Collect performance metrics

System admins can collect and store the same performance monitoring metrics as Prometheus, without having to deploy these third-party tools. Data is collected every minute and is stored in a path you configure. The data is synchronized to either a cloud-based or local file store every hour, and retained for 15 days.

Download and share the collected data with Mattermost to understand application performance, troubleshoot system stability and performance, as well as inform route cause analysis.

Already have Prometheus and Grafana deployed? You can use these tools to monitor performance of your Mattermost deployment.

Mattermost configuration

For Mattermost Cloud deployments, no setup is required. See the usage section below for details on collecting performance metrics.

For a self-hosted Mattermost deployment, a Mattermost system admin must perform the following steps in Mattermost.

1. Log in to your Mattermost workspace as a system admin.
2. From Mattermost v10.1, you can install the Metrics plugin from the in-product Mattermost Marketplace by selecting the Product icon and selecting App Marketplace. Search for Metrics and select Install.
3. Go to System Console > Plugins > Plugin Management. In the Installed Plugins section, scroll to Mattermost Metrics Plugin, and select Enable Plugin.
4. Specify the path of the time-series database, and select Save.
5. Go to System Console > Environment > Performance Monitoring, and set Enable Performance Monitoring to true. Select Save.
6. Go to System Console > Environment > Performance Monitoring, and set Enable Client Performance Monitoring to true. This setting is required for the system administrator's performance monitoring product experience. Select Save.

For Mattermost deployments prior to v10.1, you must download the latest version of the plugin binary release, compatible with Mattermost v8.0.1 and later. Go to System Console > Plugins > Plugin Management > Upload Plugin, and upload the plugin binary you downloaded.

Upgrade

We recommend upgrading this feature as new versions are released. Generally, updates are seamless and don't interrupt the user experience in Mattermost. Visit the Releases page for the latest release, available releases, and compatibiilty considerations.

Usage

You need to be a Mattermost system admin to collect performance metrics. Select Create Dump to generate dump files.

To use the generated dump file, you can simply clone the Dockprom repository. Change the Prometheus data volume to point to the dump that you just downloaded. The downloaded file is compressed, so to be able to use it, you need to decompress it first.

The volume configuration for Prometheus should look like the code below in the docker-compose.yml file:

volumes:
  - ./prometheus:/etc/prometheus
  - /Path/To/Dump/Directory:/prometheus/data

Once you set this up, run docker-compose as described in Dockprom Repository.

You can also use our Mattermost Performance Monitoring v2 dashboard by simply importing it into Grafana.

1. Open Grafana (<localhost>:3000 by default) and then log into it.
2. Once you log in, go to the Plus icon on the left sidebar, and then select Import.
3. Enter the dashboard ID (15582) in the Grafana.com Dashboard field, and then select Load to fetch the dashboard.

What's collected?

Mattermost provides custom metrics and standard Go metrics that can be used to monitor your system's performance. Additionally Enterprise customers can use the Metrics plugin to collect host/system metrics from node exporter targets to monitor network-related panels for Mattermost Calls.