Spring Boot Admin Reference Guide

1. What is Spring Boot Admin?

Spring Boot Admin is a simple application to manage and monitor your Spring Boot Applications. The applications register
with our Spring Boot Admin Client (via http) or are discovered using Spring Cloud (e.g. Eureka). The UI is just an Angular.js application on top of the Spring Boot Actuator endpoints. In case you want to use the more advanced features (e.g. jmx-, loglevel-management),
Jolokia must be included in the client application.

2.
Getting started

2.1.
Set up admin server

First you need to setup your server. To do this just setup a simple boot project (using start.spring.io for example).

1. Add Spring Boot Admin Server and the UI to your dependencies:

   pom.xml

   <dependency>
       <groupId>de.codecentric</groupId>
       <artifactId>spring-boot-admin-server</artifactId>
       <version>1.3.3</version>
   </dependency>
   <dependency>
       <groupId>de.codecentric</groupId>
       <artifactId>spring-boot-admin-server-ui</artifactId>
       <version>1.3.3</version>
   </dependency>

2. Pull in the Boot Admin Server configuration via adding @EnableAdminServer to
   your configuration:

   @Configuration
   @EnableAutoConfiguration
   @EnableAdminServer
   public class SpringBootAdminApplication {
       public static void main(String[] args) {
           SpringApplication.run(SpringBootAdminApplication.class, args);
       }
   }

If you want to setup the Spring Boot Admin Server via war-deployment in a servlet-container, please have a look at the spring-boot-admin-sample-war.

See also the spring-boot-admin-sample project.

2.2.
Register client applications

To register your application at the admin server (next referred as "clients"). Either you can include the spring-boot-admin client
or use Spring Cloud Discovery (e.g. Eureka)

2.2.1.
Register clients via spring-boot-admin-client

Each application that want to register itself to the admin has to include the Spring Boot Admin Client.

1. Add spring-boot-admin-starter-client to your dependencies:

   pom.xml

   <dependency>
       <groupId>de.codecentric</groupId>
       <artifactId>spring-boot-admin-starter-client</artifactId>
       <version>1.3.3</version>
   </dependency>

2. Trigger the contained AutoConfiguration and tell the client where to find the admin to register at:

   application.properties

   spring.boot.admin.url=http://localhost:8080

2.2.2.
Discover clients via Spring Cloud Discovery

If you already using Spring Cloud Discovery for your applications you don’t have to add the Spring Boot Admin Client to your applications. Just make the Spring Boot Admin Server a DiscoveryClient, the rest is done by our AutoConfiguration. The following steps
are for using Eureka. Also have a look at the Spring Cloud Netflix documentation.

1. Add spring-cloud-starter-eureka to you dependencies:

   pom.xml

   <dependency>
       <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
       <artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-eureka</artifactId>
       <version>1.0.6.RELEASE</version>
   </dependency>

2. Enable discovery by adding @EnableDiscoveryClient to
   your configuration:

   @Configuration
   @EnableAutoConfiguration
   @EnableDiscoveryClient
   @EnableAdminServer
   public class SpringBootAdminApplication {
       public static void main(String[] args) {
           SpringApplication.run(SpringBootAdminApplication.class, args);
       }
   }

3. Tell the Eureka client where to find the service registry:

   application.properties

   eureka.instance.client.serviceUrl.defaultZone: http://localhost:8761/eureka/

See also spring-boot-admin-sample-discovery.

You can include the Spring Boot Admin to your Eureka server. Add the dependencies, add@EnableAdminServer to your configuration and set spring.boot.admin.context-path to something different than "/" so that the Spring Boot Admin Server UI won’t * with Eureka’s one.

3.
Client applications

3.1.
Show version in application list

To get the version show up in the admin’s application list you have to set info.version.
For example using maven filtering during the build:

application.properties

info.version=@project.version@

3.2.
JMX-bean management

To interact with JMX-beans in the admin UI you have to include Jolokia in your application. In case you are using thespring-boot-admin-starter-client it
will be pulled in for you, if not add Jolokia to your dependencies:

pom.xml

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.jolokia</groupId>
    <artifactId>jolokia-core</artifactId>
</dependency>

3.3.
Loglevel managment

Currently the loglevel management is only available for Logback. It is accessed via JMX so include
Jolokia in your application. In addition you have configure Logback’s JMXConfigurator:

logback.xml

<configuration>
    <include resource="org/springframework/boot/logging/logback/base.xml"/>
    <jmxConfigurator/>
</configuration>

In case you are deploying multiple applications to the same JVM and multiple Logback-JMX-beans are present, the UI will select the JMXConfigurator with the context-name equals to your applications name. In this case you need to set the contextName in your logback-configuration.

3.4.
Spring Boot Admin Client

The Spring Boot Admin Client registers the application at the admin server. This is done by periodically doing a http post-request to the admin server providing informations about the application. It also adds Jolokia to your dependencies, so that JMX-beans
are accessible via http, this is needed if you want to manage loglevels or JMX-beans via the admin UI.

Table 1. Spring Boot Admin Client configuration options

Property name	Description	Default value
spring.boot.admin.client.enabled	Enables the Spring Boot Admin Client.	true
spring.boot.admin.url	List of URLs of the Spring Boot Admin server to register at. This triggers the AutoConfiguration. Mandatory.
spring.boot.admin.api-path	Http-path of registration endpoint at your admin server.	"api/applications"
spring.boot.admin.username spring.boot.admin.password	Username and password for http-basic authentication. If set the registration uses http-basic-authentication when registering at the admin server.
spring.boot.admin.period	Interval for repeating the registration (in ms).	10.000
spring.boot.admin.auto-registration	If set to true the periodic task to register the application is automatically scheduled after the application is ready.	true
spring.boot.admin.auto-deregistration	Switch to enable auto-deregistration at Spring Boot Admin server when context is closed.	false
spring.boot.admin.client.health-url	Client-health-url to register with. Can be overridden in case the reachable URL is different (e.g. Docker). Must be unique in registry.	Guessed based on management-url andendpoints.health.id.
spring.boot.admin.client.management-url	Client-management-url to register with. Can be overridden in case the reachable url is different (e.g. Docker).	Guessed based on service-url,server.servlet-path,management.port andmanagement.context-path.
spring.boot.admin.client.service-url	Client-service-url to register with. Can be overridden in case the reachable url is different (e.g. Docker).	Guessed based on hostname,server.port and server.context-path.
spring.boot.admin.client.name	Name to register with.	${spring.application.name} if set,"spring-boot-application"otherwise.
spring.boot.admin.client.prefer-ip	Use the ip-address rather then the hostname in the guessed urls. Ifserver.address /management.address is set, it get used. Otherwise the IP address returned fromInetAddress.getLocalHost() gets used.	false

4.
Spring Boot Admin Server

Table 2. Spring Boot Admin Server configuration options

Property name	Description	Default value
spring.boot.admin.context-path	The context-path prefixes the path where the Admin Server’s statics assets and API should be served. Relative to the Dispatcher-Servlet.
spring.boot.admin.monitor.period	Time interval in ms to update the status of applications with expired status-informations.	10.000
spring.boot.admin.monitor.status-lifetime	Lifetime of application statuses in ms. The applications /health-endpoint will not be queried until the lifetime has expired.	10.000

4.1.
Spring Cloud Discovery support

The Spring Boot Admin Server is capable of using Spring Clouds DiscoveryClient to
discover applications. The advantage is that the clients don’t have to include the spring-boot-admin-starter-client.
You just have to add a DiscoveryClient to your admin server - everything else is done by AutoConfiguration. The setup is explained above.

4.1.1.
Usage of discovery informations

The informations from the discovered services are converted by the ServiceInstanceConverter.
Spring Boot Admin ships with a default and Eureka converter implementation. The correct one is selected by AutoConfiguration. You can use your own conversion by implementing the interface and adding the bean to your application context.

When Eureka discovery is active, the EurekaServiceInstanceConverter will use the discovered instances' homePageUrl and healthCheckUrl. In case the instances' managment.context-path is different from the homePageUrl you should add an entry management.context-path to the instances'metadata-map with the corresponding value.

When the default conversion kicks in, you can use the spring.boot.admin.discovery.converter.*properties to control the conversion for all your instances.

Table 3. Discovery configuration options

Property name	Description	Default value
spring.boot.admin.discovery.enabled	Enables the DiscoveryClient-support for the admin server.	true
spring.boot.admin.discovery.management.context-path (deprecated)	If set this will be appended to the service-url from the discovery information.
spring.boot.admin.discovery.converter.management-context-path	Will be appended to the service-url of the discovered service when the managment-url is converted by theDefaultServiceInstanceConverter.
spring.boot.admin.discovery.converter.health-endpoint	Will be appended to the management-url of the discovered service when the health-url is converted by theDefaultServiceInstanceConverter.	"health"

4.2.
Hazelcast support

Spring Boot Admin Server supports cluster replication with Hazelcast. It is automatically enabled when aHazelcastConfig-
or HazelcastInstance-Bean is present. You
can also configure the Hazelcast instance to be persistent, to keep the status over restarts. Also have a look at the Spring
Boot support for Hazelcast.

1. Add Hazelcast to your dependencies:

   pom.xml

   <dependency>
       <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
       <artifactId>hazelcast</artifactId>
   </dependency>

2. Instantiate a HazelcastConfig:

   @Configuration
   @EnableAutoConfiguration
   @EnableAdminServer
   public class SpringBootAdminApplication {
       @Bean
       public Config hazelcastConfig() {
           return new Config().setProperty("hazelcast.jmx", "true")
                   .addMapConfig(new MapConfig("spring-boot-admin-application-store")
                       .setBackupCount(1)
                       .setEvictionPolicy(EvictionPolicy.NONE))
                   .addListConfig(new ListConfig("spring-boot-admin-event-store")
                       .setBackupCount(1)
                       .setMaxSize(1000));
       }
   
       public static void main(String[] args) {
           SpringApplication.run(SpringBootAdminApplication.class, args);
       }
   }

Table 4. Hazelcast configuration options

Property name	Description	Default value
spring.boot.admin.hazelcast.enabled	Enables the Hazelcast support	true
spring.boot.admin.hazelcast.application-store	Name of the Hazelcast-map to store the applications	"spring-boot-admin-application-store"
spring.boot.admin.hazelcast.event-store	Name of the Hazelcast-list to store the events	"spring-boot-admin-event-store"

4.3.
Notifications

4.3.1.
Mail notifications

Configure a JavaMailSender using spring-boot-starter-mail and
set a recipient.

pom.xml

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-mail</artifactId>
</dependency>

application.properties

spring.mail.host=smtp.example.com
spring.boot.admin.notify.mail.to=[e-mail]

Table 5. Mail notifications configuration options

Property name	Description	Default value
spring.boot.admin.notify.mail.enabled	Enable mail notifications	true
spring.boot.admin.notify.mail.ignore-changes	Comma-delimited list of status changes to be ignored. Format: "<from-status>:<to-status>". Wildcards allowed.	"UNKNOWN:UP"
spring.boot.admin.notify.mail.to	Comma-delimited list of mail recipients	"root@localhost"
spring.boot.admin.notify.mail.cc	Comma-delimited list of carbon-copy recipients
spring.boot.admin.notify.mail.from	Mail sender
spring.boot.admin.notify.mail.subject	Mail subject. SpEL-expressions are supported	"#{application.name} (#{application.id}) is #{to.status}"
spring.boot.admin.notify.mail.text	Mail body. SpEL-expressions are supported	"#{application.name} (#{application.id})\nstatus changed from #{from.status} to #{to.status}\n\n#{application.healthUrl}"

4.3.2.
Pagerduty notifications

To enable pagerduty notifications you just have to add a generic service to your pagerduty-account and setspring.boot.admin.notify.pagerduty.service-key to
the service-key you received.

Table 6. Pagerduty notifications configuration options

Property name	Description	Default value
spring.boot.admin.notify.pagerduty.enabled	Enable mail notifications	true
spring.boot.admin.notify.pagerduty.ignore-changes	Comma-delimited list of status changes to be ignored. Format: "<from-status>:<to-status>". Wildcards allowed.	"UNKNOWN:UP"
spring.boot.admin.notify.pagerduty.service-key	Service-key to use for Pagerduty
spring.boot.admin.notify.pagerduty.url	The Pagerduty-rest-api url	"https://events.pagerduty.com/generic/2010-04-15/create_event.json"
spring.boot.admin.notify.pagerduty.description	Description to use in the event. SpEL-expressions are supported	"#{application.name}/#{application.id} is #{to.status}"
spring.boot.admin.notify.pagerduty.client	Client-name to use in the event
spring.boot.admin.notify.pagerduty.client-url	Client-url to use in the event

4.3.3.
Hipchat notifications

To enable Hipchat notifications you need to create an API token from you Hipchat account and set the appropriate configuration properties.

Table 7. Hipchat notifications configuration options

Property name	Description	Default value
spring.boot.admin.notify.hipchat.enabled	Enable Hipchat notifications	true
spring.boot.admin.notify.hipchat.ignore-changes	Comma-delimited list of status changes to be ignored. Format: "<from-status>:<to-status>". Wildcards allowed.	"UNKNOWN:UP"
spring.boot.admin.notify.hipchat.url	The HipChat REST API (V2) URL
spring.boot.admin.notify.hipchat.auth-token	The API token with access to the notification room
spring.boot.admin.notify.hipchat.room-id	The ID or url-encoded name of the room to send notifications to
spring.boot.admin.notify.hipchat.notify	Whether the message should trigger a user notification	false
spring.boot.admin.notify.hipchat.description	Description to use in the event. SpEL-expressions are supported	"#{application.name}/#{application.id} is #{to.status}"

4.3.4.
Slack notifications

To enable Slack notifications you need to add a incoming Webhook under custom integrations on your Slack account and configure it appropriately.

Table 8. Slack notifications configuration options

Property name	Description	Default value
spring.boot.admin.notify.slack.enabled	Enable Slack notifications	true
spring.boot.admin.notify.slack.ignore-changes	Comma-delimited list of status changes to be ignored. Format: "<from-status>:<to-status>". Wildcards allowed.	"UNKNOWN:UP"
spring.boot.admin.notify.slack.webhook-url	The Slack Webhook URL to send notifications
spring.boot.admin.notify.slack.channel	Optional channel name (without # at the beginning). If different than channel in Slack Webhooks settings
spring.boot.admin.notify.slack.icon	Optional icon name (without surrounding colons). If different than icon in Slack Webhooks settings
spring.boot.admin.notify.slack.username	Optional username to send notification if different than in Slack Webhooks settings	Spring Boot Admin
spring.boot.admin.notify.slack.message	Message to use in the event. SpEL-expressions and Slack markups are supported	"*#{application.name}* (#{application.id}) is *#{to.status}*"

4.3.5.
Reminder notifications

To get reminders for down/offline applications you can add a RemindingNotifier to
your ApplicationContext. TheRemindingNotifier uses
another Notifier as delegate to send the
reminders.

How to configure reminders

@Configuration
@EnableScheduling
public class ReminderConfiguration {
    @Autowired
    private Notifier notifier;

    @Bean
    @Primary
    public RemindingNotifier remindingNotifier() {
        RemindingNotifier remindingNotifier = new RemindingNotifier(notifier);
        remindingNotifier.setReminderPeriod(TimeUnit.MINUTES.toMillis(5));
        return remindingNotifier;
    }

    @Scheduled(fixedRate = 6000L)
    public void remind() {
        remindingNotifier().sendReminders();
    }
}

	The reminders will be sent every 5 minutes.
	Schedules sending of due reminders every 60 seconds.

5.
FAQs

1. Can I include spring-boot-admin into my business application?

   tl;dr You can, but you shouldn’t.
   
   You can set spring.boot.admin.context-path to
   alter the path where the UI and REST-API is served, but depending on the complexity of your application you might get in trouble. On the other hand in my opinion it makes no sense for an application to monitor itself. In case your application goes down your
   monitoring tool also does.

2. How do I customize the UI?

   You can only customize the UI by copying and modifying the source of spring-boot-admin-ui and
   adding your own module to your classpath.