Dashboard

The Dashboard can visualize various kinds of system metrics and network data. Using the Dashboard, you can display reports (charts and graphs) of the most recent system metrics that you are interested in.

The Dashboard creates visual reports using system metrics collected by the RaaS server. This data can be used for performance diagnostics and for monitoring system events. For example, RaaS collects data about event bus traffic, volume of Salt master commands, job frequency, minion presence, etc. Some of this data can be visualized in reports on the Dashboard to get a snapshot of your system’s most recent performance.

The Dashboard is intended to provide a high-level overview of your system metrics. For that reason, the reports can only display system data from the last 24 hours or less. To get a more detailed view of your system metrics over a longer period of time, you can use the /metrics endpoint to export system metrics to third-party tools such as Prometheus or other monitoring and alerting tools. For more information about the /metrics http endpoint, see System metrics.

You’ll see the same charts regardless of the device you use to access the Dashboard, whenever you’re logged in.

Note: As part of VMware’s initiative to remove problematic terminology, the term Salt master will be replaced with a better term in SaltStack Config and related products and documentation. This terminology update may take a few release cycles before it is fully complete.

Available Dashboard reports

The following table lists and explain the various reports that are available in the Dashboard:

Report	Description	Available filters
Salt Events	Displays the number of Salt events over time, such as jobs or other operations Useful for monitoring expected or unexpected spikes in network activity	All Salt masters or specific Salt masters Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
Salt Event Payload Size	Displays the payload size of Salt events over time, such as jobs or other operations Useful for monitoring the amount of processing power or memory used to complete jobs or other operations	All Salt masters or specific Salt masters Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
Celery Queue Depth	Displays the depth of the celery queue over time, which refers to the number of jobs that were queued while waiting for CPU or database resources to become available Useful for identifying CPU or database bottlenecks	All RaaS servers Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
RaaS Webserver Requests	Displays the number of requests made to the API (RaaS) server over time Useful for monitoring expected or unexpected spikes in server activity	All RaaS servers Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
Webserver Response Time	Displays the amount of processing time required by the API (RaaS) server to respond to requests over time Useful for monitoring bottlenecks and the overall performance of the API (RaaS) server	All RaaS servers Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
RaaS Salt Master Iteration Time	Displays the amount of time it took Salt masters connected to SaltStack Config to complete a webserver request, from beginning to end, over time Useful for monitoring SaltStack Config-related load on each Salt master	All Salt masters or specific Salt masters Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
SSE Users Authenticated	Displays the number of distinct users that were logged into SaltStack Config over time Useful for monitoring expected or unexpected spikes in users logging into SaltStack Config	Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
Database Activity	Displays the number of actions (deleted, read, inserted, updated) on various PostgreSQL database rows over time Useful for monitoring expected or unexpected spikes in read/write activity on the PostgreSQL database	Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
Database Connections	Displays the number of connections between the PostgreSQL database and the API (RaaS) server over time Useful for monitoring expected or unexpected spikes in activity on the PostgreSQL database	Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
Redis Commands Executed	Displays the number of commands executed against the Redis server over time Useful for monitoring the number of requests for information in the Redis caching layer (such as query results)	Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
Jobs	Displays the number of jobs that succeeded, missed returns, failed, or that were in progress over time Useful for evaluating overall system activity and performance	Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
Salt Masters in SSE	Displays the number of Salt masters registered in SaltStack Config over time Useful for monitoring whether Salt masters went down unexpectedly or if there are more Salt masters than expected over time	Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)
Minion Presence	Displays the number of minions connected to Salt masters through SaltStack Config over time Useful for monitoring if minions went down unexpectedly or if there are more minions than expected over time	All Salt masters or specific Salt masters Time range (from the past hour up to 24 hours)

Accessing the Dashboard workspace

To access the Dashboard workspace, click Dashboard on the side menu.

Adding reports

To add a report to the Dashboard:

1. In the Dashboard workspace, click Add Report to open a menu.
2. Select the name of the report you want to add to the Dashboard. For a list of the available visualizations, see Available Dashboard reports.

The report you selected now appears in the Dashboard. If you already have several reports in your Dashboard, the new report you just added appears at the top of the Dashboard on either the left or right column. It appears in whichever column had the fewest reports at the time you added it.

Filtering reports

All the reports in the Dashboard workspace can be filtered by the duration of time shown in the report, from the past hour up to 24 hours. All reports are set to 12 hours by default. To change the duration, click the duration filter in the lower left of the report to select a different time range.

Some reports have additional filters, allowing you to filter the results for a specific Salt master, minion, database, or API (RaaS) server where applicable. If these filters are available, they appear at the top of the report. You can change the filter by clicking it the filter to open a menu, then selecting the element you want to filter by.

Downloading reports

You can download reports in either JSON or CSV format. To export a report:

1. In the Dashboard workspace, click the Download button above the report you want to download.
2. Select either Download JSON or Download CSV.
   Note: Some reports may have multiple download files if the chart has several metrics, Salt masters, or instances of RaaS. Each report represents an array of data that you can import into a third-party tool. One way you can check whether a report will have multiple download files is to hover your mouse over the report. The number of line items that appear on the report correlates to the number of download files for that report.

   The report begins downloading in your browser.

Moving reports

To move a report, click and hold the report’s drag handle to drag the report to a different position on the Dashboard.

Deleting reports

Click the report’s Delete button to remove the report from the Dashboard.