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Access Keys

Table of Contents

  1. What can I use an Access Key for?
  2. Access Key List
  3. Using an Access Key
  4. Create an Access Key
  5. Available Actions
  6. Editing an Access Key
  7. Deleting an Access Key
  8. Troubleshooting

Access Keys allow you to share read-only access to your graphite data with external applications, scripts or dashboarding plugins. For added security, a key can be limited to a whitelist of IP addresses. Team users with read-only or read/write privileges will not see the Access Key list or have the option to create keys, only team managers and account owners have access.

What can I use an Access Key for?

An Access Key can help you use different Graphite plugins using Hosted Graphite Data, such as:

  • Tasseo
    A real-time Graphite dashboard. Also available within Hosted Graphite - follow the Tasseo link at the top, or grab it from the Tasseo github page
  • Graphene
    An alternative realtime Graphite Dashboard, see the Graphene github page
  • Seyren
    An alerting dashboard for Graphite. See the Seyren github page
  • The Graphite Render API
    The Graphite Render API allows you to create images of your graph data. It’s a really comprehensive way to render the data collected by Hosted Graphite.
  • Local Dashboard Instance
    Add Hosted Graphite as a data source to your local/self-hosted dashboard installation to render your metrics. You can find a detailed guide here.
   

Access Key List

   

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Your list of access keys, found on the “Overview” page.

  

Using an Access Key

The created access key will be listed in the table as shown in the image above. Simple copy the location and use it in your external application as per it’s documentation.

  

Create an Access Key

Click the “Add Access Key” button to do the obvious.

  

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Creating an Access Key

  • Access Key Name
    Creating an Access Key requires that you name the key. This has no connection to the key itself, it’s just a handy reminder of why you added it. E.g. to connect to a Tasseo or Graphiti dashboard, or to an alerting system such as Seyren.
  • Optional - Add An IP Whitelist
    It’s not necessary for you to add a whitelist, but this will add an extra level of protection if your key is leaked, and you want to ensure that data is only coming from servers you control. The whitelist accepts comma-separated IP addresses in the standard format (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX).
  • Type - Primary Dashboard or Graphite
    Unless you’re specifically using the Access Key to share a primary dashboard, the option you want to pick is ‘Graphite’. This gives external applications access to Graphite’s data.
       

Available Actions

  • Edit
    Allows you to change the name of the Access Key or the IP whitelist.
  • Delete
    Permanently removes the Access Key.
       

Editing an Access Key

Clicking the wrench / Edit icon to bring up the Edit Access Key dialog:  

Edit the details of your access key, hit “Save” to preserve your changes.

edit-access-key.png

   

Deleting an Access Key

Hit the trash can / Delete icon to bring up the Delete Access Key dialog:

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Hit the “Yes, Delete” button to purge the Access Key from the system. Rumor has it that if you strike down an Access Key it will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

   

Troubleshooting

  • When I visit the Access Key URL I get a ‘403 Forbidden’ error
    The access key enables access to the read-only parts of Hosted Graphite that allow you to retrieve data, and anything else returns a 403. If you add ‘/render/’ to end of the created URL, you’ll see a blank graph image showing a red “No Data”.
  • I still get a 403 error at the ‘/render/’ URL
    Remove any whitelisted IP addresses you have added to the access key, and try again. If you still have trouble accessing the URL, contact us.