Dashboard
The BunkerM dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of your MQTT broker's performance, client connections, and message activity. This centralized view helps you monitor the health and activity of your MQTT environment at a glance.
Dashboard Components
The dashboard is divided into several key sections, each providing specific insights into your MQTT broker's operation.
Broker Statistics
The top section of the dashboard displays critical broker statistics:
- Connected Clients: The number of MQTT clients currently connected to the broker
- Total Messages: The cumulative count of messages processed by the broker
- Subscriptions: The total number of active topic subscriptions
- Retained Messages: The number of messages stored with the retained flag
These metrics provide a quick overview of your broker's current state and usage level.
Message Traffic
The message traffic chart displays message throughput over time, helping you identify patterns and trends in your MQTT traffic:
- Messages Received: The number of messages received by the broker
- Messages Sent: The number of messages sent by the broker to clients
- Time Period: You can adjust the time period to view data for the last hour, day, week, or month
This visualization helps you understand usage patterns and plan for capacity needs.
Byte Transfer Rates
The byte transfer chart shows the data volume flowing through your broker:
- Bytes Received: The volume of data received by the broker
- Bytes Sent: The volume of data sent by the broker to clients
- Time Period: Adjustable time periods for different analysis needs
This information is valuable for bandwidth planning and identifying potential bottlenecks.
Recent MQTT Events
The recent events section provides a real-time log of MQTT activity:
- Client Connections: Shows when clients connect or disconnect
- Message Activity: Displays publish and subscribe events
- Timestamp: When each event occurred
- Client ID: The identifier of the client involved in the event
- Event Type: The type of event (connect, disconnect, publish, subscribe)
- Topic: For publish and subscribe events, shows the relevant topic
This live feed helps you monitor client behavior and troubleshoot issues in real-time.
Dashboard Controls
The dashboard includes several controls to help you customize your view:
- Refresh Button: Manually refresh the dashboard data
- Auto-Refresh Toggle: Enable or disable automatic data refreshing
- Time Period Selector: Change the time period for the charts
- Export Button: Export dashboard data for reporting or analysis
Using the Dashboard Effectively
Monitoring Broker Health
The dashboard is your first stop for checking broker health:
- Check the "Connected Clients" metric to ensure it aligns with your expectations
- Monitor the message and byte transfer rates for unusual spikes or drops
- Watch for unexpected client disconnections in the recent events log
Capacity Planning
Use the historical data in the charts to plan for future capacity needs:
- Identify peak usage times and patterns
- Monitor growth trends in message volume and client connections
- Use this information to determine when you might need to scale your infrastructure
Troubleshooting
When issues arise, the dashboard can help identify the source:
- Check for sudden changes in connection counts or message rates
- Look for error events in the recent events log
- Correlate client connection/disconnection events with reported issues
Performance Optimization
Identify opportunities to optimize your MQTT implementation:
- Look for clients that connect and disconnect frequently
- Identify topics with unusually high message volumes
- Monitor retained message count to ensure it doesn't grow uncontrollably
Related Documentation
- Broker Logs - For more detailed logging information
- Client Logs - For client-specific activity logs
- Performance Metrics - For more detailed performance analysis