# How to View Metrics and Audit Logs {% embed url="" %} ### Purpose Netmaker Tutorial: Network Analytics and Auditing Overview ### Monitoring Node Performance and Connectivity Netmaker provides a dedicated Analytics pane to help administrators monitor the health, performance, and reliability of their network nodes in real-time. This interface is essential for identifying connection failures and tracking data throughput across the overlay network.

#### Accessing the Analytics Dashboard To begin monitoring your devices, navigate to the **Analytics** section by clicking the corresponding icon located in the bottom-left sidebar of the Netmaker dashboard. By default, the interface opens to the **Metrics** tab, which serves as the primary hub for node-specific performance data.

#### Evaluating Peer-to-Peer Metrics To view detailed telemetry for a specific device, select a node from the **Nodes** list on the left-hand side (for example, *'cloud-linux'*). This will populate the dashboard with metrics relative to its peer connections, allowing you to audit the following: * **Connectivity Status:** The **Connectivity** column provides an immediate visual indicator of connection health. A green checkmark indicates an active, live connection, while a red 'X' signals a connection failure between peers. * **Data Throughput:** Monitor the **Bytes Sent** and **Bytes Received** columns to track the volume of traffic moving between specific devices, which is useful for identifying high-bandwidth consumers or network bottlenecks. * **Reliability and Uptime:** Review the **Uptime** column to evaluate the percentage of time a connection has remained stable. This metric is critical for assessing the overall reliability of your network infrastructure.

### Visualizing Network Topology and Geography Netmaker provides several ways to visualize the structure and physical distribution of your network nodes. These tools allow administrators to verify network configuration at a glance and understand the physical and logical relationships between devices. #### Accessing Network Configuration To review the foundational settings of your current network, navigate to the **Network Info** tab within the Analytics pane. This section displays essential metadata including the network name, assigned IPv4 ranges, and IPv6 configurations.

#### Geographic Device Mapping Introduced in version 1.0, the **Graph** tab provides a geographic visualization of your infrastructure. By selecting this tab, you can view a global map that plots the physical locations of your network devices based on their connection data.

#### Legacy Connection Topology For a more technical view of device interconnectivity, use the **Switch to Graph** button located in the top-right corner of the map view. This legacy graph displays a traditional network topology diagram. This visualization is particularly useful for identifying which specific devices are establishing peer-to-peer connections and verifying the overall health of the mesh network architecture.

### Auditing Platform and Connection History Netmaker provides a dedicated suite of auditing tools designed to help administrators monitor both configuration changes and the real-time connectivity status of the network. This ensures high visibility into who is accessing the network and what changes are being made to the platform infrastructure. #### Visualizing Device Connections To understand the current state of your network before reviewing historical logs, navigate to the **Graph** tab within the **Analytics** pane. This visualization allows you to identify the physical and logical topology of your network, showing exactly which devices are currently connecting to one another.

#### Accessing the Activity Logs For detailed auditing, switch to the **Activity** tab located next to the Graph tab. This section serves as the primary ledger for all significant platform events.

The Activity page provides a timestamped record of platform interactions, allowing you to audit the following: * **Administrative Actions:** Review the creation of tags, updates to access policies, and other high-level configuration changes to see "what was created, by whom, and when." * **Connection History:** Track user and device connectivity, including specific timestamps for when a device joined or left the network. * **System Events:** Monitor general platform actions to ensure compliance and security standards are maintained across the network.

### External Data Export and Advanced Monitoring While the Netmaker dashboard provides built-in tools for real-time monitoring, advanced users may require external tools for long-term data retention, custom alerting, and complex visualization. Netmaker supports exporting network analytics data to industry-standard monitoring stacks. #### Prometheus Integration For comprehensive server-side monitoring, you can export your network analytics to **Prometheus**. This allows you to collect and store time-series data related to your network's health and performance. Because this feature is configured on the server side, it provides a centralized way to aggregate metrics from all nodes across your overlays.

#### Advanced Visualization with Grafana To complement the Prometheus data export, Netmaker offers a pre-configured **Grafana dashboard**. By using the provided metrics exporter, you can gain deeper insights into network activity through detailed charts and graphs that go beyond the standard dashboard views. This is particularly useful for identifying trends in data transfer or connection stability over long periods.

#### Implementation and Setup To implement advanced monitoring, follow these high-level requirements: * **Consult Documentation:** Refer to the official Netmaker Documentation for the specific configuration parameters required for the metrics exporter. * **Server-Side Configuration:** Ensure you have access to the server environment, as Prometheus exporting is handled at the infrastructure level rather than through the client UI. * **Import Dashboards:** Use the default Grafana dashboard templates provided by the Netmaker team to quickly visualize your exported metrics. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://learn.netmaker.io/getting-started/walkthrough/how-to-view-metrics-and-audit-logs.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.