Watchlist - Monitoring dashboards in kiosk-mode
Introduced in v2.3.2, Watchlist allows users to monitor the database clusters in a full-screen view (a.k.a kiosk-mode), suitable for displaying the monitoring dashboards on a dedicated screen in an operation center. Administrators can curate a watchlist based on topics, where ClusterControl will visualize the related monitoring panels based on the chosen topics and clusters in full screen view.
Every created watchlist has its own unique URL, where administrator can share the generated URL with other non-administrative users for active monitoring purposes (ClusterControl user login is required). Here is what it looks like in action (click to enlarge):
Info
This feature is still in beta and feedbacks are welcome. See Give us feedback.
Access Watchlist management section
Log in to your ClusterControl GUI → Activity center → Watchlists. This will bring up a panel where you can view and edit watchlist.
Add clusters directly into watchlist
Apart from using the Watchlist management section to manage which clusters belongs to which watchlists, you can directly add clusters into a watchlist from the Clusters Actions.
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To add a cluster into a new watchlist, log in to your ClusterControl GUI → Clusters → choose a cluster → Actions → Watchlists → Add to new watchlist.
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If you already have watchlists created, you can also add the chosen cluster into any existing watchlists by going to ClusterControl GUI → Clusters → choose a cluster → Actions → Watchlists → toggle On of the available watchlists. This cluster will be added to all enabled watchlist view immediately. Toggling Off will remove the cluster from the corresponding watchlist.
Create watchlist
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Click on the Create watchlist button. It will open a new Add watchlist panel.
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Specify a unique name for the watchlist under the Name text field. This unique name will be used to generate a unique URL for the watchlist.
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Choose one or more Topics from the list. Topics defines key metrics or dimensions users want to monitor in their watchlists — such as load, database growth, or status. These are visualized in dashboards and grid views when the watchlist is activated.
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Choose the group of dashboards that will be displayed in one page, either by Topic or Cluster. If Cluster, all dashboards for the selected topics will be grouped per cluster in one page. If Topic, dashboards for all clusters will be grouped per topic in one page.
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Choose a grid layout to align elements into columns and rows format (columns x rows). Depending on the screen size, you might want to choose the right grid layout to maximize the full-screen view. For a wide screen, 3x2 is usually better than 2x3.
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Choose one or more clusters, or all clusters from the Clusters dropdown list.
Monitor in kiosk-mode
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As an administrator, you can directly open the watchlist panel by going to Actions → Open. A new tab will be opened specifically for the full-screen monitoring dashbards.
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Click on the
[ ]icon to enter the full-screen view. Edit to edit the watchlist settings and Pause to pause the animation in the current page.
Tip
For non-administrative monitoring (commonly for NOC or SOC team), create a read-only user for this purpose. See Share watchlist with other.
Share watchlist with others
It is a common practice for the kiosk-mode monitoring to be passed over to the infrastructure monitoring team which has lower access level (can not edit the watchlist) to ClusterControl for monitoring-only purposes.
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Create a read-only monitoring team called "monitor" by going to ClusterContorl GUI → User management → Create user or team → Create team. You may skip the Users part since we are creating a group first (will add the user later).
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Under the Permissions section, toggle off all global permissions and choose "View" for cluster permission level, similar to the following example:
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Create a user called "monitor" by going to ClusterContorl GUI → User management → Create user or team → Create user. Assign this user under group "monitor", which is a read-only group we created in the previous steps.
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From the Watchlists tab, find the watchlist that you want to monitor in kiosk-mode Actions → Copy link. Pass the "monitor" user credentials and the link to the operation team for monitoring. Use the provided link in the web browser and they are good to go.
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Click on the
[ ]icon to enter the full-screen view and Pause to pause the animation in the current page. Read-only user does not have the permission to edit the watchlist.
Delete watchlist
- As an administrator, find the watchlist in the list and go to Actions → Delete. Confirm the action and the watchlist will be deleted.