dashing-contrib

This project is an extension to Shopify's Dashing. Including this rubygem you will be able to:

• Use all the built-in widgets
• Extend DashingContrib::RunnableJob module to define, test jobs
• Built-in jobs are only a couple of lines implementation, no repetitive copy and paste
• Existing secret parameters is automatically loaded from .env file
• All jobs have a final state (ok, warning, critical)
• Rest API to get overall state summary
• Rest API to trigger save history

Read each individual widget documentation to use dashing-contrib built-in widgets after the installation steps.

Installation

Requires Ruby >= 1.9.3. Add this line to your Dashing's dashboard Gemfile:

gem 'dashing-contrib', '~> 0.2.1'

Update dependencies:

$ bundle

Add the following on top of the config.ru

$: << File.expand_path('./lib', File.dirname(__FILE__))
require 'dashing-contrib'
require 'dashing'
DashingContrib.configure

Include built-in CoffeeScript to assets/javascripts/application.coffee

#=require dashing-contrib/assets/widgets

Include built-in SCSS to assets/stylesheets/application.scss

//=require dashing-contrib/assets/widgets

Now you will be able to use the following widgets, click to see individual documentation:

• Rickshawgraph
• Sidekiq
• Pingdom Uptime
• Pingdom Summary
• Kue Status
• Nagios List
• Switcher
• Dashing State (global alert if any widget is under critical state)

dotenv

Shared job parameters are managed by dotenv gem. Add a .env file in your dashing project root. dashing-contrib will load your configuration from .env file automatically. An example .env file:

NAGIOS_ENDPOINT: http://example.com/nagios3/cgi-bin
NAGIOS_USERNAME: dasher
NAGIOS_PASSWORD: readonly

PINGDOM_USERNAME: ping
PINGDOM_PASSWORD: pong
PINGDOM_API_KEY: pingpongpingpong

These values can be accessed in jobs ENV['NAGIOS_ENDPOINT']

Job Definition

dashing-contrib gem provides a standard job definition wrapper. This replaces the 'SCHEDULE.every' call:

• defines common data processing and testable/reusable modules
• in addition to dashing's default 'updatedAt', introduced an optional state information used across all widgets

A custom job declaration example:

module MyCustomJob
  # provides some dashing hooks 
  extend DashingContrib::RunnableJob
  
  # Overrides to extract some data for display
  # generated hash will be available for widget to access
  def self.metrics(options)
    { metrics: { failed: 500, ok: 123013 } }
  end
  
  # By default this always returns OK state
  # You can customize the state return value by lookup generated metrics and user provided options 
  def self.validate_state(metrics, options = {})
    # `metrics` parameter is the value return by `metrics` method
    failed_value = metrics[:metrics][:failed]
    
    return DashingContrib::RunnableJob::OK if failed_value == 0
    return DashingContrib::RunnableJob::WARNING if failed_value <= 100
    DashingContrib::RunnableJob::CRITICAL
  end
end

When using job:

# make sure MyCustomJob module is required
# default interval is every 30s and job is executed once at start
MyCustomJob.run(event: 'custom-job-event', every: '20s')

# Custom job also has a block syntax if you are setting up some global settings
MyCustomJob.run(event: 'custom-job-event') do
  # setup redis client etc
end

# metrics and validate_state method will be able to use `my_custom_param` and `custom_threshold`
# to make configurable metrics fetch and state validation
MyCustomJob.run(event: 'custom-job-event', my_custom_param: 123, custom_threshold: 3)


# Override rufus-scheduler configuraiton using scheduler hash settings
MyCustomJob.run(event: 'custom-job-event', my_custom_param: 123, custom_threshold: 3, scheduler: { first_in: 10 })

Take a look some build-in jobs as example:

• dashing-contrib/jobs/sidekiq.rb
• dashing-contrib/jobs/kue.rb
• dashing-contrib/jobs/nagios_list.rb
• dashing-contrib/jobs/pingdom_uptime.rb
• dashing-contrib/jobs/pingdom_summary.rb
• dashing-contrib/jobs/dashing-state.rb

This is nice that backend data fetching can be now unit tested and reused. Dashing widget view layer can reuse the same job processor and present data in multiple forms.

Widget State

All built-in jobs managed by 'DashingContrib::Runnable' assumes each widget instance has a 'state' under ok, warning or critical. We suggest your custom widget should also follow this convension.

This gem creates an additional REST API, as well as a widget to show a global healthness of the system. This is awesome if you would like to build some physical alert system around it.

GET http://{dashing_endpoint}/api/states

{
    "ok": 2,
    "warning": 0,
    "critical": 0,
    "detailed_status": {
      "dashboard": {
        "state": "ok",
        "title": "Dashboard",
        "updated_at": 1403823187
      },
      "nagios-list": {
        "state": "ok",
        "title": "Nagios Checks",
        "updated_at": 1403823178
      }
    }
}

Persistent History

A new REST endpoint allows to force keep a snapshot of current events data and update the history.yml yaml file.

Post http://{dashing_endpoint}/api/history/save

How to contribute

There are a couple of ways to contribute. Brining those widgets scattered in github, in multiple format into this repository. They usually falling into the following categories:

• Widgets, common widgets should be generic solution to a common requirements. e.g. line graph, better clock with common functionalities. Documentation should be written as a README.md file under widget's own directory, include a preview.png file in the widget folder.
• Jobs utils, common Job data processing for graphing purpose
• Fix and add test
• Improve documentation