API Documentation

Warning

Unfortunately, the API documentation has not been properly maintained. When this is fixed this warning will be removed. Much of this documentation is still useful, but for now it is best to check the code in web.go as the canonical reference. The handler's in Listen list all possible API routes.

Sending Data

You can send your OpenTSDB data to Bosun. Bosun will index the data for its search feature, then relay the data to OpenTSDB. We recommend using tsdbrelay instead of directly sending to Bosun, as tsdbrelay will continue to send data if Bosun is restarting or down for any reason.

/api/put

Sending data to Bosun is done by treating your bosun host exactly like an OpenTSDB host. That is, POST to /api/put with formats described at http://opentsdb.net/docs/build/html/api_http/put.html. This data will be relayed to your OpenTSDB host.

Data sent to this route will be indexed by Bosun for searching and autocomplete if it is typed correctly (for example, timestamp must be a number). Full JSON description.

/api/index

Only perform search indexing; do not relay to OpenTSDB. Accepts in same format as /api/put.

Metadata

Metadata (units, gauge/rate/counter, description, etc.) can be POST’d to the /api/metadata/put endpoint, with the request body as a JSON list of objects. The objects have the following properties:

  • Metric (string, optional): metric name
  • Tags (object, optional): key=value tag pairs
  • Name (string): metadata key name, for example: desc, rate, unit
  • Value (string): metadata value

For example, to set the rate and unit of various metrics:

[
  {"Metric":"win.disk.spltio","Name":"unit","Value":"per second"},
  {"Metric":"linux.mem.drop_pagecache","Name":"rate","Value":"counter"}
]

rate

To send metric rate information (used to specify if a metric is a gauge, rate, or counter), use rate as the Name and gauge, rate, or counter as the Value. Tags should be omitted.

unit

To send metric unit information (used to specify a metric’s units), use unit as the Name and the unit value as Value (for example, bytes, per second). Tags should be omitted.

Querying Data

Most endpoints support both GET and POST requests. Listed parameters may be specified as either URL parameters for GETs, or body parameters for POSTs. Any base64-encoded data should be encoded using the standard (not URL) encoding (and, thus, must be then URL-encoded).

Search Endpoints

All Search endpoints return a sorted json array. The search data is populated by observing data that has been relayed through the instance of bosun.

/api/host

Returns dashboard-ready data for all hosts.

/api/metric

Returns the metrics that have been relayed through bosun.

/api/metric/tagkey

Returns the metrics that have been relayed through bosun and their associated tag keys.

/api/metric/{tagk}/{tagv}

Returns the metrics that are available for the specified tagk/tagv pair. For example, you can see what metrics are available for host=server01.

/api/tagk/{metric}

Get all the available tagks that exist for the specified metric

/api/tagv/{tagk}

Get all the available tagvs for the specified tagk

/api/tagv/{tagk}/{metric}

Get all the available tagvs for the specific tagk and metric combination. You can optionally add a query string of tagk=tagv pairs to filter it even more. For example: /api/tagv/iface/os.net.bytes?host=server01&direction=in

/api/metadata/get

Get latest values of all metadata. Optional parameters:

  • metric: filter by metric name. Ex: /api/metadata/get?metric=os.cpu.
  • tagk and tagv pairs: filter by tag values; must be correctly paired; many supported. Ex: /api/metadata/get?tagk=key1&tagv=val1&tagk=key2&tagv=val2.

/api/metadata/metrics

Get unit, type (rate, gauge, counter) and description information for metrics.

Expression, Rule, and Graph Endpoints

/api/expr?q={expression}

The expression endpoint takes a URL-encoded bosun expression expression and returns the results and OpenTSDB queries. The results includes a breakdown of the computations involved in the expression, the result or value, and the group (OpenTSDB’s tagset) of the expression. The queries are the OpenTSDB requests generated by the query.

/api/egraph/{expression}.svg?[autods=true][&now=timestamp]

Returns an SVG graph of the base64-encoded expression. autods may be set to enable auto downsampling. now can be set to a Unix timestamp in seconds to set the time of the expression (defaults to now).

/api/graph

Graphing endpoint. Examine a request for details.

/api/rule

Test execution for rules. Can execute at various times and intervals, output templates, and send test emails. Example a request for details.

Dashboard Endpoints

/api/action

Used to acknowledge, close, or forget alerts. Examine a request for details.

/api/alerts?[filter=filter]

Returns a list of alert summaries matching the given filter (defaults to all).

/api/health

Returns an object of internal health checks. True values are good, falses are bad.

Note: all health checks stats are kept in memory and reset upon bosun restart

/api/run

Runs a rule check. Returns an error if one is already running (either from the web interface or the normal scheduled check).

/api/silence/clear

Reads the id field of the JSON object passed in the POST body and removes that silence.

/api/silence/get

Returns all silences.

/api/silence/set

Tests or sets a silence. Examine a request for details.

/api/status?[ak=key][&ak=key]

Returns details about the given alert keys.

Configuration Endpoints

/api/backup

Returns the state file for backup. The state file is guaranteed to be in a consistent state. This route is implemented by creating an in-memory copy of the state file, then streaming that to the response, so as to not block writes to the state file by other parts of bosun.

/api/config

Returns the current configuration that bosun is loaded with as text.

/api/config_test

Reads a configuration file from the POST body then checks it for for syntax errors. Returns an error if invalid.

/api/reload

Reloads the rule configuration when { "Reload": true } is POST’d to the endpoint.