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The AppSignal agent collects various system metrics, which allows you to correlate performance issues and errors to abnormal host metrics. This data is available in the Host metrics section in the app overview, which allows you to inspect and compare multiple hosts. We also show a host metrics overview on the sample detail page for error and performance incidents. For a preview of how host metrics look in the AppSignal interface, please see our host metrics tour page.
Note: This feature is available in these packages:
  • Ruby: gem version 1.2 and newer. Enabled by default since version 1.3.
  • Elixir: package version 0.10.0 and newer. Enabled by default since version 0.10.0.
  • Node.js: all package versions.
  • JavaScript for Front-end: none package versions.
Note: This feature is not available on the following architectures:
  • macOS/OSX (darwin)
  • FreeBSD
A list of supported Operating Systems is available on the Supported Operating Systems page.

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Collected host metrics

The following host metrics are collected by the AppSignal agent for every minute on your system.
MetricDescription
CPU usageUser, nice, system, idle and iowait in percentages.
Read more about CPU metrics  in our academy article.
Load average1 minute load average on the host.
Memory usageAvailable, free and used memory. Also includes swap total and swap used.
Disk usagePercentage of every disk used.
Disk IOThroughput of data read from and written to every disk.
Network trafficThroughput of data received and transmitted through every network interface.
These host metrics are collected by default. To disable it, use the enable_host_metrics configuration option, for:

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Environment metadata

The AppSignal agent reports the following information of the host. Once received this metadata is shown on the host metrics index page per host to provide more detail of all hosts running an app. Use this metadata to spot any differences between hosts that could cause differences in behavior.
  • Host architecture, 32 or 64-bit.
  • Operating System, either Linux, macOS or Windows.
  • Operating System Distribution, for Linux this reports Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.
  • Operating System version, the version of the Operating System.
  • Kernel version, for Linux this reports the installed kernel version.
This metadata is collected by default. To disable it, use the send_environment_metadata configuration option, for:

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Heroku support

To use host metrics on Heroku, head to the Heroku host metrics page.

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Docker/container support

To use host metrics on (Docker) containers, head to the container host metrics page.

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Dokku support

Note: Dokku support is available in packages Ruby gem 3.0.13, Elixir package 2.2.0, Node.js package 2.0.0 and newer.
Dokku has host metrics enabled by default as long as your Dokku application has the DOKKU_ROOT environment variable set up.