This is a Nagios plugin, so you install it and configure a service check in Nagios and it runs whenever Nagios calls it and reports back on the status of whatever it's monitoring. It has one required parameter (-u) which tells it the Graphite URL to monitor, for example http://server/render?target=stats.auctionStart&from=-1minutes&rawData=true. When run, it will query that URL and treat the average of the values returned as the 'value' to be compared against the warning/critical thresholds, and return this value to Nagios as performance data. See Graphite's URL API documentation to generate the URL parameter.
Usage: check_graphite -u URL [-U USERNAME] [-P PASSWORD] [-H HOSTNAME] [-n NONE] [-f FUNCTION] [-w WARNING] [-c CRITICAL]
Plugin to retrieve data from graphite
Options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -V, --version show program's version number and exit -v, --verbose Get more verbose status output. Can be specified up to three times -u URL, --url=URL URL to query for data -U USERNAME, --username=USERNAME User for authentication -P PASSWORD, --password=PASSWORD Password for authentication -H HOSTNAME, --hostname=HOSTNAME Host name to use in the URL -n NONE, --none=NONE Ignore None values: 'yes' or 'no' (default no) -f FUNCTION, --function=FUNCTION Function to run on retrieved values: avg/min/max/last/sum (default 'avg') -w WARNING, --warning=WARNING Set the warning notification level. -c CRITICAL, --critical=CRITICAL Set the critical notification level.
Python 2.6+
You'll need to have NagAconda installed (e.g. easy_install nagaconda)