuring the collector with Docker

Create your configuration file (e.g. named pganalyze_collector.env) with environment variables like this:

• Single DB Instance
• Multiple DB Instances

PGA_API_KEY=your-organization-api-key
DB_HOST=your_database_host
DB_NAME=your_database_name
DB_USERNAME=your_monitoring_user
DB_PASSWORD=your_monitoring_user_password
DB_SSLROOTCERT=rds-ca-global
DB_SSLMODE=verify-full

Note: The pganalyze collector allows for more optional settings (e.g. AWS access keys, multiple database names)

Handling Amazon Aurora clusters vs instances

In the case of Amazon Aurora, the collector automatically resolves cluster endpoints to the underlying writer instance.

DB_HOST=mydbcluster.cluster-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com

This will only monitor the writer instance. If you also want to monitor a reader instance, you'll need to use the Multiple Instances method above.

CONFIG_CONTENTS="[pganalyze]
api_key = 'your_pga_organization_api_key'
 
[writer_instance]
db_host = mydbcluster.cluster-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com
...
 
[reader_instance]
db_host = mydbcluster.cluster-ro-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com
...
"

Alternatively, you can run a separate Docker container to monitor a reader instance. Create a new configuration file (e.g. named pganalyze_collector.replica.env) and use the cluster-ro endpoint as the DB_HOST:

DB_HOST=mydbcluster.cluster-ro-123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com

If you have a cluster with multiple readers, you either need to add each instance endpoint to the content of CONFIG_CONTENTS (e.g. add each sections like [reader_instance1], [reader_instance2]), or run one pganalyze collector Docker container for each instance.

Test snapshot

Then run the following:

docker run --env-file pganalyze_collector.env quay.io/pganalyze/collector:stable test

Once you've confirmed the install is successful and you're receiving query data in pganalyze, we recommend setting up Log Insights as a follow-up step, to automatically track log events in your database.