Setup

Docs > Network Monitoring > Network Path > Setup

Network Path for Datadog Network Performance Monitoring is in Preview. Reach out to your Datadog representative to sign up, and then use the following instructions to configure the Datadog Agent to gather network path data.

Overview

Setting up Network Path involves configuring your Linux environment to monitor and trace the network routes between your services and endpoints. This helps identify bottlenecks, latency issues, and potential points of failure in your network infrastructure. Network Path allows you to manually configure individual network paths or automatically discover them, depending on your needs.

Prerequisites

Agent version 7.55 or higher is required.
NPM must be enabled.

Note: If your network configuration restricts outbound traffic, follow the setup instructions on the Agent proxy configuration documentation.

Setup

Network traffic paths

Configure network traffic paths to allow the Agent to automatically discover and monitor network paths based on actual network traffic, without requiring you to specify endpoints manually.

Enabling Network Path to automatically detect paths can generate a significant number of logs, particularly when monitoring network paths across a large number of hosts.

Enable the system-probe traceroute module in /etc/datadog-agent/system-probe.yaml by adding the following:
```
traceroute:
  enabled: true
```

Enable network_path to monitor NPM connections by creating or editing the /etc/datadog-agent/datadog.yaml file:

network_path:
  connections_monitoring:
    enabled: true
  collector:
    # workers: <NUMER OF WORKERS> # default 4

For full configuration details, reference the example config, or use the following:

network_path:
  connections_monitoring:
    ## @param enabled - bool - required - default:false
    ## Enable network path collection
    #
    enabled: true
  collector:
    ## @param workers - int - optional - default:4
    ## Number of workers that can collect paths in parallel
    ## Recommendation: leave at default
    #
    # workers: <NUMER OF WORKERS> # default 4

Restart the Agent after making these configuration changes to start seeing network paths.

Monitor individual paths

Manually configure individual paths by specifying the exact endpoint you want to test. This allows you to target specific network routes for monitoring.

Enable the system-probe traceroute module in /etc/datadog-agent/system-probe.yaml by adding the following:
```
traceroute:
  enabled: true
```

Enable network_path to monitor new destinations from this Agent by creating or editing the /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/network_path.d/conf.yaml file:

init_config:
  min_collection_interval: 60 # in seconds, default 60 seconds
instances:
  # configure the endpoints you want to monitor, one check instance per endpoint
  # warning: Do not set the port when using UDP. Setting the port when using UDP can cause traceroute calls to fail and falsely report an unreachable destination.

  - hostname: api.datadoghq.eu # endpoint hostname or IP
    protocol: TCP
    port: 443
    tags:
      - "tag_key:tag_value"
      - "tag_key2:tag_value2"
  ## optional configs:
  # max_ttl: 30 # max traderoute TTL, default is 30
  # timeout: 10 # timeout in seconds of traceroute calls, default is 10s

  # more endpoints
  - hostname: 1.1.1.1 # endpoint hostname or IP
    protocol: UDP
    tags:
      - "tag_key:tag_value"
      - "tag_key2:tag_value2"

For full configuration details, reference the example config, or use the following:

init_config:
 ## @param min_collection_interval - int - optional - default:60
  ## Interval between each traceroute runs for each destination.
  # min_collection_interval: <interval_in_seconds>

instances:
  ## @param hostname - string - required
  ## Hostname or IP of the destination endpoint to monitor.
  ## Traceroute will be run against this endpoint with a sequence of different TTL.
  #
  - hostname: <HOSTNAME_OR_IP>

  ## @param port - uint16 - optional - default:<RANDOM PORT>
  ## The port of the destination endpoint.
  ## For UDP, we do not recommend setting the port since it can make probes less reliable.
  ## By default, the port is random.
  #
  # port: <PORT>

  ## @param max_ttl - uint8 - optional - default:30
  ## The maximum traceroute TTL used during path collection.
  #
  # max_ttl: 30

  ## @param timeout - uint32 - optional - default:3000
  ## The timeout of traceroute network calls.
  ## The timeout is in millisecond.
  #
  # timeout: 3000

  ## @param min_collection_interval - int - optional - default:60
  ## Interval between each traceroute runs for each destination.
  # min_collection_interval: <interval_in_seconds>
  ## @param source_service - string - optional
  ## Source service name.
  #
  # source_service: <SOURCE_SERVICE>

  ## @param destination_service - string - optional
  ## Destination service name.
  #
  # destination_service: <DESTINATION_SERVICE>

  ## @param tags - list of strings - optional
  ## A list of tags to attach to every metric and service check emitted by this instance.
  ##
  ## Learn more about tagging at https://docs.datadoghq.com/tagging
  #
  # tags:
  #   - <KEY_1>:<VALUE_1>
  #   - <KEY_2>:<VALUE_2>