Checkmk
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Cloud (SaaS) master2.5.0-beta2.3.02.2.02.1.02.0.01.6.0
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1. Introduction

Checkmk offers a wide range of features that are continuously being developed and improved. How you use Checkmk in your daily work provides us with valuable information for planning and developing the next versions of Checkmk: Which features do you use regularly? How many objects do you monitor? How many folders do you use to organize your hosts? Do you use the Grafana plug-in, and if so, which version?

This and similar information about your use of Checkmk can help us prioritize the most important features during development. Feature discontinuations can also be avoided if usage data shows that the features are still in demand.

Checkmk can automatically transmit data about your product usage to Checkmk GmbH at regular intervals. This feature is available in versions 2.5.0, 2.4.0p26 and above, and 2.3.0p47 and above.

No usage data will be transmitted without your active consent (opt-in as described below). As a Checkmk administrator, you decide for yourself whether to activate this data transmission in order to influence the further development of the software in this way.

This article describes how you can decline or activate the transmission of product usage data in your Checkmk site. For an overview of the type of data that will be collected when usage data transmission is active, have a look at the product usage analytics manifest.

Checkmk will automatically ask you if you want to provide data for product usage analytics. A modal dialog box will appear in the GUI after 30 days on a Checkmk version that includes this functionality.

2.1. Settings in the GUI

The decision to transmit usage data is up to those users of your site who have administrator rights. As soon as an administrator logs into the web interface of your Checkmk site after the first 30 days, a pop-up about product usage analytics appears.

“The pop-up for analyzing product usage data appears when logging in after 30 days.”
Pop-up for transmitting product usage data to Checkmk GmbH

If you select the option Remind me again in 30 days, your site will continue to not collect or transmit any usage data. After another 30 days, the modal dialog will appear again.

The option Manage in global settings takes you to the page where you can manage your decision about transmitting product usage data. There are three options available here. The option Disabled. Reminder scheduled is preselected.

“In the global settings of your site
Settings for transmitting product usage data

To enable the transmission of usage data, select the option Allow collection and transmission of product usage data. You can then enter details about the HTTP proxy to be used. This information is required if a direct connection to the Internet is not possible or desired from your Checkmk server.

You can, of course, decline to transmit data. In this case, no further settings are necessary. After selecting the option Do not collect product usage data, you will not receive any further requests to transmit data.

You can access the setting for your consent or refusal at any time via Setup > Global settings > Product usage analytics if you change your mind later.

2.2. Settings in your system environment

Additional settings may be required in your system environment before data can be sent to Checkmk GmbH. Allow outgoing https connections from your Checkmk server to https://analytics.checkmk.com/upload on port 443.

3. Your usage data

To help you decide whether you agree to the transmission of usage data, we provide you with an overview of what usage data is involved and how it is collected and processed.

3.1. What data is transmitted?

Primarily, quantitative data relating to your product usage is collected and transmitted. A complete overview of the data that is collected can be found in the product usage analytics manifest. A link to this document can also be found in your Checkmk site under Help > About Checkmk > Product usage analytics manifest.

Your usage data is displayed and transmitted in the form of a JSON object.

To find out what data your site would transmit at the current time, as site user you can execute the cmk-product-usage --dry-run command. Alternatively, you can access the current JSON data set at any time by clicking Download the full JSON report on the settings page for product usage data transmission.

In the following example output, the JSON object has been shortened for readability.

OMD[mysite]:~$ cmk-product-usage --dry-run
{
    "id": "2f1a0be7-69bd-44f4-b6af-cdce64136f57",
    "count_hosts": 596,
    "count_services": 11502,
    "count_folders": 35,
    "edition": "ultimate",
    "cmk_version": "2.5.0p1",
    "timestamp": 1770628100,
    "checks": {
        "check-mk": {
            "count": 593,
            "count_hosts": 593,
            "count_disabled": 0
        },
        "check_mk-uptime": {
            "count": 286,
            "count_hosts": 286,
            "count_disabled": 0
        },
        // ... some additional checks following the same pattern...
        "check_mk-liebert_chilled_water": {
            "count": 9,
            "count_hosts": 3,
            "count_disabled": 0
        },
        // ... and more checks...
    },
    "grafana": null
}
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Based on the check names contained, Checkmk GmbH can evaluate which check plug-ins are used, and how extensively. Plug-ins that you have written yourself or obtained from Checkmk Exchange are also listed here.

The command cmk-product-usage --dry-run performs all actions for collecting data in the background, but does not send any data externally. It is for your information only. You can run it at any time, regardless of your settings for product usage analysis.

Incidentally, usage data is collected using a series of livestatus queries.

3.2. What happens to the data?

If you have decided to send your product usage data to Checkmk GmbH, everything will now run in the background. It is conceivable that problems may occasionally arise, for example if your server is unable to connect to the Checkmk GmbH server at the time of transmission. In this case, the process will fail without you being notified. As a site user, you can refer to the log file at ~/var/log/product_usage_analytics.log to see when the transmission took place and whether it was successful.

Transmission to Checkmk GmbH

At a random point in time within the first 30 days after you give your consent, the first data set will be compiled and sent. From this point on, the collection and transmission will always be repeated at 30-day intervals.

Your site transmits the collected data with an encrypted POST request from your Checkmk server via https to https://analytics.checkmk.com/upload on port 443.

Storage and analysis

Regardless of where you operate your Checkmk site, your usage data is always transmitted to a Checkmk GmbH server in the AWS Europe (Frankfurt) region (eu-central-1) and stored there.

We store usage data we receive without associating it with the sites from which it originates — the data is processed anonymously. We run statistical analyses over all received data in order to discover trends concerning the usage of the different features of Checkmk.

Each record of product usage data received will be retained for 5 years and then deleted.

4. Transmitting usage data in distributed monitoring

Data on product usage can also be collected and transmitted in setups with distributed monitoring.

4.1. Configuring the central and remote sites

The modal dialog box for transmitting product usage data is only displayed on the central site. Here you can specify the desired setting as described in the section Allow or deny data transmission. You can control whether or not the individual remote sites transmit usage data.

When setting up distributed monitoring, you specified for each remote site whether the configuration of the central site should be replicated to the respective remote site. The setting for this can be found in the properties of the remote site under Setup > General > Distributed monitoring. This option determines the behavior of the sites in distributed monitoring with regard to the transmission of product usage data:

  • If you have set the option Enable replication to the value Push configuration to this site for a remote site, this is a distributed monitoring with central setup. In this case, your settings for transmitting product usage data are automatically applied to this site.

  • If you have disabled configuration replication for a remote site (No replication with this site), your decision about the transmission of usage data is not transferred to the remote site.

  • You can, of course, actively change the data transmission setting for each remote site individually at any time by accessing the Site specific global settings for the respective site under Setup > General > Distributed monitoring.

4.2. Transmission behavior of central and remote sites

If in a distributed monitoring scenario you decide to transmit product usage data to Checkmk GmbH, your sites will behave as follows:

  • Each remote site with enabled product usage data transmission will collect its own usage data and independently transmit it directly to Checkmk GmbH.

  • The central site will only collect its own usage data and transmit it directly to Checkmk GmbH.

  • Each site with enabled product usage data transmission will transmit exactly the data as described in the section on Product usage analytics manifest.

  • The log file ~/var/log/product_usage_analytics.log will be created on each site with enabled product usage data transmission.

4.3. Configuration in Checkmk Ultimate with Multi-Tenancy

The behavior regarding the transmission of product usage data of sites in Checkmk Ultimate with Multi-Tenancy is analogous to the behavior as described in distributed monitoring.

Last modified: Thu, 02 Apr 2026 07:08:04 GMT via commit a447e888f
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