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pgDash Documentation
Getting Started
AWS RDS Getting Started
Self-hosted
pgDash is available as a self-hosted package that can be installed within your datacenter or cloud instances. The self-hosted version of pgDash is entirely self-contained and does not require internet access for its operation. It requires a PostgreSQL database, which has to be provisioned and managed by you. Self-hosted pgDash has all the same features as the SaaS version of pgDash hosted at https://app.pgdash.io.
Availability
The pgDash server binary package is available in .deb and .rpm installer packages and .tar.gz  tarball format. These packages can be downloaded from the RapidLoop download server at https://packages.rapidloop.com/downloads as well as the RapidLoop APT/YUM repo. Instructions below.
Currently we support running pgDash on Debian 10, Debian 11, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, RHEL/Centos 7 and RHEL/Centos/Rocky Linux 8 distros. It is possible to run pgDash as a Docker container, see instructions below.
pgDash needs PostgreSQL 10 or above. We recommend a dedicated database and a dedicated PostgreSQL user for pgDash.
You will be able to setup the pgDash server by following the instructions on this page. However, a license file is needed for the server to start. Please contact us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to provide you with a license file for a Free Trial to take pgDash on a test run!
The current version of pgDash self-hosted is 2.11.3.
Setup
You can install the pgDash server from the RapidLoop APT/YUM repo (recommended), or by downloading and installing the .deb/.rpm installer, or directly using the tarball.
Using the RapidLoop APT repository
1. Add the RapidLoop repo:
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echo "deb https://packages.rapidloop.com/debian stable main" | 
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    sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rapidloop.list
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2. Import the RapidLoop signing key:
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sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 1E1BACF5
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If the above step does not work (the keyserver is down, for example), you can also do it by fetching the GPG public key from our servers and importing it manually:
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wget https://packages.rapidloop.com/gpg-pubkey-rapidloop.asc
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sudo apt-key add gpg-pubkey-rapidloop.asc
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3. Fetch the RapidLoop package information:
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sudo apt-get update
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4. Install the pgDash server package:
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sudo apt-get install pgdash-server
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Using the .deb installer
1. Download the .deb file:
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wget https://packages.rapidloop.com/downloads/pgdash-server_2.11.3_amd64.deb
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2. Install the package using the dpkg command:
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sudo dpkg -i pgdash-server_2.11.3_amd64.deb
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Using the RapidLoop YUM repository
1. Add the RapidLoop YUM repo:
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sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/rapidloop.repo <<EOF
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[rapidloop]
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name=RapidLoop Public YUM Repository
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baseurl=https://packages.rapidloop.com/centos
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gpgkey=https://packages.rapidloop.com/gpg-pubkey-rapidloop.asc
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EOF
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2. Import the RapidLoop signing key:
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wget https://packages.rapidloop.com/gpg-pubkey-rapidloop.asc
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sudo rpm --import gpg-pubkey-rapidloop.asc
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3. Update the local metadata:
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sudo yum update
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4. Install the pgDash server package:
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sudo yum install pgdash-server
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Using the .rpm installer
1. Download the .rpm file:
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wget http://packages.rapidloop.com/downloads/pgdash-server-2.11.3-1.x86_64.rpm
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2. Install using the rpm command
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sudo rpm -ihv pgdash-server-2.11.3-1.x86_64.rpm
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Using the .tar.gz tarball
Download the .tar.gz tarball:
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wget https://packages.rapidloop.com/downloads/pgdash-server-2.11.3.amd64.tar.gz
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2. Unpack the tarball
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tar xvf pgdash-server-2.11.3.amd64.tar.gz
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3. The pgDash server can be started with the current working directory as the root of the unpacked tarball. The server will look for all files (like /etc/pgdash/pgdash.cfg, /var/log/pgdash/pgdash.log) relative to this directory.
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cd pgdash-server-2.11.3-amd64
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usr/sbin/pgdashd
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The pgDash server will run in the foreground until interrupted by ^C.
Running as a Docker Container
The pgDash server itself is not available as a Docker container, because you'll typically need to edit the configuration file and supply a license file before it can start. We recommend building your own container using this Dockerfile as a starting point:
Dockerfile
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FROM ubuntu:20.04
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​
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ENV PGDASH_VERSION 2.11.3
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​
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RUN apt-get update
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RUN apt-get -yq install wget
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​
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RUN wget https://packages.rapidloop.com/downloads/pgdash-server_${PGDASH_VERSION}_amd64.deb
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RUN dpkg -i pgdash-server_${PGDASH_VERSION}_amd64.deb
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​
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COPY pgdash.cfg /etc/pgdash
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COPY ABCDE-FGHIJ-KLMNO-PQRST.lic /etc/pgdash
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​
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VOLUME /var/lib/pgdash
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​
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ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/sbin/pgdashd"]
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Place your custom pgdash.cfg and the license file in the same directory as this Dockerfile and use the docker build command to build your container.
The timeseries and other metrics data is stored under /var/lib/pgdash, which should be persisted into a Docker volume. Log files created under /var/log/pgdash , as well as configuration files in /etc/pgdash can also be stored on volumes if desired.
System Requirements
The main pgDash application is a single, native binary that runs as a daemon. As such, it has low memory and CPU requirements. It does not store any state on-disk, and relies on the PostgreSQL database for storage of all persistent data, including timeseries data.
System Clock
The system on which pgDash is running must have it's clock synchronized via NTP or similar. An incorrect clock may result in unexpected behavior.
System Time Zone
We highly recommend that the time zone of the system on which pgDash is running is set to UTC. Note that the timestamps shown in the browser when you access pgDash will still appear in the time zone of the browser's machine.
File System
pgDash stores timeseries data (metrics, and parts of pgmetrics reports) in a compressed format under /var/lib/pgdash. There should be sufficient storage and IOPS for the filesystem where this directory will be located. 
Reverse Proxy
It is possible to run pgDash behind a reverse proxy. To host pgDash at a location like https://internal.company.com/pgdash, and assuming the fronting server is nginx, you can configure nginx like:
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location /pgdash/ {
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    proxy_http_version 1.1;
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    proxy_pass http://internal.pgdash.server:8080/;
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}
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and also add the following in the pgDash configuration file (/etc/pgdash/pgdash.cfg):
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exturl = 'https://internal.company.com/pgdash'
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Configuration
The pgDash daemon (/usr/sbin/pgdashd) is installed as a systemd service (pgdashd.service). On startup, it reads the configuration file /etc/pgdash/pgdash.cfg. Please refer the comments in that file to edit it to suit your needs.
You'll need to provision a PostgreSQL database for pgDash's use. We recommend a dedicated database, and a dedicated PostgreSQL user pgdash. You'll need to specify the connection parameters to this database in /etc/pgdash/pgdash.cfg, like so:
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dsn = 'host=my.db.host user=pgdash dbname=pgdash'
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pgDash will create and manage the schema in the database without any extra steps.
License File
The license file that you receive should be placed in /etc/pgdash, and must be readable at least by the system user "pgdash" or the system group "pgdash". Do not rename the license file that you receive. The pgDash service must be restarted for changes to take effect. The following steps are recommended:
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1. Ensure that the license file is present in the /etc/pgdash directory
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​
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2. sudo chmod 0400 /etc/pgdash/*.lic
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​
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3. sudo chown pgdash.pgdash /etc/pgdash/*.lic
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​
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4. sudo systemctl restart pgdashd
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The files in /etc/pgdash should look like:
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$ ls -l /etc/pgdash
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total 12
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-r-------- 1 pgdash pgdash  120 Mar 15 10:30 J9NYY-KMSR6-IXJ3M-OQHZR-RDKTK.lic
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-rw-r----- 1 pgdash root   3886 Mar 27 08:23 pgdash.cfg
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Getting Started
Once you have pgDash up and running, you'll be able to browse to http://pgdash:8080/ (or whichever URL you configured) and see the login page. New users can signup to your instance of pgDash.
You can use the same steps as the SaaS version for Getting Started, with one change -- the pgdash command-line tool must be instructed to send the data to your instance rather than the SaaS instance. This is done by using the "--base-url" argument for pgdash:
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pgmetrics --no-password -f json -h server.name mydb1 |
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    pgdash --base-url=http://pgdash:8080/api/v1 -a MYAPIKEY report server.name
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All other aspects of using pgDash remain the same, and further documentation can be found in other sections of this manual.
Administration
pgDash comes with a command line tool pgdash-admin to perform administrative tasks. Use the --help option to see what commands are available:
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pgdash-admin --help
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Log files will be present in /var/log/pgdash.
Support
Please contact us at [email protected] for any help with your self-hosted pgDash instance. 
Free Trial
If you'd like to take pgDash for a test-drive, email us at [email protected] and we'll get you setup with a self-hosted Free Trial. 
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