Windows Support for InfluxData Platform

[ShubhraKar]

We need to gauge importance of Windows Server support is to the community at large. Let us know the version, use case and if scalability features like clustering matter to you. Also please also specify if Windows support is critical for other components of the TICK stack specifically - Telegraf, Chronograf and Kapacitor. +1 on this issue to register your vote.

[elvarb]

Awesome news! now on to some proof of concepts

Are any missing features in this Windows version compared to the Linux version? clustering for example

[vmkdaily]

Version: 0.9.4 and 0.10.x Clustering: Optional, but nice to have TICK: Not yet. Use Case: Currently we gather VMware vSphere performance metrics using Powershell. Stats are then written to InfluxDB using cURL and presented with Grafana.

[vmkdaily]

@mvadu How did you get the build number to show properly? I compile same as I always have for InfluxDB on Windows, but since 0.10 (fresh deployment, not an upgrade) I don't see the version number via CLI or the web interface. Your version looks amazing (deployed it successfully), but I want to fish for myself if possible.

[nblumhardt]

+1

Developing (.NET) apps on Windows, unless it's easy to keep a local instance running, metrics get added as an afterthought rather than a core part of the development process. Currently using Docker Machine, but it's fiddly. Version non-specific and clustering obviously not a big deal in this case.

(Whatever devs run during development/test tends to find its way to production, so without TICK then it'll be less well-utilised/well-tested in Windows projects, unless it also gets local dev support.)

[mvadu]

@vmkdaily getting version is easy, -ldflags="-X main.version=$VERSION -X main.branch=$BRANCH -X main.commit=$COMMIT" difference in windows is regular replacing $xx with %xx% part. I was not able to use the variables, and instead hardcoded the version in -ldflags

[mvadu]

@elvarb the version that I posted works with clustering setup, but I have not been able to test the fail safe nature of cluster. Follow #5715 if you are interested to contribute to test clustering setup on windows.

[andrecarlucci]

+1

Version: recent Clustering: yes but no priority Other TICK: no priority Potential use case: Energy Data

[RSABear]

+1

Telegraf Chronograf Clustering: no

Potential use case: Industrial Data Historian

[andrewaggb]

+1

Version: recent Clustering: yes but no priority Other TICK: no priority Potential use case: Automation Data/Historian

[mvadu]

@ShubhraKar are you still with your Feb 12 comment of 0.12 supporting windows? Starting with 0.11.0 RC Influx breaks basic Create Database command, and we can't even test any further on Windows. If there is no commitment from OEM, community can only do so much.

FYI: I have fixed the regression issue, and submitted PR #6051, please see if the fix can be included in the RC so that 0.11.0 RC can be first test candidate for windows.

• @pauldix

Edit: Going via all forking and branching, it turns out 0.11 was branched out before this bug was introduced. So 0.11 should run on windows. I have a release published for 0.11 RC in windows on my fork.

[andrecarlucci]

Hi @mvadu , I downloaded the 0.10 version from here: https://github.com/mvadu/influxdb/releases/tag/v0.10.1, but it says version 0.9 when running influxdb. Any ideas?

[mvadu]

@andrecarlucci Please check out v0.11.0-rc1. This is same 0.11 code that Influx pushed out last week with one additional fix for windows (to fix port 8091 issue). I think previous version had 0.9 hardcoded in web UI, and the server needed ldflags to passed in properly.

[njoyard]

@mvadu could you please publish the commands you used to generate those versions ? Thanks !

[mvadu]

@njoyard I build from my branch using a powershell script I wrote. Note that InfluxData folks are generating nightly windows builds now (ref), but they are not testing it any way on Windows (comparatively I make sure all tests pass before publishing my releases).

[vmkdaily]

@mvadu just stopping by to say thank you for your contributions to the Windows InfluxDB community!

[mvadu]

@vmkdaily sure thing. Btw, today is a big day for Influx on Windows, we finally have continuous integration test suites running on AppVeyor.com (ref: #6249) got merged. So from now on every new build is guaranteed to have passed basic tests on Windows.

[binary132]

@beckettsean, #6454 implies Windows support is not on the "near-term" roadmap, but @ShubhraKar suggested at least Telegraf and Influxdb support might be in v0.12. Can either of you offer any insight into this? Windows Influxdb support would be a compelling factor for my team.

[beckettsean]

Telegraf is a separate project and already has reasonable Windows support with 0.12. InfluxDB may have Windows support in the future but it is not yet officially supported.

"Near-term" means we are working on it right now.

[srsabu]

+1

If windows builds were officially supported I have a project I'd be using it for right now.

Clustering: no TICK wise: Kapacitor would be a nice to have but the app is already doing the tests necessary for alerting. Use case: local historian to store within shift data before summarizing to system of record.

[PKapsis]

+1

Version: recent Clustering: yes but no priority Other TICK: no priority Potential use case: SCADA Platform

[martinb69]

+1

Version 0.9 Already using influxdb for industrial historian with great success. Waiting for official Windows release with TSM.

[mrled]

+1

Version: recent Use case: Running Bosun on an entirely Windows stack Clustering: no Other TICK: I don't think so, unless they are required to run Bosun

[andycarlsonuk]

+1

version: recent Clustering: no other TICK: no Use case: Devops monitoring (with Grafana)

Currently running a version of 0.9 built from sources last year when it compiled OK (with some effort) on Windows.

[DJWassink]

+1

Version: recent Clustering: no Other TICK: no Use case: SCADA analytics

[mvadu]

On par with InfluxData's 0.13 release, I have built Windows x64 version which is available at https://github.com/mvadu/influxdb/releases/tag/v0.13.0, people are encouraged to test and report any windows specific bugs either here or on my fork. I will be happy to take a look.

[jackpoz]

+1

https://github.com/TrinityCore/TrinityCore/pull/16956 we use InfluxDB + Grafana to show realtime metrics about MMORPG server application, showing ingame players, network usage and game-specific data to monitor possible issues. Since our project is cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac) and uses cross-platform software (like CMake/MySQL) it would be nice to have a cross-platform InfluxDB too

[mrecht]

+1

Especially for development with InfluxDB it would make my life so much easier...

[binary132]

@beckettsean, perhaps you and @ShubhraKar are not on the same page, since he indicated this feature is "on our short term roadmap." It appears that is not the case.

There's a clear response from the community here. Can we expect a commitment to this from InfluxData any time soon?

[beckettsean]

@binary132 I run support, I don't run product. If you want to advocate for features I'm the wrong person to @-mention.

I would suggest that we happily accept PRs.

[jackpoz]

I would suggest that we happily accept PRs.

According to https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb/issues/5359#issuecomment-222977860 and https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb/compare/master...mvadu:0.13 there's nothing to pull request to add windows support, it's just a matter of providing Windows binaries at https://influxdata.com/downloads/#influxdb

[pauldix]

Apparently we're already building these, we're just not linking them on the downloads page. See here: https://dl.influxdata.com/influxdb/releases/influxdb-1.0.0-beta2_windows_amd64.zip

We'll update the downloads page sometime soon. However, we don't officially support Windows so those binaries are use at your own risk.

[mvadu]

@pauldix Linking it from download will help even if its under a big red Use at your own risk header. That will help the community to test it. I tried to publish the windows build periodically asking for feedback, but since I don't work for Influx, I failed to get much traction. Currently only thing missing for Influx on windows is thorough user testing before you can remove that header.

Also with AppVeyor integration (which I setup initially) you are already supporting windows, i.e. all PRs are already tested against Windows.

[martinb69]

All, thanks for the effort! IMHO Windows support will enable a share in industrial process automation (and of course all the other applications). At least we will now start looking into migrating from 0.9 to latest.

[binary132]

I don't think most people providing software to clients would be comfortable delivering a product which uses a stats backend not officially supported by the company. We had to go with a much less interesting option since one of the product requirements is full platform compatibility for on-premise delivery. Influx on Windows would be a really compelling feature for many people who are stuck with Windows, because some of their clients are Windows users.

That said, it's great that Windows compatibility exists and I wish InfluxData would figure out where they stand on the topic.

[jackpoz]

We'll update the downloads page sometime soon

any update on adding the download link at https://influxdata.com/downloads/#influxdb ?

[pauldix]

Looping in @rossmcdonald and @toddboom. Can one of you guys get the downloads page updated with links to the Windows build of InfluxDB?

[binary132]

@pauldix -- it still won't be officially supported, right? Any idea whatsoever when that might happen?

[thestonehead]

+1 We are currently introducing metrics analysis to our servers and software, but since Influx isn't supporting windows (and all of our servers are Windows servers) we're probably going to go with a commercial solution that does.

[danielkornev]

@pauldix first, it's amazing you guys have made 1.0 beta2 available for Windows 64-bit. However, I wonder if you are gonna release 32-bit version as well?

I've found previous bits (up to 0.12) here, that include both 64-bit and 32-bit bits for Windows, so it seems like you have the capacity to build 32-bit versions: https://s3.amazonaws.com/influxdb/

We are currently using Redis 2.8 (32-bit) on 32-bit end user machines (a client Windows app), and we are evaluating an opportunity to move to InfluxDB as it could better suite our needs (temporal indices).

[mknutty]

thestonehead, if you are running or can run Windows 2016, it supports docker (I've not tried it) and there is a dockerized version of InfluxDB ...

On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 6:08 AM, thestonehead notifications@github.com wrote:

+1 We are currently introducing metrics analysis to our servers and software, but since Influx isn't supporting windows (and all of our servers are Windows servers) we're probably going to go with a commercial solution that does.

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/influxdata/influxdb/issues/5359#issuecomment-232313448, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe/AF8zLTc7mzs5KbXHyOFqP5974PFAplXFks5qVLkOgaJpZM4HFWVe .

[sandersaares]

Windows Nano Server 2016 is a desired target. Nano has particular limitations due to lacking various APIs, though I wonder if that matters much for Go. Probably it does!

Products of relevance: InfluxDB, Kapacitor, Telegraf. Nice-to-have but not critical: Chronograf. Use case: systems in vehicles.

[jackpoz]

We'll update the downloads page sometime soon.

Please add the windows binaries download link on the download page, either for nightly or beta. It's just a link and it's taking quite some time...

[janhurst]

+1 Full TICK preferred Clustering preferred Use case is replacing/complementing existing Industrial historians (multi site, multi region, currently vendor locked) and opening up more options for analytics. Unfortunately (sic) we are a Windows shop, heavily virtualized using VMWare

It would be really appreciated if a Windows download link could be made available off the Influx website even if it clearly states it is unsupported/unofficial/whatever

[binary132]

I don't know how things look from the enterprise side, but from where I stand, it's truly disappointing to see the direction Influx appears to be headed.

[stephanstapel]

@binary132 : could you elaborate why you think like this?

[jackpoz]

We'll update the downloads page sometime soon

@pauldix the joke is not funny anymore, almost 3 months passed, still no download link

[pauldix]

@jackpoz we were in the middle of getting the new web site set up, launching 1.0 of every product and a few other things that haven't been announced yet, so this dropped off our radar. We'll try to get it updated. In the meantime...

https://dl.influxdata.com/influxdb/releases/influxdb-1.0.0_windows_amd64.zip

[toddboom]

Alright, the link for InfluxDB windows binaries is now up on the downloads page and will be updated with all future releases. Sorry for the delay!

Additionally, please send us any feedback you have while testing it out. Thanks!

[pauldix]

Now that the binaries are up, I'm going to close this one out.

[mvadu]

Thank you @pauldix for pulling this together. Hopefully second time around the download link will stick around.