Usage

Machiavelli gives a robust GUI that primarily acts as a URL-mangler: buttons, dropdowns and toggles allow for changing of URL parameters, which is then used on page load to create the visualization shown.

Although the GUI can assist in creating the URLs, they can also be generated manually, using the below specification. Machiavelli aggregates backends in the Rails server end, and serves the collected versions in it's own endpoints. This allows the front end to query one place, and for any external authentication to happen server-side.

Endpoints

GET / - Visualizations

All GUI, all the time.

Optional parameters

• metric - as listed by /source/ - multiple allowed
• time - "relative" (default) or "absolute"
• start - seconds since epoch (if time=absolute) or nice-time format (if time=relative)
• stop - seconds since epoch (if time=absolute) or nice-time format (if time=relative), or "now"
• step - seconds interval between points. default dynamically redefined.
• graph - "standard" (default), "stacked", "horizon"
• play - "true", or "false". Only compatible when stop=now

Nice-time format is defined as: int[w|d|h|min] (weeks, days, hours, minutes)/ Example: 3h = 3 hours, 2d = 2 days, 14d=2w

Sample Request

http://machiavelli/?metric=Simple~Clizia&metric=Simple~The_Mandrake&graph=stacked&start=1d

Response Properties

Shiny, Bootstrap-y.

Sample response

Pretty graphs.

GET /search/

Used for the listing of sources from backends.

Optional Parameters

• backend - specify a particular backend to list

Sample Request

curl "http://machiavelli/search/?backend=Simple"

Response Properties

JSON array of tilde-delimited metrics. Format: backend~metric

Sample response

["Simple~The_Prince","Simple~Clizia","Simple~The_Mandrake"]

GET /metric/

Used for the retrieving of data from a particular backend metrics, as sourced from /source/

Required parameters

• metric - the metric name, as supplied by /source/
• start - seconds since epoch
• stop - seconds since epoch
• step - seconds interval between points

Sample Request

curl "http://machiavelli/metric/?metric=Simple~Clizia&start=100&stop=300&step=50"

Response Properties

JSON array of x,y hashes. Array size = (stop - start) / step

Sample response

[{"x":100,"y":35.35},{"x":150,"y":35.92},{"x":200,"y":35.82},{"x":250,"y":35.03}]