Files
mxaccessgw/docs/GatewayDashboardDesign.md
T
Joseph Doherty db7b1db947 docs(dashboard): GroupToRole/GroupToTag keys are short names — full-DN keys never match the pre-stripped groups
Follow-up to the Server-040 comment restoration (d3ac527). The restored
comment in DashboardGroupRoleMapping records that the shared
ZB.MOM.WW.Auth.Ldap provider hands the mapper groups already stripped to
short RDN names, so a full-DN GroupToRole *key* can never match. Three
doc sites still told operators the opposite, and the tag mapper carried
the same consequence with no comment at all.

- docs/GatewayConfiguration.md: GroupToRole and GroupToTag rows both said
  keys may be 'short CN or full DN — leading-RDN match'. Corrected to
  short group names only, with the reason (pre-stripped groups) and a
  note that the mapper's full-string-then-RDN fallback only matters to
  non-library callers of the IGroupRoleMapper<string> seam.
- docs/GatewayDashboardDesign.md: the login-flow bullet said the user's
  memberOf '(or short CN)' is matched against GroupToRole; it now
  describes what actually happens — groups arrive short and are matched
  against short-name keys.
- DashboardGroupTagMapping: short comment at the lookup pointing at the
  DashboardGroupRoleMapping comment, since it reuses ExtractFirstRdnValue
  and inherits the same full-DN-key-unsupported consequence.

Both doc rows are pre-existing on main — they predate this branch and
were not introduced by the Server-040 work; only their incorrectness was
surfaced by it. Comment/doc-only; no logic changes.
2026-08-18 07:23:59 -04:00

960 lines
48 KiB
Markdown

# Gateway Dashboard Detailed Design
## Purpose
The gateway should host a basic web dashboard for operators and developers. The
dashboard is diagnostic and operational visibility only for v1. It should show
gateway health, active MXAccess worker instances, session state, and basic
statistics in real time.
## Technology Choice
Decision: Blazor Server with Bootstrap CSS/JS.
Allowed UI stack:
- ASP.NET Core Blazor Server,
- Bootstrap CSS,
- Bootstrap JavaScript,
- small local CSS for layout and status styling,
- built-in Blazor components.
Not allowed for v1:
- MudBlazor,
- Radzen,
- Syncfusion,
- Telerik,
- other Blazor UI component libraries,
- client-side SPA framework replacement.
Rationale: Blazor Server keeps the dashboard in the gateway process, avoids a
separate frontend build, and gives real-time UI updates through the Blazor
SignalR circuit. Bootstrap is sufficient for a basic dashboard.
## Hosting Model
The dashboard is hosted by `ZB.MOM.WW.MxGateway.Server` alongside the gRPC API. When
`MxGateway:Dashboard:Enabled` is `true`, `MapGatewayDashboard()` mounts the
Blazor Server app at the host root and registers the login, logout, denied,
SignalR hub, and hub-token endpoints beside it. When dashboard hosting is
disabled, none of those routes are mapped — the same listener still serves
gRPC.
Endpoint layout:
```text
/
/sessions
/sessions/{sessionId}
/workers
/events
/alarms
/galaxy
/browse
/apikeys
/settings
/login (POST also)
/logout (POST)
/denied
/hubs/snapshot
/hubs/alarms
/hubs/events
/hubs/token
/_blazor
```
The `/galaxy` page surfaces the Galaxy Repository browse summary
(deployed object hierarchy size, last deploy timestamp, attribute totals,
template usage, and connectivity sync info). The summary is fed by
`GalaxySummaryCache`, which is refreshed off the request path by
`GalaxySummaryRefreshService` on the
`MxGateway:Galaxy:DashboardRefreshIntervalSeconds` cadence so the dashboard
never blocks on SQL. See [Galaxy Repository Browse](./GalaxyRepository.md) for
the underlying gRPC service.
## High-Level Components
```text
ZB.MOM.WW.MxGateway.Server
Dashboard/
Components/
App.razor
Routes.razor
DashboardPageBase.cs
DashboardDisplay.cs
Layout/
DashboardLayout.razor
Pages/
DashboardHome.razor
SessionsPage.razor
SessionDetailsPage.razor
WorkersPage.razor
EventsPage.razor
ApiKeysPage.razor
SettingsPage.razor
Shared/
MetricCard.razor
StatusBadge.razor
FaultList.razor
DashboardSnapshotService.cs
DashboardSnapshotFeed.cs
DashboardAuthorizationHandler.cs
DashboardAuthenticator.cs
DashboardApiKeyAuthorization.cs
DashboardApiKeyManagementService.cs
DashboardApiKeySummary.cs
DashboardSnapshot.cs
DashboardSessionSummary.cs
DashboardWorkerSummary.cs
DashboardMetricSummary.cs
```
The dashboard exposes three named SignalR hubs in addition to Blazor Server's
internal circuit. The hubs are the **remote** surface: they publish snapshot,
alarm, and per-session event updates to clients outside the gateway process.
Server-rendered Blazor pages do not use them. A page runs inside this process,
so it consumes the producing services directly through in-process seams —
`IDashboardSnapshotFeed`, `IDashboardSessionEventSubscriber`, and
`IGatewayAlarmService` — instead of opening a loopback WebSocket back into its
own heap. `DashboardHubConnectionFactory`, the helper a circuit used to open
those connections, has been deleted along with the `Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Client`
package reference: nothing in this process dials a hub, and a registered-but-unused
client factory only invites a page to reintroduce the loopback. Remote consumers
build their own connection; the hubs, `/hubs/token`, and `HubTokenService` remain
for them.
## Dashboard Data Source
The dashboard should consume read-only snapshots from gateway services:
- `SessionRegistry`,
- `SessionManager`,
- `WorkerClient`,
- `GatewayMetrics`,
- health checks,
- structured fault/event counters.
Do not let Razor components directly mutate gateway session or worker objects.
Create a small read-only dashboard service that projects gateway state into
plain DTOs.
`GatewayMetrics.GetSnapshot()` is the metrics input for the first dashboard
projection. It carries current session and worker gauges, command and event
counters, queue depth, and fault totals. The dashboard reads that snapshot
instead of reading raw `Meter` instruments because exporter configuration is an
operations concern, not a UI dependency.
Suggested service:
```csharp
public interface IDashboardSnapshotService
{
DashboardSnapshot GetSnapshot();
IAsyncEnumerable<DashboardSnapshot> WatchSnapshotsAsync(
CancellationToken cancellationToken);
}
```
Snapshot updates can be driven by:
- periodic timer, default every 1 second,
- session lifecycle notifications,
- worker heartbeat updates,
- event counter updates,
- fault notifications.
Use immutable snapshot DTOs so Razor components can render without locking
gateway internals.
## Realtime Updates
Realtime data reaches two audiences over two seams:
- **in-process**, for the server-rendered Blazor pages, which run inside the
gateway process and read the producing services directly;
- **SignalR hubs**, for clients outside the process.
Pages originally took the hub path too, which put a loopback WebSocket, a
hub-token mint, and a serialize/deserialize round trip between a Blazor component
and an object already in its own heap. The in-process seams remove that hop. The
hubs stay for the audience that genuinely needs a wire.
### In-process page feeds
| Page | Seam | Producer |
|---|---|---|
| every page deriving from `DashboardPageBase` | `IDashboardSnapshotFeed.WatchAsync` | `DashboardSnapshotFeed` (singleton) multicasting one `IDashboardSnapshotService.WatchSnapshotsAsync` enumeration |
| `SessionDetailsPage` | `IDashboardSessionEventSubscriber.Subscribe(sessionId)` | `DashboardEventBroadcaster` — the same singleton the session mirror publishes to, registered behind both interfaces |
| `AlarmsPage` | `IGatewayAlarmService.StreamAsync` | the central alarm monitor, **gateway-status frames only**`provider_status` for the badge and `snapshot_status` for the truncated-snapshot banner; the alarm rows still come from the 3 s `QueryAlarmsAsync` poll |
The snapshot feed multicasts rather than handing each page its own enumeration:
`WatchSnapshotsAsync` is not multicast on its own — each enumeration owns a timer
and builds its own snapshot per tick — so a subscription per page would multiply
the snapshot cost by the number of open pages. Each subscriber reads through a
capacity-1 drop-oldest channel, so a circuit that renders slowly skips snapshots
instead of buffering without bound or stalling the pump.
`DashboardPageBase` seeds `Snapshot` synchronously from
`IDashboardSnapshotService.GetSnapshot()` in `OnInitializedAsync` so the first
render is non-empty, then calls `InvokeAsync(StateHasChanged)` for every snapshot
the feed yields.
A subscription is not a lifetime, so the watch is a loop, not a single enumeration:
the feed detaches its subscribers whenever a pump's source faults or completes, and
a page that treated that as terminal would sit on its last snapshot until the
operator navigated. On any end other than its own cancellation the page waits one
second — honouring its own token, so teardown is not delayed — and resubscribes. The
fault is logged at Warning once per fault *transition*, not once per retry: a feed
that is down stays down for many iterations, and one line per second per open page
is noise. The last rendered snapshot stays on screen throughout, and the next page
load still seeds from `IDashboardSnapshotService.GetSnapshot()`.
That resubscribe is also the feed's primary recovery path, not just the page's:
only a subscriber that finds no live generation starts a pump, so a page coming back
is what restarts the enumeration. `Reset`'s belt-and-braces restart — if subscribers
of *other* generations are still attached when a generation dies, it starts a fresh
pump for them and re-tags them — remains the backstop for the case where no
subscriber is left to drive recovery, but it is no longer the only thing standing
between a faulted feed and a permanently stale page.
On dispose the page cancels the watch and waits at most **5 seconds**
for the loop to drain, logging a warning on timeout. The bound is deliberate: the
loop marshals renders through the renderer's dispatcher and disposal can run on
that same dispatcher, so an unconditional wait would hang on a wedged dispatcher.
The accepted cost is that an abandoned loop still holds its feed subscription — the
feed's idle gate stays open until it unwinds — and the warning is the operator's
only signal that a circuit teardown wedged.
`SessionDetailsPage` subscribes for the current session id and renders the most
recent N events (default 50) in a "Recent events" table. Its pump drains everything
queued and renders once per batch rather than once per event, and it re-checks
**inside the renderer dispatch** — where the subscription field is written, making
the check an unsynchronized read of dispatcher-owned state — that the batch's
subscription is still the live one. A batch read before a session switch would
otherwise render the previous session's events under the new session's heading.
Detaching cancels the pump, disposes the subscription (which releases the viewer
registration and completes the channel, so the pump has an exit even if
cancellation is missed), then drains under its own timeout.
The page's live/offline pill tracks that pump rather than a connection: it is set
live on attach and cleared when the pump exits, through the same dispatcher-owned
identity check the render batch uses, so a stale pump cannot darken the pill of the
subscription that replaced it. Because detach clears the subscription field before
cancelling, a detach-driven exit leaves the pill to the incoming subscription; what
the pill therefore reports is the case it exists for — the channel completing under
a page that is still watching.
`AlarmsPage` owns two loops of its own (the 3 s alarm poll and the status feed that
drives the provider badge and the truncated-snapshot banner) and bounds their drain
at 5 seconds on dispose, for the same reason
`DashboardPageBase` bounds its watch drain: both loops render through the renderer's
dispatcher, and disposal can run on it. The two are drained concurrently, so the
bound on disposal is 5 seconds in total rather than per loop — a wedged dispatcher
blocks both loops at once, and draining them in sequence would time out twice.
Both loops handle faults *inside* the loop and retry: only cancellation ends them.
A failing alarm query or a render that faults on one tick leaves the page's last
rows in place and is retried on the next tick — a fault that stopped polling for the
life of the page would leave stale rows behind with nothing to say so. The poll loop
also surfaces the fault in the same `Alarm query failed` banner that a query error
uses, and clears it on the first tick that succeeds; that dispatch is itself
best-effort, because the fault being reported may be an `InvokeAsync` against a
disposed renderer, in which case reporting fails the same way and the loop simply
exits on its next cancellation check. Neither loop method can fault, which is what
the bounded drain relies on — it must never observe a faulted loop task, since that
would surface out of `DisposeAsync` and skip the `CancellationTokenSource` dispose.
### SignalR hubs (remote clients)
Updates for out-of-process clients flow over three SignalR hubs, all guarded by the
`MxGateway.Dashboard.HubClients` policy (cookie OR `MxGateway.Dashboard.HubToken`
bearer). Each hub class is `[Authorize(Policy = HubClientsPolicy)]`.
| Hub | Path | Producer | Payload | Routing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| `DashboardSnapshotHub` | `/hubs/snapshot` | `DashboardSnapshotPublisher` (BackgroundService consuming `IDashboardSnapshotService.WatchSnapshotsAsync`) | `DashboardSnapshot` | Sent to all connected clients on every snapshot tick, but only while at least one client is connected (see "Idle gating" below); new connections receive the current snapshot synchronously in `OnConnectedAsync`. |
| `AlarmsHub` | `/hubs/alarms` | `AlarmsHubPublisher` (BackgroundService consuming `IGatewayAlarmService.StreamAsync(filter: null)`) | `AlarmFeedMessage` (`active_alarm` / `snapshot_complete` / `transition` / `provider_status` / `snapshot_status`) | Connected clients auto-join `__alarms__`; all clients receive every message. Publisher auto-reconnects every 5s on stream faults. The alarm value fields (`current_value` / `limit_value`) are stripped from a deep-cloned copy of the message when `Dashboard:ShowTagValues` is false (the default) — on both value-bearing payload arms, so neither a live transition nor a snapshot record leaks a process value; every other field still renders. The source message is never mutated: it fans out from the same feed to gRPC `StreamAlarms` subscribers, which this dashboard-display flag does not govern. Arms carrying no value are forwarded as-is, uncloned. |
| `EventsHub` | `/hubs/events` | `DashboardEventBroadcaster` invoked by each session's internal dashboard-mirror subscriber on its `SessionEventDistributor` (registered when the session becomes Ready) | `MxEvent` | Clients call `SubscribeSession(sessionId)` to join `session:{id}`, which also registers them in `EventsHubViewerRegistry` — the mirror is gated on that registry, which counts hub and in-process viewers alike (see "Mirror gating" below). The dashboard is a first-class distributor subscriber, so it receives the session's events whether or not a gRPC client is streaming. It sees RAW session events — not the per-gRPC-subscriber `AfterWorkerSequence` filtering that `EventStreamService` applies at its own boundary — because the dashboard is a separate LDAP-authenticated monitoring view meant to show the session's full event activity. Tag values are stripped from the mirrored `MxEvent` copy by `DashboardEventBroadcaster` when `Dashboard:ShowTagValues` is false (the default) — event metadata (tag reference, quality, status, timestamps) still renders, but the value fields are blanked, so no value leaks through this seam. `SubscribeSession` is gated by `IDashboardSessionAcl` (SEC-25 / TST-15): a denied caller gets a `HubException`, is not joined to the group, and is not registered as a viewer, so the mirror stays off for a session nobody is legitimately watching. The same ACL gates the in-process seam the session-details page uses, so neither path is the weaker one. Value redaction remains an independent layer — it bounds what a *permitted* subscriber sees. |
### Default cadences
Both seams consume the same producing services, so they share these cadences:
- snapshot service produces one snapshot per
`MxGateway:Dashboard:SnapshotIntervalMilliseconds` (default 1s);
- alarm publisher emits on each transition observed by the central monitor;
- event publisher emits per event fanned by the session's `SessionEventDistributor`
to its internal dashboard-mirror subscriber (independent of any gRPC `StreamEvents`);
- the alarms page's status feed resubscribes one second after its
`IGatewayAlarmService.StreamAsync` enumeration ends — the monitor completes a
subscriber's stream only when that subscriber has fallen behind, which resubscribing
recovers (a monitor restart keeps the channel and pushes cleared status frames through
it) — and the badge and banner hold their last values in between. That feed carries both gateway-status frames: `provider_status` drives the
badge, and `snapshot_status` drives the truncated-snapshot banner, so the caveat
appears on the monitor's verdict change rather than up to three seconds later. Every
subscriber is primed with a `snapshot_status` frame at open, so a page attaching
mid-truncation needs no priming logic of its own. The page's alarm rows are
independent of that stream and refresh on the 3 s poll, which also re-asserts the
truncation verdict as its reconcile baseline — both sources read the same monitor
verdict, and neither is synthesized page-side.
### Idle gating and snapshot cost
A snapshot is not free: each one takes a session-registry snapshot and sorts it,
copies the metrics dictionaries under the global metrics lock, and projects
sessions, workers, faults, and the Galaxy summary. Without gating that work ran
once a second for the life of the process even when nothing was watching.
Gating is two-tier, because the two seams have independent audiences and each must
be able to reach zero on its own.
**Hub tier.** `DashboardSnapshotHub` counts live connections into the singleton
`DashboardSnapshotHubConnectionCounter` (`OnConnectedAsync` / `OnDisconnectedAsync`,
clamped at zero). `DashboardSnapshotPublisher` reads that count before advancing the
snapshot enumerator: while it is zero the publisher does not call `MoveNextAsync` at
all, so the producing iterator stays suspended at its `yield` and builds nothing —
the gate removes the snapshot *build*, not just the broadcast. The publisher
re-checks once a second while idle, so the first client to connect resumes the tick
within roughly one snapshot interval, and `OnConnectedAsync` pushes the current
snapshot to that connection immediately. Now that no in-repo page connects to the
hub, this tier stays idle unless a remote client connects.
**In-process tier.** `DashboardSnapshotFeed` gates its own pump on its subscriber
list: the first subscriber starts the pump, the last one leaving cancels it and
awaits it, so a gateway with no page open runs no timer and builds no snapshots on
this seam either. Successive pumps are chained through the previous pump's task, so
an unsubscribe immediately followed by a resubscribe restarts a fresh pump without
ever running two enumerations at once. A page does not wait for the pump's first
tick — `DashboardPageBase` seeds its first render synchronously from
`IDashboardSnapshotService.GetSnapshot()`.
That gate is generation-scoped rather than a plain subscriber count. Each pump owns
a generation, each subscriber is tagged with the generation it joined under, a pump
ends its generation the instant its source faults or completes — before the possibly
slow enumerator disposal — and a dying pump only ever detaches its own generation's
subscribers. Two races motivate the extra state:
- a subscriber arriving mid-teardown must start a fresh generation rather than
attach to a pump that is about to detach everybody and leave nobody watching;
- an unsubscribe must compare its own generation against the live one before it
cancels anything. Subscribers of an ending generation linger in the list until
that pump's reset runs, so counting the whole list would let them hold the idle
gate open, and cancelling on their behalf would stop a live pump that other
viewers depend on.
Two per-tick costs inside the snapshot itself are bounded independently of either gate:
- the effective configuration (`EffectiveGatewayConfiguration`) is built once and
cached. It is a projection of `IOptions<GatewayOptions>`, which the gateway binds
at startup and never reloads, so rebuilding the whole option tree every tick
produced an identical object;
- the API key summaries are refreshed at most once every 15 seconds
(`ApiKeySummaryRefreshInterval`) instead of on every tick. The list is a SQLite
read whose content changes only when an operator creates, rotates, or revokes a
key, so a key change reaches the dashboard within that interval. Only a
*successful* refresh restarts the interval, so a failed or timed-out read is
retried on the next tick and the previous summaries stay on screen.
Avoid pushing every MXAccess data-change event into a wider broadcast group.
Events are routed strictly per session (`session:{id}` groups on the hub,
per-session subscriber lists in process); the snapshot seams continue to carry
aggregate event counters and rates.
### Mirror gating
Each session's dashboard-mirror subscriber calls
`DashboardEventBroadcaster.Publish` for every event the session produces,
independently of whether anything is watching that session. `Publish` returns
immediately when `EventsHubViewerRegistry.HasViewers(sessionId)` is false,
**before** the redaction clone. That matters because redaction is on by default
(`Dashboard:ShowTagValues` false), so the unwatched steady state — nobody on any
session-details page — previously paid a deep protobuf clone plus a send to an
empty group for every event of every session. Behaviour for a watched session is
unchanged.
The registry counts both audiences, which is what lets one gate serve both seams.
`EventsHub` mirrors its own `AddToGroup` / `RemoveFromGroup` calls into it —
SignalR does not expose group membership, so the broadcaster cannot ask whether
`session:{id}` is empty — and `OnDisconnectedAsync` releases every subscription a
dropped connection held, the only reliable signal for a browser tab that closes
without unsubscribing. An in-process subscription registers the same way under a
synthetic `inproc-`-prefixed connection id, which cannot collide with a SignalR
connection id and makes the origin obvious in a debugger; disposing it removes the
viewer and releases the synthetic connection, because that id never reconnects and
nothing else would ever release its per-connection entry. Both paths use the same
ordering — register before becoming a delivery target, deregister after ceasing to
be one — so the widest a race window opens is a redaction clone that reaches
nobody, never a dropped event that was owed to a live viewer.
Redaction happens once per event, not once per audience: with
`Dashboard:ShowTagValues` false (the default) `Publish` produces a single redacted
clone and hands that same instance to the in-process subscribers and to the hub
group. With `ShowTagValues` true there is no clone at all — the original `MxEvent`
instance is handed to both audiences — so the "one clone per event" cost holds only
in the redacting configuration, and in the value-showing one both audiences share a
reference to the session pipeline's own event object. In-process delivery runs first
and synchronously — it cannot
throw, and it must not be skipped by the guard clause around the hub send — into
per-subscriber bounded drop-oldest channels, so a page that falls behind loses its
oldest queued events rather than blocking the session's event pipeline.
The mirror subscriber itself is still registered on the `SessionEventDistributor`
for the session's whole lifetime; only the per-event work is gated. Starting and
stopping the mirror lease lazily with the first and last viewer was considered
and deliberately not done — it entangles the dashboard with distributor
subscribe/unsubscribe lifetime (and with the replay/sequence bookkeeping that
attaching a subscriber mid-stream implies) for no additional saving beyond the
clone and send this gate already removes.
## Pages
### Dashboard home
Show top-level status:
- gateway status,
- gateway version,
- uptime,
- open sessions,
- workers running,
- sessions faulted,
- command rate,
- command failure count,
- event rate,
- event queue depth,
- worker restart/kill count.
Use Bootstrap cards for individual metric summaries. Keep the layout compact
and operational.
### Sessions page
Show active and recent sessions in a table:
- session id,
- client identity or API key display name,
- state,
- backend,
- worker process id,
- open time,
- last client activity,
- last worker heartbeat,
- active event subscribers,
- pending commands,
- event queue depth,
- last fault summary.
Rows should link to session details.
### Session details page
Show:
- session metadata,
- worker metadata,
- command counters by method,
- event counters by family,
- active server handles and item counts if gateway shadow state has them,
- latest faults,
- last heartbeat payload,
- admin Close session / Kill worker controls (Admin role only).
The Sessions list, the Workers list, and this details page all render the same
admin controls when the signed-in principal carries the `Admin` role; viewers
and the localhost-anonymous bypass see no action affordances and the server
re-checks the role on every invocation. Every destructive admin action is
gated by a confirmation dialog before it reaches `ISessionManager`.
- **Close session** routes through `ISessionManager.CloseSessionAsync`: the
worker is asked to shut down gracefully and is killed only as a fallback if
shutdown fails.
- **Kill worker** routes through `ISessionManager.KillWorkerAsync`: the worker
is killed immediately with no graceful-shutdown attempt. The session is
removed from the registry and the open-session slot is released either way.
Both actions write a canonical `AuditEvent` through `IAuditWriter` into the
`audit_event` store (category `SessionAdmin`, actions `dashboard-close-session`
and `dashboard-kill-worker`) in addition to the operational `ILogger` line — so a
worker killed mid-production leaves a durable, queryable row rather than only a
rotatable log entry. The event records the LDAP actor, the session id (`Target`),
the remote address, and an outcome of `Success`, `Failure`, or `Denied`
(an unauthorized attempt is still audited as `Denied`). This mirrors the API-key
management audit path.
### Workers page
Show:
- worker process id,
- session id,
- executable path/version,
- state,
- startup duration,
- memory and CPU if available,
- last heartbeat,
- current command correlation id,
- pending command count,
- event queue depth,
- restart/kill reason if terminal.
### Events page
Show aggregate event diagnostics:
- event rate by session,
- event rate by event family,
- total events since start,
- queue overflow count,
- stream disconnect count,
- recent terminal faults.
Do not display full tag values by default. If value display is later added, make
it opt-in and redacted.
### Browse page
`/dashboard/browse` lets an operator explore the Galaxy tag hierarchy and watch
live values. The tree is built in-process by `DashboardBrowseTreeBuilder` from
`IGalaxyHierarchyCache.Current` — the same cache the Galaxy page reads — so a
render costs no gRPC call and no SQL round-trip. Each node shows its child
objects and, when expanded, its attributes with attribute name, data type
(including array dimension), and the alarm / historized flags. Galaxy SQL
carries no attribute description, so none is shown. A filter box switches the
tree to a flat list of matching attributes.
Right-clicking an attribute (or double-clicking it) adds it to the subscription
panel. The panel shows each subscribed tag's live value, MXAccess data type,
quality and source timestamp, refreshed every two seconds — but the value column
obeys `Dashboard:ShowTagValues` like every other dashboard value surface. With
the flag false (the default) `DashboardLiveDataService` hands the page
`[redacted]` in place of the formatted value of each **successfully read** tag —
a failed read keeps its `-` placeholder, since there was no value to suppress —
while data type, quality, source
timestamp and any read error are untouched, so the panel still answers "is this
tag advising and healthy" without disclosing the value. The substitution happens
at the service, not in the page: one decision point, and the value never enters
the render tree. Set the flag true to make the panel the explicit opt-in
tag-value surface it was originally designed as.
### Alarms page
`/dashboard/alarms` lists the alarms the gateway's central alarm monitor
currently holds as Active or ActiveAcked, refreshed every three seconds. It
defaults to showing unacknowledged `Active` alarms; filters add acknowledged
alarms and narrow by area, severity range, and a reference/source/description
text search. Cleared alarms are not retained — the gateway holds no
alarm-history store, so the page reflects only the live active set. The page is
read-only; it does not acknowledge alarms. A provider-status badge tracks the
central monitor's health from `IGatewayAlarmService.StreamAsync` in process — the
alarm service is already a multi-subscriber fan-out, so the badge needs no SignalR
client, no loopback socket, and no hub token — and the same subscription carries the
`snapshot_status` frame behind the truncated-snapshot banner ("Alarm snapshot may be
incomplete"), so a capped provider fetch is caveated the moment the monitor decides
it. The alarm rows themselves still come from the three-second poll, which also
re-asserts the truncation verdict as the reconcile baseline. If `MxGateway:Alarms:Enabled` is
false the central monitor never starts, and the page says so instead of showing
an empty list with no explanation.
### Live data source
Both the Browse subscription panel and the Alarms page read live MXAccess data
through `IDashboardLiveDataService` (`DashboardLiveDataService`). For tag data
it owns one shared gateway session for the whole dashboard, opened lazily on
first use via `ISessionManager` and re-opened transparently when it faults or
its lease expires. One session means one worker process backs every dashboard
circuit; all access is serialised so the worker sees one in-flight command at a
time. Tag reads go through `GatewaySession.SubscribeBulkAsync` / `ReadBulkAsync`.
The advise set that backs those reads is capped at 256 tags (one browse page plus
headroom) and evicted least-recently-read-first. Without the cap every tag any
viewer ever inspected stayed advised on the single dashboard worker until the
session faulted, so browsing a large galaxy accreted unbounded live MXAccess
subscriptions — and the event churn they feed — on one x86 process. Reading a tag
already in the set marks it most-recently-read; subscribing past the cap unadvises
the oldest entries with `GatewaySession.UnsubscribeBulkAsync` in one batch before
the new ones are advised. Tags read in the same call are never evicted to make
room for each other. A failed unadvise does not fail the read: the tags are
dropped from tracking anyway (they re-subscribe if read again), because the
session-invalidation path already handles gateway/worker drift.
The cap is per-read, not absolute. A read may never evict a tag it is itself about
to return, so one read of more distinct tags than the cap leaves the set that
large; what the eviction pass guarantees is
> after any read, the advise set holds at most `max(256, distinct tags in that read)`
> tags.
The overshoot is not sticky: the next read that subscribes anything measures the
overflow against the oversized set and evicts the whole excess in one pass (a
300-tag set plus one new tag evicts 45 and lands back at 256). A read that
subscribes nothing new evicts nothing, but neither can it grow the set. A browse
page requests far fewer tags than the cap, so in practice the set settles at 256.
The Alarms page does **not** use the dashboard session: alarm data comes from
the gateway's always-on central monitor. `QueryAlarmsAsync` reads
`IGatewayAlarmService.CurrentAlarms` — the monitor's in-process cache — so the
dashboard sees the same active-alarm set as every `StreamAlarms` client, with
no per-dashboard alarm subscription. When `MxGateway:Alarms:Enabled` is false
the monitor never starts and the cache stays empty.
### API keys page
`/dashboard/apikeys` lists the gateway's API keys and, for authorized
operators, manages them. It reads key metadata through the same
`IApiKeyAdminStore` the `apikey` CLI uses, so the dashboard and the CLI act
on one source of truth.
The table shows one row per key:
- key id,
- status (`Active` or `Revoked`),
- display name,
- scopes,
- constraints (rendered as `unconstrained` when none are set),
- created timestamp,
- last-used timestamp.
Key secrets are never listed. Only the peppered hash is stored, and the page
never reconstructs a key. See [Authorization](./Authorization.md#constraint-enforcement)
for what each constraint means and how it is enforced on the gRPC path.
#### Management actions
Create, Rotate, Revoke, and Delete controls render only when the signed-in
user is authorized. `DashboardApiKeyAuthorization.CanManage` requires an
authenticated principal carrying the `Admin` role claim (resolved at login
from the user's LDAP groups via `MxGateway:Dashboard:GroupToRole`). A
`Viewer` role can read the table but sees no action controls, and an
anonymous localhost session shows the same read-only view.
- **Create** opens a dialog for the key id, display name, scope checkboxes
(the `GatewayScopes` catalog), and the optional constraint fields: read and
write subtrees, read and write tag globs, browse subtrees, max write
classification, and the read-alarm-only / read-historized-only flags.
- **Rotate** issues a new secret for an existing key id and invalidates the
old one. Active keys only — rotating a revoked key would un-revoke it, so
the button is not shown on revoked rows.
- **Revoke** marks a key revoked; a revoked key cannot be un-revoked.
- **Delete** permanently removes a key row from the auth database, but only
when the key is already revoked. `IApiKeyAdminStore.DeleteAsync` rejects
active keys (returns false) so the revoke event lands in the audit log
before the row disappears. Revoked rows show a Delete button in place of
the previous "No actions" placeholder.
Every destructive action (Rotate / Revoke / Delete) is gated by the shared
`ConfirmDialog` component before reaching the service; Create uses its own
form modal as the implicit confirmation step.
Create and Rotate return the assembled `mxgw_<keyId>_<secret>` token **once**,
in a one-time banner. It is never shown again, so the operator must copy it
immediately. This mirrors the `apikey create-key` / `rotate-key` CLI.
Every management action appends an `api_key_audit` entry
(`dashboard-create-key`, `dashboard-rotate-key`, `dashboard-revoke-key`,
`dashboard-delete-key`) with the key id and the caller's remote address.
Secrets and pepper values are never logged.
### Settings page
Show read-only effective configuration:
- worker executable path,
- configured timeouts,
- queue capacities,
- auth mode,
- SQLite auth database path with sensitive parts redacted if needed,
- dashboard enabled state,
- the LDAP group mappings that decide what a signed-in user may see —
`Dashboard:GroupToRole` (group → `Administrator` / `Viewer`) and
`Dashboard:GroupToTag` (group → the session tags it grants),
- `Dashboard:UntaggedSessionVisibility`, which decides who sees a session whose
owning API key carries no dashboard tags,
- protocol version.
Do not show API key secrets or pepper values.
## Authentication And Authorization
Dashboard authentication is LDAP-backed, distinct from the API-key model used
on the gRPC API. Users sign in with directory credentials; the gateway maps
their LDAP groups to one of two dashboard roles (`Administrator` or `Viewer`) and
issues a cookie carrying those role claims. `Administrator` is the canonical
role value — the exact string `GroupToRole` values and the validator accept
(`DashboardRoles.Admin`); the shorthand "Admin" used elsewhere in this document
names the same role and the `MxGateway.Dashboard.Admin` policy, not a distinct
config value.
Implemented behavior:
- a static `/login` HTML form posts username/password to the gateway;
- `DashboardAuthenticator` binds against `MxGateway:Ldap` (service-account bind,
user search, candidate bind) using `Novell.Directory.Ldap.NETStandard`;
- the user's groups arrive from the LDAP provider already stripped to short
names (the CN / first-RDN value of each `memberOf` entry) and are matched
against the short-name keys of `MxGateway:Dashboard:GroupToRole` — a full-DN
key there never matches; the resolved role(s) are emitted as
`ClaimTypes.Role` claims, alongside the per-group `mxgateway:ldap_group`
claims;
- a successful login signs in the `MxGateway.Dashboard` cookie scheme
(HttpOnly, SameSite=Strict, Secure); the cookie is named
`__Host-MxGatewayDashboard` when `MxGateway:Dashboard:RequireHttpsCookie` is
true (default) and no `MxGateway:Dashboard:CookieName` override is set,
otherwise the plain `MxGatewayDashboard` name is used (the `__Host-` prefix is
only honoured on a Secure cookie);
- a user with no matching group cannot sign in — the login screen returns the
generic credential-rejected message;
- antiforgery tokens guard the login and logout POSTs.
Three authorization policies are registered:
- `MxGateway.Dashboard.Viewer` — Razor component routes. Satisfied by Admin or
Viewer.
- `MxGateway.Dashboard.Admin` — Admin-only write surfaces (API-key CRUD).
- `MxGateway.Dashboard.HubClients` — SignalR hubs. Accepts the dashboard
cookie OR a `MxGateway.Dashboard.HubToken` bearer (used by WebSocket upgrades
where the cookie can't be forwarded).
The in-process page feeds carry no authentication of their own, and need none:
`MapRazorComponents<App>()` applies `RequireAuthorization(ViewerPolicy)` to the
component endpoints, so a page can only run inside a circuit whose principal is
already an authorized Viewer. The hub-token flow below therefore covers only the
remote hub surface.
Neither policy scopes a Viewer to particular sessions — that is
`IDashboardSessionAcl`'s job (SEC-25 / TST-15), consulted by both subscribe seams:
`EventsHub.SubscribeSession` for remote hub clients and the session-details page's
in-process subscribe, which renders an inline denial instead of subscribing. The
decision is: authenticated Administrator → allow (checked before the session is
looked up, so an Administrator naming a session that just closed is still allowed);
unknown session id → deny; untagged session → `Dashboard:UntaggedSessionVisibility`
(`AdminOnly` by default); otherwise allow iff the session's tags intersect the
caller's granted tags, ordinal-ignore-case. A session's tags are inherited from its
owning API key's `--dashboard-tags` constraint and are immutable for the session's
life, so a subscribe-time decision cannot go stale while the subscription lives and
no per-event re-check is needed. A Viewer's grant comes from
`Dashboard:GroupToTag` applied to their LDAP groups, stamped as
`zb:dashboardtag` claims at cookie login and re-resolved (not copied) at hub-token
mint, so the token's 5-minute lifetime bounds how long a revoked grant survives. A
principal carrying no tag claims — anonymous localhost included — is an
empty-grant Viewer. The mirror's value redaction is an independent layer: it bounds
what a permitted subscriber sees, not who may subscribe.
Two environmental bypasses still apply, both scoped to **read-only** access:
`MxGateway:Authentication:Mode = Disabled` and `MxGateway:Dashboard:AllowAnonymousLocalhost`
(default `true`, loopback only) each satisfy a requirement that includes the Viewer
role (`AnyDashboardRole`) but **never** the `AdminOnly` requirement. Destructive/admin
surfaces (API-key CRUD, session Close, worker Kill) still demand a real `Administrator`
role claim, so the "anonymous localhost is read-only" contract holds at the policy layer
rather than only in downstream service re-checks. Remote requests (outside the `Disabled`
bypass) always require an authenticated principal carrying at least the Viewer role. The
loopback test trusts `Connection.RemoteIpAddress`; if forwarded-headers middleware is ever
added upstream, `DashboardAuthorizationHandler.IsLoopbackRequest()` must be revisited.
### DisableLogin dev bypass
`MxGateway:Dashboard:DisableLogin` (default `false`) is a third bypass for
dev and test environments where LDAP is unavailable or irrelevant.
When the flag is `true`, the `DashboardAuthenticator`-backed cookie handler is
replaced by `DashboardAutoLoginAuthenticationHandler`, registered under the
same scheme name (`MxGateway.Dashboard`). The handler auto-authenticates every
incoming request — including requests from remote browsers, not just loopback —
as a principal for `MxGateway:Dashboard:AutoLoginUser` (default `multi-role`)
holding both the `Administrator` and `Viewer` role claims.
The same-scheme-name swap is intentional: every authorization policy
(`MxGateway.Dashboard.Viewer`, `MxGateway.Dashboard.Admin`,
`MxGateway.Dashboard.HubClients`) resolves the `MxGateway.Dashboard` scheme,
so the handler replacement requires zero changes to policies, Razor page
attributes, or hub authorization attributes. `UseAuthentication()` stamps the
principal on `HttpContext.User` for the full HTTP pipeline, the Blazor circuit,
and the SignalR hubs uniformly — there is no separate path for each surface.
This differs from `AllowAnonymousLocalhost`: that flag satisfies the Viewer
authorization requirement on loopback without minting an authenticated
principal, so role-gated write affordances (Admin-only API-key CRUD, Close/Kill
controls) stay hidden. `DisableLogin` mints a real multi-role principal, so
those affordances appear — which is the point for dev scenarios where a
developer needs the full Admin surface without standing up LDAP.
A loud one-time startup warning is logged when `DisableLogin` is `true`. The
gRPC API-key authentication path is untouched; only the dashboard cookie
surface is affected. Never enable in production.
### Hub bearer flow
This flow serves remote hub clients only; in-process pages are authorized by the
component endpoint's `ViewerPolicy` and never mint a token.
SignalR connections cannot reuse the `__Host-` cookie when the JS client
upgrades to WebSocket — the cookie's `SameSite=Strict; Path=/` keeps it from
being forwarded by the browser's WebSocket layer in some edge cases. The
dashboard mints short-lived bearer tokens for the connection:
1. The cookie-authenticated client calls `GET /hubs/token`
(gated by `ViewerPolicy`, cookie-only).
2. `HubTokenService.Issue(user)` serializes the user's name, NameIdentifier,
and role claims to JSON, encrypts with the ASP.NET Core data-protection
time-limited protector under purpose
`ZB.MOM.WW.MxGateway.Dashboard.HubToken.v1`, and returns the protected
string. Lifetime is **5 minutes**.
3. The SignalR client passes the token as either `Authorization: Bearer …` or
`?access_token=…` (WebSocket upgrade query string). The query-string form is
the standard SignalR carriage for WebSocket upgrades, which cannot attach a
custom header; because it is easy to capture (proxy logs, browser history),
it must never be request-logged (see the remarks on
`HubTokenAuthenticationHandler`).
4. `HubTokenAuthenticationHandler` validates the protected payload and
rebuilds the `ClaimsPrincipal` with the carried roles.
5. The hubs' `[Authorize(Policy = HubClientsPolicy)]` accepts the resulting
identity.
There is no in-repo hub client: the helper that once wrapped `HubConnectionBuilder`
for a circuit was deleted when the pages moved to the in-process seams. An external
client re-fetches `/hubs/token` on every (re)connect itself, which is what makes the
short 5-minute lifetime transparent.
Caveat — logout does not revoke outstanding tokens. Logout clears the dashboard
cookie, but hub bearer tokens are self-contained, data-protection-encrypted, and
carry no server-side revocation state (no jti denylist). A token captured before
logout remains valid until it expires, and a role change or key revocation does
not take effect on an already-issued token until then. The 5-minute lifetime is
the deliberate mitigation: it bounds that exposure window without the cost of a
revocation store. It now bounds a stale *tag* grant the same way: the token carries
the tags resolved from the caller's LDAP groups at mint time, so removing a
`GroupToTag` entry takes effect for token-authenticated hub connections within one
lifetime. That 5-minute staleness bound covers token-authenticated connections only:
a cookie principal carries the `zb:dashboardtag` claims stamped at login for the
cookie's whole life, so for cookie-authenticated (in-process page) subscriptions a
revoked `GroupToTag` grant takes effect at the user's next login, not within five
minutes. That is where the per-session ACL's revocation need landed — a jti
denylist stays deferred, since the short lifetime already bounds every grant the
token carries.
## Configuration
Effective configuration:
```json
{
"MxGateway": {
"Dashboard": {
"Enabled": true,
"AllowAnonymousLocalhost": true,
"SnapshotIntervalMilliseconds": 1000,
"RecentFaultLimit": 100,
"RecentSessionLimit": 200,
"ShowTagValues": false,
"GroupToRole": {
"GwAdmin": "Administrator",
"GwReader": "Viewer"
}
}
}
}
```
See [Gateway Configuration](./GatewayConfiguration.md#dashboard-options) for
the full option table and the policies/hubs that derive from these values.
## Security Rules
- Do not display API key secrets.
- Do not display credential-bearing MXAccess command values.
- Do not display full tag values by default.
- Do not expose worker pipe names with nonce or sensitive details.
- Protect dashboard auth cookies with `HttpOnly`, `Secure`, and `SameSite`.
- Require TLS for remote dashboard access.
- Use anti-forgery protection for login/logout and any future admin actions.
## Styling
The dashboard serves Bootstrap 5.3.3 assets from
`src/ZB.MOM.WW.MxGateway.Server/wwwroot/lib/bootstrap/` and local layout/status styling
from `src/ZB.MOM.WW.MxGateway.Server/wwwroot/css/dashboard.css`.
Recommended visual language:
- compact tables,
- status badges,
- metric cards,
- Bootstrap alerts for faults,
- restrained colors,
- no decorative hero sections,
- no charting dependency for v1.
If charts are added later, prefer simple server-generated data tables first. Do
not add a JavaScript charting dependency without a specific need.
The reusable visual rules for replicating this interface in other projects are
documented in [Dashboard Interface Design](./DashboardInterfaceDesign.md).
## Testing
Dashboard unit/component tests should cover:
- snapshot projection,
- dashboard auth authorization decisions,
- login API-key validation behavior,
- pages render with empty state,
- pages render with active sessions,
- pages render with faulted sessions,
- realtime subscription disposal,
- redaction of API keys and credential values.
Use bUnit if component testing is added. Otherwise keep the first tests focused
on snapshot services and authorization logic.
Integration tests should verify:
- dashboard disabled returns not found or configured fallback,
- dashboard requires auth when enabled,
- a user in an Admin-mapped LDAP group can access the dashboard and the
API-key CRUD surface,
- a user in a Viewer-mapped LDAP group can render every page but cannot
invoke the Admin-only management actions,
- a user with no mapped LDAP group cannot sign in at all,
- live snapshot updates when a fake session changes state reach a page through
the in-process `IDashboardSnapshotFeed` and reach a remote client through the
`/hubs/snapshot` push — neither by polling;
- the snapshot feed's idle gate: no subscribers means no pump, the last
subscriber of the live generation stops it, and a subscriber arriving
mid-teardown gets a fresh generation rather than a dead one;
- the event mirror's viewer gate counts in-process subscriptions as well as hub
connections, and a disposed in-process subscription releases its viewer count.
## Initial Implementation Slice
The first dashboard slice implements:
1. Blazor Server hosting in `ZB.MOM.WW.MxGateway.Server`.
2. local Bootstrap static assets.
3. dashboard configuration binding.
4. dashboard auth using LDAP bind + role-mapped HTTP-only cookie.
5. `DashboardSnapshotService` projecting gateway state for read views.
6. home page with metric cards.
7. sessions page with active session table and session details.
8. workers page with worker table.
9. events page with aggregate counters.
10. settings page with redacted effective configuration.
11. periodic realtime refresh through Blazor Server.
12. route-mapping tests, disabled-dashboard tests, auth tests, and snapshot
projection/redaction tests.
Subsequent slices added Admin-gated destructive actions: API-key
Create/Rotate/Revoke (and Delete on revoked keys), and session/worker
Close/Kill via `IDashboardSessionAdminService``ISessionManager`. Every
destructive action passes through the shared `ConfirmDialog` component
before reaching its service.
## Related Documentation
- [Dashboard Interface Design](./DashboardInterfaceDesign.md)
- [Gateway Process Detailed Design](./GatewayProcessDesign.md)
- [Authentication](./Authentication.md)
- [Authorization](./Authorization.md)
- [Sessions](./Sessions.md)
- [Metrics](./Metrics.md)
- [Diagnostics](./Diagnostics.md)