---
layout: default
title: Create PerfTop Dashboards
parent: Performance Analyzer
nav_order: 2
---

# PerfTop dashboards

Dashboards are defined in JSON and composed of three main elements: tables, line graphs, and bar graphs. You define a grid of rows and columns and then place elements within that grid, with each element spanning as many rows and columns as you specify.

The best way to get started with building custom dashboards is to duplicate and modify one of the existing JSON files in the `dashboards` directory.
{: .tip }

---

#### Table of contents
1. TOC
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---


## Summary of elements

- Tables show metrics per dimension. For example, if your metric is `CPU_Utilization` and your dimension `ShardID`, a PerfTop table shows a row for each shard on each node.
- Bar graphs are aggregated for the cluster, unless you add `nodeName` to the dashboard. See the [options for all elements](#all-elements).
- Line graphs are aggregated for each node. Each line represents a node.


## Position elements

PerfTop positions elements within a grid. For example, consider this 12 * 12 grid.

![Dashboard grid]({{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/images/perftop-grid.png)

The upper-left of the grid represents row 0, column 0, so the starting positions for the three boxes are:

- Orange: row 0, column 0
- Purple: row 2, column 2
- Green: row 1, column 6

These boxes span a number of rows and columns. In this case:

- Orange: 2 rows, 4 columns
- Purple: 1 row, 4 columns
- Green: 3 rows, 2 columns

In JSON form, we have the following:

```json
{
  "gridOptions": {
    "rows": 12,
    "cols": 12
  },
  "graphs": {
    "tables": [{
        "options": {
          "gridPosition": {
            "row": 0,
            "col": 0,
            "rowSpan": 2,
            "colSpan": 4
          }
        }
      },
      {
        "options": {
          "gridPosition": {
            "row": 2,
            "col": 2,
            "rowSpan": 1,
            "colSpan": 4
          }
        }
      },
      {
        "options": {
          "gridPosition": {
            "row": 1,
            "col": 6,
            "rowSpan": 3,
            "colSpan": 2
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}
```

At this point, however, all the JSON does is define the size and position of three tables.  To fill elements with data, you specify a query.


## Add queries

Queries use the same elements as the [REST API]({{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/monitoring-plugins/pa/api/), just in JSON form:

```json
{
  "queryParams": {
    "metrics": "estimated,limitConfigured",
    "aggregates": "avg,avg",
    "dimensions": "type",
    "sortBy": "estimated"
  }
}
```

For details on available metrics, see [Metrics reference]({{site.url}}{{site.baseurl}}/monitoring-plugins/pa/reference/).


## Add options

Options include labels, colors, and a refresh interval. Different elements types have different options.

Dashboards support the 16 ANSI colors: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and white. For the "bright" variants of these colors, use the numbers 8--15. If your terminal supports 256 colors, you can also use hex codes (e.g. `#6D40ED`).
{: .note }


### All elements

Option | Type | Description
:--- | :--- | :---
`label` | String or integer | The text in the upper-left corner of the box.
`labelColor` | String or integer | The color of the label.
`refreshInterval` | Integer | The number of milliseconds between calls to the Performance Analyzer API for new data. Minimum value is 5000.
`dimensionFilters` | String array | The dimension value to diplay for the graph. For example, if you query for `metric=Net_Throughput&agg=sum&dim=Direction` and the possible dimension values are `in` and `out`, you can define `dimensionFilters: ["in"]` to only display the metric data for `in` dimension
`nodeName` | String | If non-null, lets you restrict elements to individual nodes. You can specify the node name directly in the dashboard file, but the better approach is to use `"nodeName": "#nodeName"` in the dashboard and include the `--nodename <node_name>` argument when starting PerfTop.


### Tables

Option | Type | Description
:--- | :--- | :---
`bg` | String or integer | The background color.
`fg` | String or integer | The text color.
`selectedFg` | String or integer | The text color for focused text.
`selectedBg` | String or integer | The background color for focused text.
`columnSpacing` | Integer | The amount of space (measured in characters) between columns.
`keys` | Boolean | Has no impact at this time.


### Bars

Option | Type | Description
:--- | :--- | :---
`barWidth` | Integer | The width of each bar (measured in characters) in the graph.
`xOffset` | Integer | The amount of space (measured in characters) between the y-axis and the first bar in the graph.
`maxHeight` | Integer | The maximum height of each bar (measured in characters) in the graph.


### Lines

Option | Type | Description
:--- | :--- | :---
`showNthLabel` | Integer | Which of the `xAxis` labels to show. For example, `"showNthLabel": 2` shows every other label.
`showLegend` | Boolean | Whether or not to display a legend for the line graph.
`legend.width` | Integer | The width of the legend (measured in characters) in the graph.
`xAxis` | String array | Array of labels for the x-axis. For example, `["0:00", "0:10", "0:20", "0:30", "0:40", "0:50"]`.
`colors` | String array | Array of line colors to choose from. For example, `["magenta", "cyan"]`. If you don't provide this value, PerfTop chooses random colors for each line.
