dogslow-sentry 2.0.0

Overview

Dogslow is a Django watchdog middleware that logs tracebacks of slow requests. Dogslow-sentry requires Python 3.7+, Django 2.2+.

It started as an internal project inside Bitbucket to help trace operational problems.

In 2021, the dogslow-sentry fork was created to add Sentry-specific information to reports, like full stack trace, request information, fingerprint for issue grouping, breadcrumbs, etc.

Installation

Install dogslow-sentry:

$ pip install dogslow-sentry

Then add dogslow_sentry.WatchdogMiddleware to your Django settings file:

MIDDLEWARE = [
    'dogslow_sentry.WatchdogMiddleware',
    ...
]

For best results, make it one of the first middlewares that is run.

Configuration

Naturally, dogslow-sentry expects a working Sentry configuration for Django.

You can use the following configuration in your settings.py file to tune the watchdog:

# Watchdog is enabled by default, to temporarily disable, set to False:
DOGSLOW = True

# Log requests taking longer than 25 seconds:
DOGSLOW_TIMER = 25

# Enable logging to Sentry
DOGSLOW_SENTRY = True

# Also log slow request tracebacks to Python logger
DOGSLOW_LOGGER = 'dogslow_sentry'
DOGSLOW_LOG_LEVEL = 'WARNING'

# Tuple of url pattern names that should not be monitored:
# (defaults to none -- everything monitored)
DOGSLOW_IGNORE_URLS = ('some_view', 'other_view')

Usage

Every incoming HTTP request gets a 25 second timeout in the watchdog. If a request does not return within that time, the watchdog activates and takes a peek at the request thread’s stack and writes the backtrace (including all local stack variables – Django style) to a log file.

Note that dogslow only takes a peek at the thread’s stack. It does not interrupt the request, or influence it in any other way. Using dogslow is therefore safe to use in production.

Changelog

2.0.0 (2021-12-13)

• Configured GitHub Actions for CI.

• Enabled testing with Python 3.10 and Django 4.0.

• Fixed deprecation warning when using Python 3.10.

2.0.0b1 (2021-07-19)

• Initial pre-release of dogslow-sentry fork.

• Improved Sentry integration.

• Dropped Python 2.7 support, now requires Python 3.7+, Django 2.2+.

• Many minor tweaks. Reformatted code with Black.

1.2 (2018-01-04)

• Last release of upstream dogslow package.

Caveats

Dogslow uses multithreading. It has a single background thread that handles the watchdog timeouts and takes the tracebacks, so that the original request threads are not interrupted. This has some consequences.