windows_exporter/docs/collector.file.md

file collector

The file collector exposes modified timestamps and file size of files in the filesystem.

The collector

Metric name prefix	file
Enabled by default?	No

Flags

--collector.file.file-patterns

Comma-separated list of file patterns. Each pattern is a glob pattern that can contain *, ?, and ** (recursive). See https://github.com/bmatcuk/doublestar#patterns for an extended description of the pattern syntax.

A pattern that matches nothing, including one whose directory does not exist, is not an error. If a directory cannot be read, for example because access is denied, the walk of that pattern stops and the collector is reported as failed (windows_exporter_collector_success{collector="file"} 0). Metrics of the other patterns are still exported.

Metrics

Name	Description	Type	Labels
windows_file_mtime_timestamp_seconds	File modification time	gauge	file, pattern
windows_file_size_bytes	File size	gauge	file, pattern

Warning: if a very large number of files are matched, the combination of file and pattern labels can increase cardinality significantly. Use narrow patterns where possible.

Example metric

# HELP windows_file_mtime_timestamp_seconds File modification time
# TYPE windows_file_mtime_timestamp_seconds gauge
windows_file_mtime_timestamp_seconds{file="C:\\Users\\admin\\Desktop\\Dashboard.lnk",pattern="C:\\Users\\admin\\Desktop\\*.lnk"} 1.726434517e+09
# HELP windows_file_size_bytes File size
# TYPE windows_file_size_bytes gauge
windows_file_size_bytes{file="C:\\Users\\admin\\Desktop\\Dashboard.lnk",pattern="C:\\Users\\admin\\Desktop\\*.lnk"} 123

Useful queries

When the same file matches multiple patterns, the pattern label makes each sample unique. This also allows aggregation by pattern instead of introducing a separate count metric.

sum(windows_file_size_bytes) by (pattern)
count(windows_file_size_bytes) by (pattern)

Alerting examples

This collector does not yet have alerting examples, we would appreciate your help adding them!