Inheritance is a mechanism for applying common settings to nested configuration objects. Settings defined at the [configuration] level apply to all other sections whereas [widget] settings apply to the widget itself as well as nested [series] sections.

Inheritance hierarchy:


Inheritance makes syntax more compact and makes it easy to replace common settings.


To modify the inherited setting, the setting must be set to a new value in the lower-level object.

  entity = e-1

    # Override 'entity' for this particular widget
    entity = e-2

To reset an inherited setting to the default value, specify the name of the setting as an empty string:

statistic =

If a setting needs to be set to an empty string, use double quotes:

statistic = ""


If all widgets in a portal are created for the same entity, set the entity setting at the [configuration] level.

  type = chart
  # The metric field is inherited by all series in the widget
  metric = nmon.cpu_total.busy%

    entity = awsswgvml001
    entity = nurswgvml006

  # Metric is overridden for this series
    metric = mpstat.cpu_busy%
    entity = nurswgvml007

In this example, the same metric is inherited by all series in the widget because the metric is defined at the [widget] level however the second series overrides the inherited value with the metric = mpstat.cpu_busy% setting.

Portal Example