RustProxy/docs/DASHBOARD.md

Administration dashboard and preferences

The authenticated panel is the primary way to manage RustProxy. Pages cover Overview, Vhosts, Web Server, Certificates, Docker vhosts, Streams, Traffic, Cache, Logs, Settings and Documentation. Availability of individual cards depends on enabled features and the account's display preferences.

Stylesheet updates

The panel and login page load one versioned stylesheet embedded in the Rust binary. Source styles are split into eight modules and assembled during the build. Rebuild the binary to apply CSS changes; copying individual CSS files to an installed server does not update the panel. The authenticated documentation page has its own stylesheet.

Overview cards and layouts

The Overview contains live counters, charts and optional backend, cache, PHP, Docker and Stream cards. Under Settings → Appearance → Dashboard layout or the Overview editor, configure visibility, order, card width, density and the number of history samples. A hidden card stops consuming its optional browser-side visualization work but does not turn off its underlying proxy feature.

Optional quick-health tiles (since 0.35.2, hidden by default; enable them in the layout editor or Settings → Appearance → Dashboard layout):

Tile	Shows
Healthy backends	Monitored backend members passing health checks as up / total, with the names of failing members.
Error share	Percentage of HTTP requests that ended with an error during the last sampling interval.
Rejected by limits / s	Requests and connections refused by --max-connections / --max-inflight; sustained values mean the limits are too low for the load.
Nearest certificate expiry	Days until the earliest installed certificate expires; the bar is full at 90 days or more.

Enabled tiles are added at the end of the Overview, so the standard block layout does not change.

The Remember choice control next to the history sample count shows a status only when the current choice is temporary (not saved) or briefly after saving.

The unlocked Overview layout exposes a single Save and lock action (plus Cancel), removing the redundant lock-and-save button.

Dashboard Presets supports up to 16 named layouts per administrator. Save, load, rename, overwrite and delete presets; a factory layout can be restored. Presets preserve the dashboard arrangement, not the live traffic values. Interface theme, scale and other display settings are also account-scoped and do not alter proxy routing or rewrite shared configuration.

Editing configuration safely

1. Open the relevant workspace and inspect existing state before editing.
2. Change a logically related group of settings and review the editor's effective-preview/status where available.
3. Save against the expected current configuration revision. A stale edit should be reloaded instead of silently overwriting a newer change.
4. Confirm whether the saved setting is active immediately or requires a process restart (notably listener binds and administration HTTPS).
5. Check the live page and request logs after sending test traffic.

Unfinished editors may be minimized into a draft dock; this is a UI convenience and not a durable change or backup until saved.

History and restore

Configuration history stores retained validated snapshots. Restoring a snapshot creates a new configuration revision. It does not restore every filesystem file, external certificate, Secret Store key or accumulated cache/log history. For disaster recovery, use a full encrypted backup; see Backup.

Optional X/Y scales

Under Settings → Appearance → Charts, turn on Show X/Y scales on charts. It is off by default, stored per administrator through chart_axes: true|false in /api/preferences, and can be reset with Reset section or Reset appearance. No routing or persistent metric collection changes are required. The optional labels cover sampled SVG line charts in Overview (including backend, cache, Web Server, Stream and optional extra panels), Vhosts, Docker Vhosts, Streams, Web Server live metrics, Cache and Transform activity. Donuts, progress meters and categorical breakdowns have no X/Y sample axes.

• Y: 0 through the exact range used to plot the series, using suitable units such as %, ms, B, B/s or /s. Existing auto-ranging, fixed 0–100% scales and adaptive Vhost/Docker percentile scales are not recalculated or replaced. If an isolated Vhost peak is clipped, its actual maximum remains in the legend and the scale annotation identifies the clipped range. On HTTP and WebSocket protocol mini charts where each line is independently normalized, separate Y ranges for H1/H2/H3 are shown rather than an incorrect shared axis.
• X: numbers 1 ... N identify samples in the displayed history, not elapsed seconds or minutes. Sampling can pause and Vhost/Docker/Stream lifetime histories can compact older readings into buckets. The X axis never pretends that sample spacing is uniform time.
• Labels are HTML overlays/footers rather than SVG text so they remain legible with preserveAspectRatio="none". The original SVG path geometry, visible data, styling and refresh rates are unchanged. Switching axes off unwraps the existing SVGs; charts return to their previous appearance without restarting the panel.

If axis labels look crowded in a small card or on mobile, disable the setting; the default presentation is unchanged.

Interpreting charts

• The Cache hit ratio donut shows cumulative HIT / (HIT + MISS): BYPASS and requests outside cache are deliberately excluded from its denominator.

• The Cache outcomes compact horizontal 100% bar is hidden by default; enable it in Settings → Appearance → Dashboard layout or the Overview layout editor. It summarizes cumulative request counters since the current service process started, not recent polling intervals. The upper-right number shows the total HTTP requests since service start (full description in its tooltip and accessible label); the legend shows counts and percentages for HIT, MISS, BYPASS and OTHER. The percentages use all HTTP requests as the denominator. BYPASS includes requests where the cache path was considered but disabled/skipped (including globally disabled cache); OTHER covers requests without a cache decision, e.g. early rejected or redirect paths. These are request counts, not bytes; service restarts reset them. Values appear immediately with the first HTTP request; refreshing or pausing the browser does not reset totals. If independently counted cache outcomes exceed the request counter (e.g. while snapshots are inconsistent or a request incurs multiple cache events), the summary shows unavailable rather than fabricating OTHER or a normalized 100% breakdown. The separate recent cache trend chart remains unchanged.

• Live views are process/sampling-based and can show no-data when an integration has not reported yet.

• Per-backend protocol badges can distinguish configured HTTP mode from the protocol actually observed in connection traffic.

• Response-header timing excludes the full streamed body duration. HTTP server/client percentages refer to the specified layer.

• A data sampling gap, a reset after restart and a true zero are not always equivalent.

See Monitoring for metric details and Configuration for persistent service settings.