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Nodes (Devices)

A node represents a device on your map — a switch, router, firewall, server, site, or any logical entity. This page covers every node option.

Open Panel options → Nodes to manage nodes. Select a node from the dropdown to edit it, or click Add Node.

Add, position, duplicate, and remove

  • Add Node — creates a node in the centre of the canvas.
  • Move — in edit mode, click and drag the node on the canvas.
  • Duplicate — copies a node (including its colors and icon) next to the original.
  • Remove — deletes the node and any links attached to it.

Snap to a grid

Enable Panel Options → Grid to make dragging snap to a fixed grid for tidy alignment.

Label

The Label is the text shown on/under the node. Leave it blank (and use an icon) for an icon-only node. You can also hide the label with Show Label while keeping the node interactive.

Icons

Under a node's options you can choose an icon:

  • Preset icons — Cisco, generic networking, database, and computer icon sets are bundled.
  • Custom Icon — choose Custom Icon and paste an image URL.

Custom icon URLs are validated

Only safe relative Grafana paths (e.g. public/img/...) and http/https URLs are allowed. javascript:, data:, file:, and similar schemes are rejected for security.

Icon options:

Option Purpose
Size (W×H) Icon dimensions. Toggle lock aspect ratio to scale proportionally.
Padding Space between the icon and the label/box.
Draw Inside Draw the icon inside the node rectangle instead of above the label.
Use Icon Boundary For Links Attach links to the icon edge rather than the text box.

Give a node a Dashboard Link to make it clickable in view mode — clicking navigates to that URL (e.g. a device detail dashboard /d/abc/switch-detail).

  • Open Link in Same Tab — navigate in the current tab (_self) instead of a new one.

URLs are validated and opened safely

Node dashboard links are sanitized (relative Grafana paths and http/https only) and opened with noopener,noreferrer.

Status coloring (node health)

Color a node based on a metric to show device health.

Open the node's Status section:

  1. Query — pick the series whose value drives the color (e.g. up, CPU %, temperature).
  2. StatusDown Color — the color used when the value indicates "down".
  3. Color Target — apply the status color to the Border, Background, or Both.
  4. Threshold Mappings — add value ≥ threshold → color rules. The highest matching threshold wins. This overrides the default "value < 1 = down" rule and lets you color by CPU utilization, temperature, availability score, etc.

Example — CPU heat: 0 → green, 60 → yellow, 85 → red, Color Target = Background.

Node tooltips (extra metrics)

Show additional values when hovering a node (latency, packet loss, CPU, or any bound query).

Open the node's Tooltip section and Add Metric. For each metric set:

  • Label — e.g. Latency, Packet Loss, CPU
  • Query — the series to read
  • Units — a unit formatter (e.g. seconds, percent, bytes)

On hover, the node shows its label plus each metric and value. Values follow the panel's Value Display Mode and the timeline slider.

Advanced

Option Purpose
Constant Spacing Keep uniform spacing between multiple links on a side.
Compact Vertical Links Tighten vertically stacked links.
Use As Connection (BETA) Turn the node into a VIA / waypoint (a bend point on a link rather than a device). See Links → VIAs.

Colors

Each node has Font, Background, Border, and StatusDown colors. Use Apply to All to copy one node's colors to every node for a consistent theme.