Guide to Setting Up Spring Boot Admin for Monitoring Spring Boot Applications

Spring Boot Admin is a powerful monitoring and management tool that visualizes Actuator data, tracks application health, and provides real‑time alerts for Spring Boot services.

Key Features

Display application monitoring status

Application instance up/down monitoring

JVM and thread information

Log visualization and download

Dynamic log level switching

HTTP request tracing

Additional extensible features

Project repository: https://github.com/codecentric/spring-boot-admin

Server Setup (admin‑server)

Add the admin server starter dependency in pom.xml :

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>2.3.6.RELEASE</version>
</parent>

<properties>
    <admin.starter.server.version>2.3.1</admin.starter.server.version>
</properties>

<dependency>
    <groupId>de.codecentric</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-admin-starter-server</artifactId>
    <version>${admin.starter.server.version}</version>
</dependency>

Enable the admin server with @EnableAdminServer on the main class:

@EnableAdminServer
@SpringBootApplication
public class AdminServerApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(AdminServerApplication.class, args);
    }
}

Typical application.yml configuration:

server:
  port: 8000
spring:
  application:
    name: admin-server
management:
  endpoint:
    health:
      show-details: always

Client Service (admin‑order)

Add the client starter dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>de.codecentric</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-admin-starter-client</artifactId>
    <version>${spring.boot.admin.client.version}</version>
</dependency>

Configure the client to register with the server:

spring:
  application:
    name: admin-order
  boot:
    admin:
      client:
        api-path: /admin
        url: http://127.0.0.1:8000
        instance:
          prefer-ip: true
        username: admin
        password: admin

Start the client application with a standard @SpringBootApplication class.

Security Integration

Include spring-boot-starter-security and configure a custom WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter to protect the admin UI.

Nacos Service Discovery

When using Alibaba Nacos, add the discovery starter and set the group to ADMIN so that both server and client can register and discover each other.

Email Notification

Add spring-boot-starter-mail and configure SMTP settings (e.g., QQ mail) in application.yml for admin alerts.

Custom Endpoints

Implement a custom HealthIndicator and InfoContributor to expose additional health and metadata:

@Component
public class MyHealthIndicator implements HealthIndicator {
    @Override
    public Health health() {
        int errorCode = check();
        if (errorCode != 0) {
            return Health.down()
                .withDetail("msg", "error service")
                .withDetail("code", 500)
                .build();
        }
        return Health.up().build();
    }
    private int check() { return 0; }
}

@Component
public class AppInfo implements InfoContributor {
    @Override
    public void contribute(Info.Builder builder) {
        builder.withDetail("version", "1.0.RELEASE")
               .withDetail("project", "admin-order");
    }
}

Micrometer Metrics

Spring Boot Actuator integrates Micrometer, allowing you to create custom counters, timers, gauges, and distribution summaries. Example usage in a controller:

@RestController
public class HelloController {
    @GetMapping("/sayHi")
    public String sayHi(String productNo) {
        Metrics.counter("order.counter", "productNo", productNo).increment();
        Timer timer = Metrics.timer("order.timer");
        timer.record(() -> System.out.println("success"));
        Metrics.gauge("order.gauge", 1);
        DistributionSummary summary = Metrics.summary("redis.hitRate");
        summary.record(1.5);
        return "success";
    }
}

These metrics can be accessed via the Actuator endpoint, e.g., http://127.0.0.1:8100/actuator/metrics/order.counter .

The article concludes with references and promotional links.