Monitoring & Alerting

Convox provides integrated metrics collection and alerting capabilities that give you comprehensive visibility into your applications and infrastructure. Built directly into the Convox platform, monitoring requires no additional tools or complex configuration.

Overview

Convox Monitoring & Alerting offers:

Automatic metrics collection from your racks and applications
Pre-configured dashboards with essential infrastructure metrics
Custom panel creation using Smart Queries or PromQL
Intelligent alerting with configurable thresholds and notifications
Seamless integration with your existing Convox workflow

Enabling Metrics Collection

Metrics collection is enabled at the rack level through the Rack Settings page.

Steps to Enable

Navigate to your rack in the Convox Console
Click Rack Settings in the left sidebar
Scroll to the Dashboard Settings section
Toggle the Enable Metrics Agent switch to on
Wait approximately 2 minutes for agents to install and begin collecting data

Once enabled, the Metrics Agent automatically installs into your rack and begins collecting performance data from all running services.

Default Dashboards

When you enable metrics, Convox automatically creates default panels that provide immediate visibility into your infrastructure:

Rack CPU Usage - Overall CPU utilization across your rack
Rack Memory Usage - Memory consumption patterns
Rack Network I/O - Network throughput and activity
Rack Network Errors - Network error rates
Application Pod Count - Number of running application instances
Application Pod Ready % - Percentage of healthy application pods

These panels give you a comprehensive baseline view of your infrastructure health without any additional configuration.

Custom Panels

Create custom panels to track specific metrics that matter to your applications.

Creating a Panel

Navigate to the V3 Dashboard in the Metrics section
Click Create Panel
Configure your panel:
- Name: Descriptive name for your panel
- Description: Optional details about what the panel tracks
- Chart Type: Visualization type (automatically set for Smart Queries)

Adding Queries

Panels can contain multiple queries to compare different metrics or services.

Smart Queries

Smart Queries are pre-configured queries that make metric selection intuitive:

Select your Rack from the dropdown
Choose All Apps or select a specific application
Choose All Services or select specific services
Select a metric from the Smart Query Metrics list
Click Generate Preview to verify the query

Available Smart Query metrics include:

CPU Usage Trend
Memory Usage Trend
Network I/O patterns
Request rates and response times

Custom Queries

For advanced monitoring needs, you can input any valid PromQL query to access the full range of collected metrics.

Panel Management

Generate Preview: View your panel before saving
Create Panel: Save the panel to your dashboard
Edit/Delete: Modify existing panels using the panel controls

Alerting

Set up intelligent alerts to be notified when your applications exceed defined thresholds.

Creating Alert Rules

Navigate to Alert Manager in the Metrics section
Click the settings icon to create a new alert
Configure your alert:

Basic Configuration

Rule Name: Descriptive name for the alert
Severity: Choose from Warning, Critical, or other severity levels
Panel: Select the panel containing the metric to monitor
Query: Choose the specific query within the panel

Conditions

Condition: Set when the alert should trigger (greater than, less than, etc.)
Threshold: The value that triggers the alert
For Seconds: How long the condition must persist before triggering
Keep Firing For Seconds: How long to keep the alert active once triggered

Documentation

Summary: Brief description used in alert notifications
Description: Detailed explanation of what the alert monitors
Labels: Key-value pairs for organizing and routing alerts

Alert Management

The Alert Manager dashboard shows:

Active Alerts: Currently firing alerts
Total Alerts: All configured alert rules
Monitoring Status: Overall system health
Alert History: List of all alert rules with their current state

Notifications

Configure notification integrations to receive alerts where your team works.

Supported Integrations

Slack: Send alerts directly to Slack channels
Discord: Deliver notifications to Discord channels
PagerDuty: Coming soon

Setting Up Notifications

Navigate to the Integrations page
Select your preferred notification service
Follow the integration-specific setup process
Test the integration to ensure alerts are delivered properly

Best Practices

Panel Organization

Create panels that group related metrics for easier analysis
Use descriptive names and descriptions for panels and queries
Combine multiple services in a single panel to compare performance

Alert Configuration

Set appropriate thresholds based on your application's normal operating ranges
Use "For Seconds" to avoid alert noise from temporary spikes
Include clear summaries and descriptions for faster incident response
Apply consistent labeling for better alert organization

Monitoring Strategy

Start with default panels to understand baseline performance
Create custom panels for application-specific metrics
Set up alerts for critical thresholds that require immediate attention
Review and adjust alert thresholds based on historical data

Troubleshooting

Metrics Not Appearing

Verify the Metrics Agent is enabled in Rack Settings
Wait 2-3 minutes for agents to fully initialize
Check that your applications are running and generating metrics

Alert Issues

Ensure alert conditions and thresholds are correctly configured
Verify notification integrations are properly set up
Check alert timing settings (For Seconds, Keep Firing For Seconds)

Performance Impact

Convox monitoring is designed to have minimal impact on your applications. The Metrics Agent collects data efficiently without affecting application performance.

Command Line Interface

While monitoring is primarily managed through the Convox Console, you can view application logs using the CLI:

# View application logs
convox logs -a myapp

# Filter logs by service
convox logs -a myapp --service web

# View logs for a specific time period
convox logs -a myapp --since 1h

# Tail application logs
convox logs -a myapp --follow