Monitoring your Network
Overview
You probably want to monitor the traffic and connections in your network. There are three primary ways to do this with Netmaker:
In this section, we overview how to use these features.
Monitoring Network Stats with the Metrics Dashboard
The netmaker server collects metrics from netclients and provides aggregated views inside the Netmaker web UI. This feature is available in Netmaker Professional / Enterprise Edition.
Steps to access:
Log into the Netmaker dashboard.
Navigate to the specific network from the Networks tab.
Click the Metrics tab.
Available metric pages:
Connectivity status: overview of which hosts can establish connectivity with each other.
Example: host “centos-userspace” can connect with “ubuntu20-04”; “fedora” cannot connect with “relayed”.
Latency: round-trip time (ms) between hosts (e.g., 149ms between “centos-userspace” and “ubuntu20-04”).
Bytes Sent: amount of data sent from hosts on the left to hosts on the top.
Example: “390.56 MiB” sent from “Ubuntu20-04” to “centos-userspace” (so centos-userspace received 390.56 MiB).
Bytes Received: amount of data received on hosts on the left from hosts on the top.
Example: “313.73 MiB” received on “Ubuntu20-04” from “centos-userspace” (so centos-userspace sent 313.73 MiB).
Uptime: uptime percentage for the connection between two hosts.
Example: “Ubuntu20-04” ↔ “centos-userspace” uptime is “100.00%”.
Clients: connection status, uptime, latency, total data sent/received for static external clients under a Remote Access Gateway.
These metrics are available in Netmaker Professional / Enterprise Edition via the Netmaker web UI.
Exporting Metrics via Prometheus
The netmaker exporter plugin fetches statistics from the netmaker server and exposes them in a Prometheus-friendly format.
Default exporter URL (example): https://netmaker-exporter.nm.your-domain-name.com
Prometheus can be configured to scrape this exporter URL.
Notes:
Prometheus is installed by default on Netmaker EE installation.
For manual Prometheus installation, see: https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/installation
Accessing the default Prometheus instance (example URL):
https://prometheus.nm.your-domain-name.com
Login: username “Netmaker-Prometheus”, password is your Netmaker EE license key.
Inside Prometheus:
Status -> Configuration: confirms netmaker-exporter is added as a scrape config (configured in prometheus.yml).
Status -> Targets: shows the netmaker-exporter endpoint status and details.
Importing Metrics via Grafana
Grafana visualizes metrics stored in Prometheus. Netmaker EE installs a Grafana instance by default.
Official Grafana install guide: https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/setup-grafana/installation
Default Grafana URL (example): https://grafana.nm.your-domain-name.com
Default login: admin / admin (you will be prompted to set a new password after first login).
Adding Prometheus as a data source:
Open the Grafana menu -> Connections (Data Sources).
Search for Prometheus and create a Prometheus data source.
Configure the name, Prometheus endpoint/server URL, authentication, etc.
Click “Save & Test”.
Notes:
The default Grafana installed with Netmaker EE already has the netmaker Prometheus instance added as a data source.
Netmaker dashboard:
Netmaker EE installs a default Netmaker Grafana dashboard.
This dashboard shows the same metrics available in the Netmaker web UI.
Exporting/importing the dashboard JSON:
Inside the Netmaker metrics dashboard, open dashboard settings (gear icon) -> JSON Model and copy the JSON.
In another Grafana instance: Dashboards -> New -> Import -> paste JSON -> Load to add the dashboard.
Using WireGuard to Check Network Statistics on Devices
If wireguard-tools is installed on client systems, you can view WireGuard interface statistics gathered by the netclient.
Install on Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt install wireguard-tools
Run:
wg show
This displays:
bytes sent and received per peer
latest handshake time
other WireGuard details
These metrics are part of what the netclient collects for the Netmaker web UI and the Prometheus exporter.
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