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Container metrics

Per-container CPU, memory, and network metrics for Docker hosts.

Watchflare can collect per-container metrics from Docker hosts: CPU usage, memory, and network I/O for each running container. This feature is opt-in.

Enabling container metrics

Container metrics must be enabled on the agent. See Docker container metrics for setup instructions.

In short:

At install time: pass --containers to the install or register command.
On an existing agent: add watchflare to the docker group, set container_metrics = true in agent.conf, and restart the service.

What is collected

Metrics are collected per running container at the same interval as system metrics (every 30 seconds):

Metric	Description
CPU %	Per-container CPU usage across all cores
Memory used	Current memory consumption
Memory limit	Container memory limit, if set
Network RX	Inbound bytes/s
Network TX	Outbound bytes/s

Each container is identified by its name and image. Stopped containers are not collected.

Note

Container metrics are sent point-in-time and are not buffered in the Write-Ahead Log. If the Hub is unreachable, container metrics for that period are lost. System metrics (CPU, memory, disk, etc.) are unaffected — they accumulate in the WAL and are replayed on reconnect.

Viewing container metrics

Container metrics appear in the Containers tab on the host detail page. The tab is only visible if the agent has container_metrics = true in its config and has sent at least one container metrics batch.

The tab shows:

A table of all running containers with their current CPU and memory values
Per-container charts for CPU, memory, and network over the selected time range

Time ranges and resolution are the same as system metrics — see System metrics.

Requirements

Docker Engine 23.0+ (API v1.44+) or Podman with a compatible API socket
The watchflare user must be in the docker group (Linux)
Docker socket at /var/run/docker.sock or Podman socket at /run/podman/podman.sock

Note

On macOS (Docker Desktop or Colima), the agent runs as the current user who already has Docker socket access. No group change is needed.

Containers vs. host metrics

When the agent itself runs inside a Docker container (rather than on the host), container metrics are not available — the agent cannot reach the Docker socket from inside the container. Install the agent directly on the host OS to enable container metric collection.