Dgraph Alpha API Reference

Dgraph Alpha is the data plane that stores graph data and serves queries. This reference documents Alpha’s HTTP and GraphQL endpoints for health monitoring and basic operations.

For architectural overview, see Architecture. For comprehensive admin operations like backup, export, and shutdown, see Dgraph Administration.

Configuration

By default, Alpha listens on localhost for admin actions (the loopback address only accessible from the same machine). Use the --bindall=true option to bind to 0.0.0.0 and allow external connections.

HTTP Endpoints

Alpha exposes HTTP endpoints on port 8080 for monitoring and administration:

Health Check

/health?all - Returns information about the health of all servers in the cluster.

The /health endpoint provides basic cluster health status. Use /health?all to get detailed information about all nodes.

GraphQL Admin API

The /admin GraphQL endpoint provides comprehensive cluster management capabilities.

Querying Cluster Health

You can query the /admin GraphQL endpoint to get detailed health information about all servers in the cluster:

query {
  health {
    instance
    address
    version
    status
    lastEcho
    group
    uptime
    ongoing
    indexing
  }
}

Response Example:

{
  "data": {
    "health": [
      {
        "instance": "zero",
        "address": "localhost:5080",
        "version": "v2.0.0-rc1",
        "status": "healthy",
        "lastEcho": 1582827418,
        "group": "0",
        "uptime": 1504
      },
      {
        "instance": "alpha",
        "address": "localhost:7080",
        "version": "v2.0.0-rc1",
        "status": "healthy",
        "lastEcho": 1582827418,
        "group": "1",
        "uptime": 1505,
        "ongoing": ["opIndexing"],
        "indexing": ["name", "age"]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Response Fields:

• instance: Name of the instance. Either alpha or zero.
• status: Health status of the instance. Either healthy or unhealthy.
• version: Version of Dgraph running the Alpha or Zero server.
• uptime: Time in nanoseconds since the Alpha or Zero server is up and running.
• address: IP_ADDRESS:PORT of the instance.
• group: Group assigned based on the replication factor.
• lastEcho: Last time, in Unix epoch, when the instance was contacted by another Alpha or Zero server.
• ongoing: List of ongoing operations in the background.
• indexing: List of predicates for which indexes are built in the background.

Additional Admin Operations

For comprehensive administrative operations including:

• Backup and restore
• Data export
• Cluster shutdown and draining
• Schema management
• Security and authentication

See Dgraph Administration.