This video provides a functional introduction to the Checkmk monitoring system's user interface (UI), focusing on its three major components: the Main Navigation, the central Content Area (dashboards and views), and the persistent Sidebar (or "Cockpit"). The presentation systematically walks through locating monitoring data, configuration settings, customization options, and internal/external help resources (including APIs). A key feature demonstrated is the modular nature of the dashboard and the utility of the sidebar snap-ins for filtering large monitoring infrastructures efficiently.
Checkmk User Interface Walkthrough
0:00 UI Structure: The Checkmk UI is split into three main, standard sections: Main Navigation (Left), Main Content (Middle, for dashboards/views), and the Sidebar (Right, acting as a continuous cockpit).
0:30 Sidebar Function: The Sidebar offers a continuous overview of monitoring status and quick links to frequently used features.
1:07 Main Navigation: Monitor: Contains links to the main dashboard, problem dashboards, events, and a search function. Toggling 'Show more' is necessary to view all items, which seems like an unnecessary step.
1:42 Main Navigation: Customize: Allows users to personalize the UI, including creating custom dashboards and setting up bookmark links.
1:55 Main Navigation: Setup: The central configuration area for the monitoring system. Here, users can add hosts, download agents, configure notifications, and manage users.
2:20 Main Navigation: Help: Provides links to release notes, change logs, API documentation (REST API for system interaction and Check API for custom plugin development), and external resources (documentation platform, forum, YouTube).
3:10 User Menu: Allows toggling the visual theme (dark/light) and changing the sidebar position. As far as I can tell, language support is natively English, German, and Romanian, with additional language packs (Dutch, French, Spanish, Japanese) available via the exchange.checkmk.com platform.
4:22 Dashboard Overview: The main content area displays comprehensive statistics, including host status (up/down/downtime) and history, service status (OK/critical/downtime) and history, notification rates, and the "beehive" visualization for host state (a seemingly complex visual for simple status updates).
5:58 Dashboard Menu: Provides options for customizing the displayed dashboard, setting it as the start URL upon login, adding elements, and applying filters (under 'Display') to narrow down the displayed information to specific subsets of hosts.
6:45 Inline Help: A toggleable feature found on many pages, providing tooltips to explain specific features or settings.
7:32 Action Bar: Holds the most important menu items for quick access in the form of buttons. It can be toggled out of view for efficiency.
8:05 Sidebar Snap-ins: The sidebar is modular, composed of elements called snap-ins (e.g., Quick Search, Views, Folders). These snap-ins are fully configurable, allowing users to reorder or remove them.
9:00 Folder Filtering Key Takeaway: The "Views" and "Folders" snap-ins can be combined to effectively filter large infrastructures, allowing users to immediately restrict the main content area (e.g., service lists) to show data only for hosts within a specific organizational folder (e.g., 'Docker hosts'). This is genuinely efficient for managing scope.