Enable metrics

The NGINX One Console dashboard and metrics views present system metrics and detailed NGINX metrics gathered through the NGINX Plus API or the Stub Status API (for NGINX Open Source).

To display metrics, complete the following steps:

1. Enable the API
2. Enable metric collection

Enable NGINX Plus API and dashboard

To collect comprehensive metrics for NGINX Plus, including bytes streamed, information about upstream systems and caches, and counts of all HTTP status codes, add the following to your NGINX Plus configuration file, for example /etc/nginx/nginx.conf or an included file:

# This block enables the NGINX Plus API and dashboard
# For configuration and security recommendations, see:
# https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/monitoring/live-activity-monitoring/#configuring-the-api
server {
    # Change the listen port if 9000 conflicts
    # (8080 is the conventional API port)
    listen 9000;

    location /api/ {
        # To restrict write methods (POST, PATCH, DELETE), uncomment:
        # limit_except GET {
        #     auth_basic "NGINX Plus API";
        #     auth_basic_user_file /path/to/passwd/file;
        # }

        # Enable API in write mode
        api write=on;

        # To restrict access by network, uncomment and set your network:
        # allow 192.0.2.0/24   # replace with your network
        # deny  all;
    }

    # Serve the built-in dashboard at /dashboard.html
    location = /dashboard.html {
        root /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }
}

• By default, all clients can call the API.
• To limit who can access the API, uncomment the allow and deny lines under api write=on and replace the example CIDR with your trusted network.
• To restrict write methods (POST, PATCH, DELETE), uncomment and configure the limit_except GET block and set up HTTP basic authentication.

For more details, see the NGINX Plus API module documentation and Configuring the NGINX Plus API.

Enable NGINX Plus API and dashboard with Config Sync Groups

To enable the NGINX Plus API and dashboard with Config Sync Groups, add a file named /etc/nginx/conf.d/dashboard.conf to your shared group config. Any instance you add to that group automatically uses those settings.

1. In the NGINX One Console, select Manage > Config Sync Groups, then pick your config sync group’s name.
2. Select the Configuration tab, then select Edit Configuration.
3. Select Add File.
4. Select New Configuration File.
5. In the File name box, enter /etc/nginx/conf.d/dashboard.conf, then select Add.
6. Paste the following into the new file workspace:

# This block enables the NGINX Plus API and dashboard
# For configuration and security recommendations, see:
# https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/monitoring/live-activity-monitoring/#configuring-the-api
server {
    # Change the listen port if 9000 conflicts
    # (8080 is the conventional API port)
    listen 9000;

    location /api/ {
        # To restrict write methods (POST, PATCH, DELETE), uncomment:
        # limit_except GET {
        #     auth_basic "NGINX Plus API";
        #     auth_basic_user_file /path/to/passwd/file;
        # }

        # Enable API in write mode
        api write=on;

        # To restrict access by network, uncomment and set your network:
        # allow 192.0.2.0/24   # replace with your network
        # deny  all;
    }

    # Serve the built-in dashboard at /dashboard.html
    location = /dashboard.html {
        root /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }
}

7. Select Next, review the diff, then select Save and Publish.
8. Open your browser to http://<instance-ip>:9000/dashboard.html (replace <instance-ip> with the IP or hostname of one of your group members). You should see the NGINX Plus dashboard.

Enable NGINX Open Source Stub Status API

To collect basic metrics about server activity for NGINX Open Source, add the following to your NGINX configuration file:

server {
    listen 127.0.0.1:8080;
    location /api {
        stub_status;
        allow 127.0.0.1;
        deny all;
    }
}

This configuration:

• Enables the stub status API.
• Allows requests only from 127.0.0.1 (localhost).
• Blocks all other requests for security.

For more details, see the NGINX Stub Status module documentation.

Enable NGINX Plus Metric Collection

To make NGINX Plus metrics available on the NGINX One Console, you must enable shared memory zones for the virtual servers being monitored. Shared memory zones store configuration and runtime state information shared across NGINX worker processes.

To display HTTP and TCP servers in NGINX Console, one or more status_zone directives must be defined. The same zone name can be reused across multiple server blocks.

Since R19, you can apply the status_zone directive to location blocks, allowing statistics to be aggregated separately for servers and locations.

server {
    # ...
    status_zone status_page;
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://backend;
        status_zone location_zone;
    }
}

After saving the changes, reload NGINX to apply the new configuration:

nginx -s reload