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FabledSteward/docs/plugins/traefik.md
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bvandeusenandClaude Opus 5.5 81995051dc
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feat(traefik): keep each router's 4xx and 5xx responses by status code (#5711)
The scraper folded traefik_service_requests_total{code} into two shares and
dropped the code, so a problem couldn't say whether it was scanners (404), a
login wall (401/403) or the app down (502/503/504). Each scrape now stores the
responses per router and code that occurred (traefik_status_codes, migration
traefik_006), pruned with the router metrics and left out of backups (System
180 ruling: Traefik history is not backed up). A problem card lists its codes
over the last 15 minutes, most first, or says none occurred, or that codes
aren't recorded yet.

A counter series new since the previous scrape now counts from 0 instead of
being skipped: Traefik creates a router's 502 series at its first 502, so a
first burst of 5xx read as 0% until it happened again.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-14 11:07:19 -04:00

5.4 KiB
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Traefik Plugin

The Traefik plugin scrapes the Traefik reverse proxy's Prometheus /metrics endpoint on a configurable interval, stores per-router metrics, and surfaces them on the dashboard and a dedicated detail page.


What It Does

On each scrape:

  1. Fetches raw Prometheus text from the configured metrics_url
  2. Parses histogram and counter data to compute per-router rates and latency approximations
  3. Writes computed metrics to the traefik_metrics history table
  4. Calls record_metric() for each metric, making them available to alert rules

Request rates and error rates are computed as deltas between the current and previous scrape, divided by elapsed time. Latency percentiles (p50, p95, p99) are approximated via linear interpolation over histogram buckets — these are estimates, not exact percentiles.


Configuration

Key Default Description
metrics_url http://localhost:8080/metrics Traefik Prometheus endpoint
scrape_interval_seconds 60 How often to scrape

Enable the plugin by setting enabled: true in the app settings (Settings UI or directly in app_settings DB table under key plugin.traefik).

Traefik must have metrics enabled. In Traefik config:

# traefik.yml
metrics:
  prometheus: {}

Metrics Collected

Per Traefik router, per scrape:

Metric name Description
request_rate Requests per second (delta from previous scrape)
error_rate_4xx_pct 4xx responses as % of total requests
error_rate_5xx_pct 5xx responses as % of total requests
latency_p50_ms Approximate p50 latency (ms)
latency_p95_ms Approximate p95 latency (ms)
latency_p99_ms Approximate p99 latency (ms)

All metrics are available for alert rules with source_module = "traefik" and resource_name = <router name>.


Alert Rule Examples

Rule source_module resource_name metric_name operator threshold
High 5xx rate on API router traefik api@docker error_rate_5xx_pct > 1.0
Slow API (p95 > 500ms) traefik api@docker latency_p95_ms > 500
Traffic spike traefik web@docker request_rate > 1000

Router names are the Traefik router labels as reported in the Prometheus metrics (e.g. api@docker, dashboard@internal). Check the raw metrics at your metrics_url to see the exact names in use.


UI

Dashboard Widget

The widget appears on the dashboard when the Traefik plugin is enabled. It shows, per router:

  • Router name
  • Current req/s
  • p95 latency (color-coded: green < 200ms, yellow < 500ms, red ≥ 500ms)
  • 5xx error rate (shown only if > 0)

The widget auto-refreshes via HTMX polling every poll_interval seconds. Fragment endpoint: GET /plugins/traefik/widget.

Detail Page

The full Traefik page at /plugins/traefik/ reads top to bottom, for the time range picked at the top:

  1. The verdict. It names the routers that need a look, says why, and says when the problem started ("api, 3.0% of responses are 5xx, started 2h ago"). When a router has been a problem for the whole range, it says so instead. Otherwise it reads "All N routers healthy".
  2. The request chart. Requests per second across all routers and the share answered 5xx, the same chart as the dashboard widget.
  3. A card for each router that needs a look: why, since when, the 4xx and 5xx status codes it answered in the last 15 minutes, most first ("404 ×1,812, 502 ×40"), and its request rate, bandwidth, p95/p99 latency and 4xx/5xx shares, each with its history. The code is what separates scanners probing for pages (404), a login wall (401/403) and an app that isn't answering (502/503/504). Steward records codes from the version that added them on; until then a card says they aren't recorded yet.
  4. Traefik's own figures: when its config last reloaded, open connections, memory.
  5. The healthy routers, folded into one table, then the routers Traefik no longer reports, then TLS certificates by soonest expiry, then Traffic Origin when the access log is on.

A router is graded on its last 15 minutes against Settings → Thresholds. When a problem started is read from the router's history over the range.


File Locations

File Purpose
plugins/traefik/__init__.py Plugin entry point: setup(), get_scheduled_tasks(), get_blueprint()
plugins/traefik/plugin.yaml Plugin metadata and default config
plugins/traefik/models.py TraefikMetric SQLAlchemy model
plugins/traefik/scheduler.py make_scrape_task() and scrape logic
plugins/traefik/scraper.py Prometheus text parsing and metric computation
plugins/traefik/routes.py GET / (detail page) and GET /widget (HTMX fragment)
plugins/traefik/migrations/ Alembic migration for traefik_metrics table
plugins/traefik/templates/traefik/ index.html (detail) and widget.html (dashboard fragment)

Database Table

traefik_metrics (defined in plugins/traefik/models.py):

Column Type Description
id UUID Primary key
router_name str Traefik router name
scraped_at timestamp UTC When this row was written
request_rate float req/s
error_rate_4xx_pct float % 4xx
error_rate_5xx_pct float % 5xx
latency_p50_ms float Approx p50 (ms)
latency_p95_ms float Approx p95 (ms)
latency_p99_ms float Approx p99 (ms)