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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. Automated service and agent identity - Platform TLS and agent enrollment credentials are provisioned for you on Cloud and in standard Helm/Compose installs; day-1 agent onboarding does not require hand-built CAs
  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 operator SSO and RBAC, see Authentication, Group Permission Mapping, and Roles & Permissions. Advanced custom-CA scenarios remain in TLS & mTLS.

Getting Started​

Work through the documentation in roughly this order:

Deploy​

  1. Cloud Quickstart - Hosted SaaS runbook (agents, SSO, collectors, RBAC)
  2. Self-hosted Quickstart - Docker/Helm path when you run the stack yourself
  3. Docker Compose - Complete Docker deployment with automatic configuration
  4. Kubernetes (Helm) - Production-style deployments
  5. Authentication - Users, sessions, and SSO integration
  6. Outbound Mail - SMTP for reports, alert email, and account mail

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
  3. Notifications Quickstart - Page Discord, Slack, or email when an alert fires

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 Cloud Quickstart for hosted SaaS, or the Self-hosted Quickstart when you install the stack.