# Local Agent dashboard The local Netdata Agent dashboard is the heart of Netdata's performance troubleshooting toolkit. You've probably seen it before: ![The Netdata dashboard in action](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/101513938-fae28380-3939-11eb-9434-8ad86a39be62.gif) Learn more about how dashboards work and how they're populated using the `dashboards.js` file in our [web dashboards overview](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/web/README.md). By default, Netdata starts a web server for its dashboard at port `19999`. Open up your web browser of choice and navigate to `http://NODE:19999`, replacing `NODE` with the IP address or hostname of your Agent. If you're unsure, try `http://localhost:19999` first. Netdata uses an [internal, static-threaded web server](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/web/server/README.md) to host the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files that make up the local Agent dashboard. You don't have to configure anything to access it, although you can adjust [your settings](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/web/server/README.md#other-netdataconf-web-section-options) in the `netdata.conf` file, or run Netdata behind an [Nginx proxy](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/Running-behind-nginx.md), and so on. ## Navigating the local dashboard Beyond charts, the local dashboard can be broken down into three key areas: - [Local Agent dashboard](#local-agent-dashboard) - [Navigating the local dashboard](#navigating-the-local-dashboard) - [Sections](#sections) - [Time \& date picker](#time--date-picker) - [Metrics menus](#metrics-menus) - [Cloud menus (Spaces, War Rooms, and Visited nodes)](#cloud-menus-spaces-war-rooms-and-visited-nodes) - [Customizing the local dashboard](#customizing-the-local-dashboard) - [Custom dashboards](#custom-dashboards) ![Annotated screenshot of the local Agent dashboard](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/101509403-f7e59400-3935-11eb-9abd-cbecfa3ee49a.png) ### Sections Netdata is broken up into multiple **sections**, such as **System Overview**, **CPU**, **Disk**, and more. Inside each section you'll find a number of charts, broken down into [contexts](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/web/README.md#contexts) and [families](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/web/README.md#families). An example of the **Memory** section on a Linux desktop system. ![Screenshot of the Memory section of the Netdata dashboard](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/101508423-e354cc00-3934-11eb-9b33-3ad57a5988b4.png) All sections and their associated charts appear on a single page, so all you need to do to view different sections is scroll up and down. But it's usually quicker to use the [menus](#metrics-menus). ### Time & date picker The local dashboard features a time & date picker to help you visualize specific timeframes of historical metrics. The picker chooses an appropriate default to always show per-second granularity based on the width of your browser's viewport. ![The time & date picker in the local Agent dashboard](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/101507784-2c585080-3934-11eb-9d6e-eff30b8553e4.png) Use the Quick Selector to show metrics from the last 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 2 hours, 6 hours, or 12 hours. Beneath the Quick Selector is an input field and dropdown you use in combination to select a specific timeframe of minutes, hours, days, or months. Enter a number and choose the appropriate unit of time. Use the calendar to select multiple days. Click on a date to begin the timeframe selection, then an ending date. Click **Apply** to re-render all visualizations with new metrics data, or **Clear** to restore the default timeframe. [Increase the metrics retention policy](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/docs/store/change-metrics-storage.md) for your node to see more historical timeframes. ### Metrics menus **Metrics menus** appears on the right-hand side of the local Agent dashboard. Netdata generates a menu for each section, and menus link to the section they're associated with. ![A screenshot of metrics menus](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/80834638-f08f2880-8ba5-11ea-99ae-f610b2885fd6.png) Most metrics menu items will contain several **submenu** entries, which represent any [families](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/web/README.md#families) from that section. Netdata automatically generates these submenu entries. Here's a **Disks** menu with several submenu entries for each disk drive and partition Netdata recognizes. ![Screenshot of some metrics submenus](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/80834697-11577e00-8ba6-11ea-979c-92fd19cdb480.png) ### Cloud menus (Spaces, War Rooms, and Visited nodes) The dashboard also features a menu related to Netdata Cloud functionality. You can view your existing Spaces or create new ones via the left vertical column of boxes. This menu also displays the name of your current Space, shows a list of any War Rooms you've added you your Space, and lists any notes you recently visited via their Agent dashboards. Click on a War Room's name to jump to the Netdata Cloud web interface. ![A screenshot of the Cloud menus](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/80837210-3f8b8c80-8bab-11ea-9c75-128c2d823ef8.png) ## Customizing the local dashboard Netdata stores information about individual charts in the `dashboard_info.js` file. This file includes section and subsection headings, descriptions, colors, titles, tooltips, and other information for Netdata to render on the dashboard. For example, here is how `dashboard_info.js` defines the **System Overview** section. ```javascript netdataDashboard.menu = { 'system': { title: 'System Overview', icon: '', info: 'Overview of the key system metrics.' }, ``` If you want to customize this information, you should avoid editing `dashboard_info.js` directly. These changes are not persistent; Netdata will overwrite the file when it's updated. Instead, you should create a new file with your customizations. We created an example file at `dashboard_info_custom_example.js`. You can copy this to a new file with a name of your choice in the `web/` directory. This directory changes based on your operating system and installation method. If you're on a Linux system, it should be at `/usr/share/netdata/web/`. ```shell cd /usr/share/netdata/web/ sudo cp dashboard_info_custom_example.js your_dashboard_info_file.js ``` Edit the file with your customizations. For example: ```javascript customDashboard.menu = { system: { title: "Testing, testing, 1 2 3", icon: '', info: "This is overwritten info for the system overview section!" } }; ``` Finally, tell Netdata where you placed your customization file by replacing `your_dashboard_info_file.js` below. ```conf [web] custom dashboard_info.js = your_dashboard_info_file.js ``` Once you restart Netdata, refresh the dashboard to find your custom configuration: ![Screenshot of overwritten text from dashboard_info.js file](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/62798924-570e6c80-ba94-11e9-9578-869753bec39c.png) ## Custom dashboards For information on creating custom dashboards from scratch, see the [custom dashboards](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/web/gui/custom/README.md) or [Atlassian Confluence dashboards](https://github.com/netdata/netdata/blob/master/web/gui/confluence/README.md) guides.