Sysdig Monitor Documentation

Dashboards

Sysdig users can create customized dashboards to display the most useful/relevant views and metrics for the infrastructure in a single location. Each dashboard is comprised of a series of panels configured to display specific data in a number of different formats:

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These sections cover how dashboards and panels are organized and managed.

Contents

Scope

Dashboard and panel scope defines what data is valid for aggregation and display within the dashboard. Scope can be set at a dashboard-wide level, or overridden for individual panels, by any user type except for View Only users.

The current scope is displayed in the top left-hand corner of the module screen:

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Note

For more information on how scopes work, refer to the Grouping, Scoping, and Segmenting Metrics documentation.

Configure Dashboard Scope

To configure the scope of an existing dashboard:

  1. From the Dashboard module, select the relevant dashboard from the dashboard list.

  2. Click the Edit Scope link in the top right of the module screen:

    302022659.png

  3. Open the first level drop-down menu.

  4. Select the first level label either by clicking the desired label, or searching for the label, then clicking it.

  5. Define how the value relates to the label, and define the value.

  6. Optional: Dashboard Templating.

    Note

    Dashboard scope values can be defined as variables, allowing users to create a template, and use one dashboard for multiple outputs. For example, in the image below, the kubernetes.namespace.name label is set as a variable:

    302022663.png

    Once saved, the dashboard has multiple values that can be displayed:

    302022667.png

  7. Optional: Add additional label/value combinations to further refine the scope.

  8. Click the Save button to save the new scope, or click the Cancel button to revert the changes.

    Note

    To reset the dashboard scope to the entire infrastructure, or to update an existing dashboard's scope to the entire infrastructure, open the first scope drop-down menu and select everywhere.

Configure Panel Scope

To configure the scope of an existing dashboard panel:

  1. From the Dashboard module, select the relevant dashboard from the dashboard list.

  2. Hover the cursor over the desired panel, and select the Edit (pencil) icon:

    230555717.png

  3. Click the Override Dashboard Scope link to enable a custom panel scope.

    230359086.png

    Note

    To return an individual panel scope to the default dashboard scope, click the Default to Dashboard Scope link, and save the changes.

  4. Open the Scope drop-down menu.

  5. Either select the new scope, or search for the desired scope, and then select it.

  6. Click the Save button to confirm the changes.

Note

Panels that have a custom scope (a different scope to the overall dashboard) are marked with a shaded corner:

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Dashboard Management

Dashboard Organization

Dashboards are organized into three main groups:

  • My Dashboards: Dashboards created by the current user.

  • My Shared Dashboards: Dashboards created by the current user, and shared with other users.

  • Dashboards Shared With Me: Dashboards created by other users, and shared with the current user.

Set a Default Dashboard

A default dashboard can be configured by setting the default entry point for a team, unifying a team's Sysdig Monitor experience, and allowing users to focus their immediate attention on the most relevant information for them. For more information on configuring a default entry point, refer to the Configure an Entry Page or Dashboard for a Team section of the Sysdig Platform documentation.

Display Dashboard Specific Events

Sysdig Monitor allows users to configure dashboards to display infrastructure events relevant to a dashboard's panels within the panels themselves. This allows users an even more in-depth view of the status of their environment. To configure how events are displayed:

  1. On the Dashboard tab, select the relevant dashboard from the dashboard list.

  2. Click the Dashboard Settings (three dots) icon, and select Events:

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  3. Enable the Show Events slider to show events in the dashboard panels.

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  4. Configure the available parameters, and click the Close button.

Option

Description

Event or Tag Search Bar

Defines specific events, or a scope of events, to display.

Show max

Defines the maximum number of events to display in a panel.

Include events related to

Determines whether the range of events displayed includes those for all metrics/scopes or not.

Event Type

Display either custom events, alerts, or both.

State

Determines the state of events displayed.

Severity

Determines whether only high severity events, or all events are displayed.

Resolution

Determines whether all events, or only resolved/unresolved ones are displayed.

Share a Dashboard

Dashboards can be shared internally among team members, within the wider organization, or publicly, by configuring a public URL for the dashboard. The table below outlines the different ways a dashboard can be shared, and the various permissions for users:

Who can share/copy

Dashboard Instance

Team/User who has access

Can Read

Can Edit

Share with current Team

Dashboard Creator

Same dashboard instance

Current team members only

All members of the team

Edit users of the team

Share publicly as URL

Any Edit User of the team

Same dashboard instance

Anyone with URL (does not have to by Sysdig user)

Anyone

No one

Copy to current Team

Any Edit User of the team

Duplicate Copy of the dashboard

Current team members only

All members of the team

Edit users of the team

Copy to another Team

Any Edit User of the team

Duplicate Copy of the dashboard

If the original dashboard is not shared, only the user who copied it has access

If the original dashboard is shared, all team members of the team has access

All members of the team (if dashboard is shared and then copied)

Edit users of the team (if dashboard is shared and then copied)

Share a Dashboard with the Current Team

Dashboards can be shared across a user's current team, allowing other team members to view the dashboard, as well as edit the panels if they have edit permissions within the team.

Note

For more information on user permissions, refer to the User section of the Platform docs.

To share a dashboard:

  1. Navigate to the Dashboards tab.

  2. Select the dashboard from the left hand panel.

  3. Select the Settings (three dots) icon and click Share .

  4. Toggle the Share with Team slider to share the dashboard with the current team.

Copy a Dashboard to a Team

Unlike sharing a dashboard, copying a dashboard creates a duplicate, rather than making the original dashboard available for editing/viewing.

To copy a dashboard:

  1. Navigate to the Dashboards tab.

  2. Select the dashboard from the left hand panel.

  3. Click the Settings icon, and select Copy Dashboard from the drop-down list.

  4. Select either Current Team or Other Team(s) to copy the dashboard to those teams.

    Note

    If copy the dashboard to a different team, open the drop-down menu and select the relevant checkbox. Multiple teams can be selected with this option.

  5. Rename the dashboard if desired.

  6. Click the Copy and Open / Send Copy button to save the changes.

Share a Dashboard via Public URL

Dashboards can be shared outside of the internal team by using public URLs. This allows external users to review the dashboard metrics, while restricting access to changing panels and configurations.

To share a dashboard:

  1. Navigate to the Dashboards tab.

  2. Select the dashboard from the left hand panel.

  3. Select the Settings icon and click Share .

  4. Toggle the Share Public URL slider to reveal the custom public URL.

    Warning

    When enabled, the dashboard is visible in read-only mode to anyone with the link. If this setting is disabled, the link will no longer work, and the setting will need to be re-enabled and shared again in order for the dashboard to be accessed.

  5. Copy the public URL to share it.

Save and Restore Dashboards with Scripts

Sysdig Monitor provides users the ability to save existing dashboards to a locally controlled file, and create new dashboards identical to the ones previously saved. This can be done via Sysdig's Python client library example scripts. The save script stores all current dashboards for the active account in a .zip archive, while the restore script adds all dashboards in the archive to the list of dashboards.

Warning

Restoring dashboards will not override the user's existing dashboards. Instead, new dashboards will be added to the list.

If this script is used in a strictly backup/restore capacity, dashboards will need to be deleted manually from the account, either before or after the restore action is completed.

Note

The restore script does not have to target the same account as the save script. This allows dashboards to be saved from one user, and restored to multiple users.

Saving and restoring the scripts has the following prerequisites:

  • Python 2.x (2.7.x)

  • pip version 1.3 or later.

    Note

    pip is installed as part of the Python package for versions 2.7 and later.

  • virtualenv (recommended)

The library and example scripts are available in the Sysdig GitHub repository: https://github.com/draios/python-sdc-client.

Download the Scripts

To configure the local environment for the scripts:

  1. Either download a .zip archive of the python client from the repository and unpack it, or clone the repository:

    sysdig@user:~$ git clone https://github.com/draios/python-sdc-client.git

  2. In a terminal, navigate to the directory.

  3. Configure the Python environment as necessary.

    Note

    If you are unfamiliar with Python, Sysdig recommends setting up via pip & virtualenv:

    sysdig@user:~$ mkdir -p ~/workingdir/venv # declare where you want all python tools installed
sysdig@user:~$ sudo virtualenv ~/workingdir/venv  # prepare the workspace -- this may download several things
sysdig@user:~$ source ~/workingdir/venv/bin/activate  # cause all python tools to use this workspace from now on
(venv) $  # at this point the prompt reminds us we're in the virtual environment
(venv) $  pip install .    # install the sdcclient library into the venv

The sdcclient module is now available to Python.

Save All Dashboards with a Python Script

To save the dashboards:

  1. In a terminal, access the virtual environment set up in Download the Scripts.

  2. Run the script, replacing API_TOKEN with the API token for the relevant user, and SAVED_DASHBOARDS.ZIP with the desired name of the zip file:

    Note

    See Retrieve the Sysdig API Token for details.

    (venv) $ sudo python examples/download_dashboards.py API_TOKEN SAVED_DASHBOARDS.ZIP
Dashboard name: JVM, # Charts: 5
Finished writing dashboard data in zip format to SAVED_DASHBOARDS.ZIP
Restore Dashboards with a Python Script

To restore dashboards from a .zip archive

  1. In a terminal, access the virtual environment set up in Download the Scripts.

  2. Run the script, replacing API_TOKEN with the API token for the relevant user, and SAVED_DASHBOARDS.ZIP with the correct zip file:

    (venv) $ sudo python examples/restore_dashboards.py API_TOKEN SAVED_DASHBOARDS.ZIP
Dashboards pushed.
(venv) user@server:~/python-sdc-client$

Dashboard Creation

There are two parts to creating a dashboard - creating the dashboard itself, and creating the panels that display the information. For details instructions on these steps, refer to:

In this section: