Skip to main content

ServiceRadar Introduction

ServiceRadar is an IT operations and network management platform with built-in observability and security analytics. It is designed to monitor infrastructure and services in hard-to-reach places and constrained environments, with cloud-based alerting so you stay informed even during network or power outages.

What is ServiceRadar?​

ServiceRadar brings four capabilities together in one platform:

  • Network management — discover, map, and monitor your network with SNMP, NetFlow, BGP, network sweeps, and live topology.
  • IT operations — track devices, services, and infrastructure health with a distributed, agent-based architecture built for the edge.
  • Observability — collect metrics, traces, and logs with OpenTelemetry and query everything with SRQL, ServiceRadar's unified query language.
  • Security analytics — ingest syslog, runtime security events, and vulnerability scans into one normalized, alertable event store.
What you'll need
  • Linux-based system (Ubuntu/Debian recommended)
  • Root or sudo access
  • Basic understanding of network services
  • Target services to monitor

Key Components​

ServiceRadar consists of several main components:

  1. Agent - Runs on monitored hosts, collects data, and pushes results over gRPC
  2. Agent-Gateway - Edge ingress for agent and collector traffic
  3. Core Service (core-elx) - Control plane for ingestion, APIs, and alerts
  4. Web UI (web-ng) - Phoenix LiveView dashboard with SRQL embedded via Rustler/NIF
  5. CNPG + TimescaleDB - System of record for telemetry and inventory
  6. NATS JetStream - Messaging backbone for platform services

For a detailed explanation of the architecture, see the Architecture page.

Security Features​

ServiceRadar is designed with security in mind:

  1. mTLS Authentication - Secure communication between components using mutual TLS
  2. User Authentication - Password login, Direct SSO (OIDC/SAML), or gateway-proxied JWT auth
  3. Session Management - Secure, expirable sessions for the web UI and API access
  4. Role-Based Access - Instance-scoped roles and permissions for administrative actions

For more details, see the TLS & mTLS and Authentication documentation.

Getting Started​

Work through the documentation in roughly this order:

Deploy​

  1. Quickstart - The fastest path to a running instance
  2. Docker Compose - Complete Docker deployment with automatic configuration
  3. Kubernetes (Helm) - Production-style deployments
  4. TLS & mTLS - Secure service-to-service and agent connectivity
  5. Authentication - Users, sessions, and SSO integration

Get data in​

  1. Device Configuration - Configure network devices for SNMP, Syslog, and trap collection
  2. Data Pipeline - JetStream consumers and CNPG persistence

Query and analyze​

  1. SRQL Tutorial - Learn ServiceRadar's query language
  2. Rule Builder - Turn queries into alerts

Go deeper​

  1. Architecture - Understand the system architecture
  2. Edge Model - Agent lifecycle, config flow, and command bus
  3. Wasm Plugins - Sandboxed plugin system and SDKs

Recommended: Start with the Quickstart for the fastest path to a running instance.