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The DigitalOcean metrics agent collects the names of active system processes running on your Droplet, such as nginx, docker, or postgres. It doesn’t collect file contents, environment variables, or process arguments.

If you want to stop sending process names for privacy or compliance reasons, disable process name collection in the agent configuration. This change only affects future collection. It doesn’t remove data collected before you disabled it. To request deletion of previously collected data, contact support.

Disable Process Name Collection

Run the following steps from SSH or the Droplet web console on the machine where the metrics agent is installed.

To disable process name collection, update the metrics agent service configuration on the Droplet, and then restart the agent so --no-collector.processes is applied. Use either the systemctl steps or the initctl steps below for your Droplet, not both. If you are not sure which applies, use the next section first.

Check Which Init System Your Droplet Uses

Run the following command:

command -v systemctl

If the command returns a path such as /bin/systemctl, your Droplet uses systemctl. If it returns nothing, your Droplet uses initctl.

Update the systemctl Configuration

On systems that use systemctl, run the following command to add the --no-collector.processes flag to the metrics agent service:

sudo sed -i 's%ExecStart=/opt/digitalocean/bin/do-agent%ExecStart=/opt/digitalocean/bin/do-agent --no-collector.processes%' /etc/systemd/system/do-agent.service

Reload the systemd configuration:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Restart the agent:

sudo systemctl restart do-agent

The sed and daemon-reload steps above must complete before this restart so the unit file includes --no-collector.processes. The following checks are optional. They are only for Droplets that use systemctl, and only after the restart command above.

Then, check if the restart was successful:

sudo systemctl status do-agent

If it was successful, the following line is found in the output:

Active: active (running)

Update the initctl Configuration

On systems that use initctl, stop the agent first:

sudo initctl stop do-agent

Then, update the Upstart configuration file:

sudo sed -i 's%exec su -s /bin/sh -c \x27exec \"$0\" \"$@\"\x27 do-agent -- /opt/digitalocean/bin/do-agent --syslog%exec su -s /bin/sh -c \x27exec \"$0\" \"$@\"\x27 do-agent -- /opt/digitalocean/bin/do-agent --syslog --no-collector.processes%' /etc/init/do-agent.conf

Reload the Upstart configuration:

sudo initctl reload-configuration

Start the agent again:

sudo initctl start do-agent

Verify the Configuration

To confirm that process name collection is disabled, check the running agent process:

ps aux | grep do-agent

The output should include --no-collector.processes, for example:

/opt/digitalocean/bin/do-agent --no-collector.processes

You can also check the agent logs.

For systems that use systemctl:

journalctl -u do-agent

For systems that use initctl:

cat /var/log/upstart/do-agent.log

If the flag is missing or the logs still reference the processes collector, repeat the configuration steps or contact support.

Related Topics

Why are my alerts not working on my Droplets?

Install the DigitalOcean metrics agent on each Droplet to enable Monitoring alerts.

How can I allowlist the DigitalOcean metrics agent with my firewall?

Configure your firewall to allow outbound traffic on ports 80 and 443 so the DigitalOcean metrics agent can report monitoring data.