Dashboards

Sysdig Monitor users can create customized dashboards to display the most useful queries and metrics in a single location.

Overview

With Sysdig Monitor Dashboards you can:

Use Dashboards

Create a New Dashboard

Dashboards can be created from different locations:

Delete a Dashboard

The owner or the administrator of a shared dashboard can delete it. If users duplicate that dashboard, they become the owner of the new one and can freely delete it.

Dashboards can be deleted from different locations:

Define Dashboard Scope

To configure the scope of an existing dashboard, click the Edit Scope link in the top right of the Dashboard page:

Scope editor restricts the scope of the selection for subsequent filters by rendering values that are specific to the selected labels. For example, if the value of the kube_namespace_name label is kube-system, the values of the subsequent label, container_name will be filtered by kube-system. This means the containers rendered for filtering are only those that are part of the kube-system namespace.

Edit Variables

You can define dashboard scope values as variables, allowing users to reuse them in PromQL queries.

Set a Default Dashboard

A default dashboard can be configured by setting the default entry point for a team. 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.

Transfer Dashboard Ownership

Dashboards have a single owner. Sysdig Monitor allows administrators and dashboard owners with administrator permissions to transfer the ownership of a dashboard within the UI.

General Guidelines

  • When a user is deleted, any shared dashboards they own or have created will be preserved by default.
  • The administrator can transfer only the dashboards that are shared by other users. Private dashboards cannot be seen and therefore cannot be transferred.
  • Transferring ownership can only happen one dashboard at a time.
  • When editing a user, the administrator can specify to transfer dashboards to a new owner.
  • Before changing the dashboard ownership,
    • It is a good practice to ensure that the new owner is part of the team the previous owner is part of. The administrator can preview the teams that will no longer be part of before confirming the transfer. The new owner need not be part of any teams the previous owner was part of. In this case, the dashboard will be transferred to the new owner but will no longer be shared with any team. The dashboard will become a private dashboard.
    • A shared dashboard will be visible only to the teams that the new owner is not part of.

Transfer Ownership as an Admin

  1. Log in to the Monitor UI and select Settings > Users.
  2. Select the user you want to change the ownership.
  3. Select one or multiple Dashboards that you want to assign a new owner.
  4. Click Transfer Ownership.
  5. On the Transfer Dashboard Ownership modal, Select a new user and click Transfer.

Transfer Ownership as a User

  1. On the Dashboards tab, select the relevant dashboard from the left panel. Click the Settings (three dots) icon for the dashboard.

  2. Select Transfer Ownership.

  3. On the Transfer Dashboard Ownership modal, select a new user.

  4. If everything looks ok, click Transfer. The teams indicated with cross-out text are the ones that had access to the dashboard earlier and will lose access to it after the transfer.

    The dashboard will also be visible to all the teams that the new owner is part of. If you are not part of the teams that the new owner is a member of, you will no longer have the visibility to the dashboard.

Share a Dashboard with Teams

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

If a dashboard has been shared with another team, a user within that team can then copy it to make it their own if they wish.

To share a dashboard:

  1. Select the dashboard you want to share.

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

  3. In the Dashboard Settings page, use the Shared With drop-down.

  4. Select one of the three options:

    • Not Shared: If selected, the specified Dashboard cannot be shared with a team or selected team the owner is a member of.

    • All Teams: If selected, the owners of the Dashboard can share with all the teams that they are part of.

    • Selected Teams: If selected, the owner of the Dashboard can share with a selected list of teams. You can select one of the available teams in the drop-down, and select member permission:

      • View Only: This permission allows members to view the Dashboard.

      • Collaborator: A collaborator can edit the Dashboard.

Enable Public Sharing

You can share dashboards 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. The scope parameters, including scope variables, are included in the Dashboard URL.

To enable sharing the public link of a dashboard, follow these steps:

  1. Select the dashboard you want to share, click the Dashboard Settings (three dots) icon, and select Dashboard Settings.
  2. In the Dashboard Settings page, enable the Public Sharing slider.

When enabled, the dashboard is visible with scope parameters 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.

Define Minimum Interval for PromQL Queries

When working with PromQL queries you can use the $__interval variable and Sysdig will apply the most appropriate sampling corresponding to the time range you have selected. Sometimes you might have some metrics that report data with a coarser granularity and you want to apply an interval that is higher than the proposed.

For example, if you have a metric that reports data every 3m, and you have selected the 1h preset in the time navigation, the $__interval will be replaced with a time granularity of 10s. This will result in time charts with isolated data points instead of lines.

You can resolve this by setting the Default PromQL Query Min Interval option to 3m on the Dashboard Settings page.

The value must be expressed as a time granularity, for example: 10s, 1m, 1h, and must be between 10s and 1d.

Note: If the proposed interval is greater than the minimum interval, the minimum interval will be ignored.

The setting will be applied to all the PromQL queries in the dashboard and it can be overridden by specifying a different value in the query options.

Make a Dashboard Full Screen

To view the current dashboard in full-screen mode, click the Settings (three dots) icon for the dashboard, and select the Full Screen option. To exit full-screen mode, either press the ESC keyboard key or click the Exit (cross) icon.

Search in Dashboards

Use the / shortcut to invoke the panel search pane which enables you to find panels within a given dashboard. The search capabilities are:

  • Search by metric name
  • Search by label name
  • Search by Panel title or description

When searching, partial names can be used, such as sysdig_container_ or Memory.

Use Case

Leverage Event Overlay for Increased Context

Examine events directly on the dashboard panels and correlate anomalies and issues with the events. The height of the event bucket is proportional to the number of events and the color indicates the highest severity of the events present.

The following example shows how the presence of the event overlay lets you quickly spot that the drop in CPU Requested per Node, is actually due to a container dying (due to an OOM).

Without ContextWith Context

To configure the Event Overlay, select the Dashboard Settings (three dots) > Events Display.

The following options are available when configuring the Events Display:

OptionDescription
FilterFilters events by the event search syntax and searched fields.
ScopeDetermines whether the range of events displayed includes those for dashboard scope or team scope.
SeverityDetermines whether only high severity events or all events are displayed.
Event TypeDetermines what types of events to be displayed. The supported events types are alert, custom events, containers, or Kubernetes.
StatusDetermines the state of events displayed. The supported status are Triggered, Resolved, Acknowledged, Un-acknowledged.