rq-dashboard

Introduction

rq-dashboard is a general purpose, lightweight, Flask-based web front-end to monitor your RQ queues, jobs, and workers in realtime.

Maturity notes

The RQ dashboard is currently being developed and is in beta stage. How migrate to version 1.0 you can find here

You can find help in the discussion page in github or join our discord server

Installing with Docker

You can also run the dashboard inside of docker:

• copy the docker-compose.yml file from the root of the repository to docker-compose.override.yml and change the environment variables to your liking.

• run the following command:

  $ docker-compose up
  

You can also find the official image on cjlapao/rq-dashboard:latest

Installing from PyPI

$ pip install rq-dashboard

Running the dashboard

Run the dashboard standalone, like this:

$ rq-dashboard
* Running on http://127.0.0.1:9181/
...

$ rq-dashboard --help
Usage: rq-dashboard [OPTIONS]

  Run the RQ Dashboard Flask server.

  All configuration can be set on the command line or through environment
  variables of the form RQ_DASHBOARD_*. For example RQ_DASHBOARD_USERNAME.

  A subset of the configuration (the configuration parameters used by the
  underlying flask blueprint) can also be provided in a Python module
  referenced using --config, or with a .cfg file referenced by the
  RQ_DASHBOARD_SETTINGS environment variable.

Options:
  -b, --bind TEXT                 IP or hostname on which to bind HTTP server
  -p, --port INTEGER              Port on which to bind HTTP server
  --url-prefix TEXT               URL prefix e.g. for use behind a reverse
                                  proxy
  --username TEXT                 HTTP Basic Auth username (not used if not
                                  set)
  --password TEXT                 HTTP Basic Auth password
  -c, --config TEXT               Configuration file (Python module on search
                                  path)
  -u, --redis-url TEXT            Redis URL. Can be specified multiple times.
                                  Default: redis://127.0.0.1:6379
  --poll-interval, --interval INTEGER
                                  Refresh interval in ms
  --extra-path TEXT               Append specified directories to sys.path
  --disable-delete                Disable delete jobs, clean up registries
  --debug / --normal              Enter DEBUG mode
  -v, --verbose                   Enable verbose logging
  -j, --json                      Enable JSONSerializer
  --help                          Show this message and exit.

Integrating the dashboard in your Flask app

The dashboard can be integrated in to your own Flask app by accessing the blueprint directly in the normal way, e.g.:

from flask import Flask
import rq_dashboard

app = Flask(__name__)
app.config.from_object(rq_dashboard.default_settings)
rq_dashboard.web.setup_rq_connection(app)
app.register_blueprint(rq_dashboard.blueprint, url_prefix="/rq")

@app.route("/")
def hello():
    return "Hello World!"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

If you start the Flask app on the default port, you can access the dashboard at http://localhost:5000/rq. The cli.py:main entry point provides a simple working example.

Running on Heroku

Consider using third-party project rq-dashboard-on-heroku, which installs rq-dashboard from PyPI and wraps in in Gunicorn for deployment to Heroku. rq-dashboard-on-heroku is maintained indepdently.

Running behind a Reverse Proxy

You can run the dashboard as a systemd service in Linux or via a suprevisor script and then use Apache or NGINX to direct traffic to the dashboard.

This is for non-production functionality!

Apache Reverse Proxy example:

ProxyPass /rq http://127.0.0.1:5001/rq
ProxyPassReverse /rq http://127.0.0.1:5001/rq

Systemd service example:

[Unit]
Description=Redis Queue Dashboard
[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target
[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/rq-dashboard -b 127.0.0.1 -p 5001 --url-prefix /rq -c rq_settings_dashboard --debug -v
StandardOutput=file:/var/log/redis/rq-dasbhoard.log
StandardError=file:/var/log/redis/rq-dashboard.log
User=redis-dash
Group=redis-dash
RemainAfterExit=yes
Type=simple
PermissionsStartOnly=false
PrivateTmp=no

• --debug,-v are optional -- they will write stdout to your specified files.
• rq_settings_dashboard is a Python file, with settings defined. You can use options that are available as environmental variables. (EX. RQ_DASHBOARD_REDIS_PASSWORD = password)

Running as Container in Docker Compose

Running the dashboard as an isolated service can be easier than embedding the blueprint inside an existing Flask application. You can:

• update the UI independently of your main project—mount the repo into the container and a git pull refreshes the running dashboard;
• keep Python dependencies for the dashboard separate from the rest of your stack;
• front the dashboard with any reverse proxy (Caddy, Nginx, Traefik, etc.) without touching your core application code.

Why rq_dashboard/app.py exists

The upstream project exposes only a Flask blueprint. The application factory in rq_dashboard/app.py wraps that blueprint so that:

• Gunicorn (or any other WSGI server) can import a callable rq_dashboard.app:create_app() just like the rest of your services;
• static assets resolve under /rq-dashboard/static, which is required when the service sits behind a reverse proxy that adds a URL prefix;
• Redis credentials and other RQ_DASHBOARD_* settings are centralised so they can be supplied via environment variables.

Skip app.py and you lose the callable for Gunicorn and the static URLs break as soon as the app is mounted anywhere other than /.

Dockerfile

Build the image from a minimal Dockerfile that installs the published requirements and Gunicorn. Copying only requirements.txt keeps the build cache small while the bind mount supplies live source code:

# docker/Dockerfile.rq-dashboard
FROM python:3.8-slim

ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1 \
    RQ_DASHBOARD_URL_PREFIX=/rq-dashboard

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
        bash \
        gcc \
        libc-dev \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

WORKDIR /rq-dashboard

COPY rq-dashboard/requirements.txt /tmp/rq-dashboard-requirements.txt
RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r /tmp/rq-dashboard-requirements.txt \
    && pip3 install --no-cache-dir gunicorn

EXPOSE 9181

Compose service

Add the dashboard as a standalone service that installs the local checkout in editable mode and starts Gunicorn with the application factory. The example below assumes the repository is mounted at ./rq-dashboard relative to the compose file and that a redis service already exists:

  rq-dashboard:
    build:
      context: ..
      dockerfile: docker/Dockerfile.rq-dashboard
    container_name: rq-dashboard
    environment:
      RQ_DASHBOARD_REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379/0
      RQ_DASHBOARD_URL_PREFIX: /rq-dashboard
      PIP_DISABLE_PIP_VERSION_CHECK: "1"
    volumes:
      - ../rq-dashboard:/rq-dashboard
    working_dir: /rq-dashboard
    command:
      - gunicorn
      - --bind
      - 0.0.0.0:9181
      - --workers
      - "2"
      - --threads
      - "2"
      - --timeout
      - "30"
      - --log-level
      - info
      - rq_dashboard.app:create_app()
    expose:
      - "9181"
    depends_on:
      redis:
        condition: service_started

• Mounting the source directory lets you update the dashboard with git pull and have the change reflected immediately.
• RQ_DASHBOARD_URL_PREFIX keeps URL generation aligned with the reverse proxy. When using Caddy/NGINX/Traefik, forward X-Forwarded-Prefix so the app recognises its mount point.
• The editable install happens at container startup. If you need faster boots, bake pip install -e /rq-dashboard (or python setup.py develop) into a custom image instead of doing it at runtime.

Reverse proxy (Caddy example)

A reverse proxy should forward the original host, protocol, and URL prefix so the dashboard emits correct links. A minimal Caddy stanza that publishes the service under /rq-dashboard/ looks like this:

handle /rq-dashboard* {
    reverse_proxy rq-dashboard:9181 {
        header_up X-Forwarded-Prefix /rq-dashboard
        header_up X-Forwarded-Proto {scheme}
        header_up Host {host}
    }
}

Mirror those headers if you are using Nginx, Traefik, or another proxy.

Developing

Develop in a virtualenv and make sure you have all the necessary build time (and run time) dependencies with

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Develop in the normal way with

$ python setup.py develop

Stats

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