8 min read

Overview

Are you finding it challenging to keep up with your blockchain data usage? QuickNode has got you covered! With its powerful tools and metrics, managing your blockchain activity has never been easier. This guide will walk you through the powerful insights and features that the QuickNode User Dashboard offers and how best to utilize them. Let's dive in!

What is the QuickNode User Dashboard?

So what is the QuickNode User Dashboard? The QuickNode User Dashboard is the hub for users to create and manage their blockchain infrastructure, from creating an endpoint that accesses a specific blockchain (we support over 19 and counting!), to managing security features like JSON Web Tokens and enabling additional functionality like the Single Flight RPC add-on.

In this guide, we'll be covering the following features of the User Dashboard:

• Endpoint Metrics
• Usage & Billing
• Teams
• Security
• Marketplace
• QuickAlerts
• Graph API

Create a QuickNode Endpoint

To access the User Dashboard, you'll need a QuickNode account. You can create one for free here. Once you have created an account and logged in, click the Create an Endpoint button and choose the blockchain and network you want access to.

Once your endpoint is created, you'll see your endpoint name at the top. This name is randomly created, but if you'd like to add your own, you can do so by clicking the pencil icon. This page also provides your HTTP and WSS (WebSocket) provider URLs for accessing your endpoint.

Now, let's dive into all that the Dashboard has to offer, starting with the Metrics tab.

Metrics

On the Metrics tab, you can see all activity related to a specific endpoint. At a glance, you can see the latest block height (of that particular blockchain), the number of responses served to you in a rolling 30-day period, and the client version (e.g., Geth 1.11.5) your endpoint is running on. Keep note that responses served are not the same as API Credits used.

Visually seeing the activity you are conducting is important. This is why the Metrics tab breaks down your RPC calls into different visual representations, such as graphs and tables. In the graph above, the Method calls over time graph represents your endpoint's RPC responses in a rolling 30-day period (summarized by a day\24-hour time period). This can even be further broken down into different timeframes such as hourly, daily, weekly and monthly or filtered down to a specific RPC method (which then applies to all visualizations).

Also shown is the Method call and Response status breakdown, where you'll see all the specific methods you are calling from your endpoint and the type of call it is (e.g., HTTP code and protocol). A list of response codes is also tracked to see how often your endpoint returned a successful response.

Response status over time is displayed and can be filtered down by HTTP response codes.

To check your endpoint's response time performance, you can analyze the Method response time (median) and Method response time (maximum) graphs which will break down your endpoint's median and maximum response times.

In measuring response times, we use two metrics: the median and the maximum. The median metric represents the middle value of a set of responses taken over a certain time interval. For example, if we receive 1 million responses with 50% taking 10ms and 50% taking 200ms, the median value would be around 110ms. On the other hand, the maximum metric represents the highest response time observed during the same time interval. For instance, if we receive 1 million responses and the highest time taken was 200ms, then 200ms would be recorded as the maximum value for that interval.

Responses by origin are displayed visually and broken down so users can track where responses are derived.

In some cases, the origin can be N/A, such as if you do not set the origin header in your code or if you set the origin, but the response is sent via WebSocket transport and the response is a subscription method response. For example, if you have subscribed to a method (e.g. eth_subscribe), all subscription events will respond with a N/A origin. To learn more about HTTP origin, check out this QuickNode guide.

Usage & Billing

Another important component of understanding your endpoint and usage can be reviewed on the Usage & Billing tab. This page provides information regarding usage on your account (in terms of API Credits), while the Metrics tab is focused on endpoint performance.

Usage

The Usage tab will show details such as the number of endpoints you have active, how many you can create on your plan, the number of QuickAlerts created, credit usage, and credit usage over time. Note that the data on this tab is derived from your cumulative usage across all endpoints in terms of API credits (which differs from the responses shown on the Metrics tab) and reflects this usage in your current billing cycle. The billing cycle is usually the date of the payment plus one month, and users can choose the period. This differs from the data shown on the Metrics tab, which tracks responses in a rolling 30-day period (the current time minus 30 days).

To better understand how many API Credits your endpoint has used, you can also view the breakdown at an endpoint level:

For more information about API Credits and how they are calculated, check out this post. The remaining tabs on this page are described here:

• Plan: Displays information regarding your plan type, invoices, and any subscription settings you may want to update
• Add-ons: Configure your add-ons and see which are already included in your plan
• History: Displays payment history
• Payment methods: Update and manage your payment method on file

Teams

If you need to share endpoint access with others, you can create a Team. Creating a team allows you and your team members to get access to your endpoints without having to create their own accounts. Note that they must not already have a QuickNode account.

Security

In the Security tab, you'll find that QuickNode offers various security features for your endpoint, which caters to a wide range of use cases.

Token Based Authentication

Endpoints, by default, come with token-based authentication enabled, however, you can disable this feature if you wish. Note that disabling token-based authentication allows anyone who knows your hostname to make requests to your endpoint. You can also create multiple authentication tokens, which enables you to add and remove specific authentication tokens. This can be useful for developing teams to better manage endpoint usage or for security measures such as a comprised endpoint (learn more about multi-token auth in this QuickNode guide).

Referrer Whitelist

You can also whitelist hostnames to have access to your endpoint. If the API request arrives without a whitelisted domain name in Referer or Origin HTTP header, the request will be denied. Learn how to set up a referrer whitelist in this QuickNode guide.

JSON Web Tokens

A popular security feature for modern applications is JSON Web Tokens (aka JWT). This allows for authentication on the client side and can improve security between your endpoint and front-end. Learn how to add JWT to your front-end application in this QuickNode guide.

Source IP

IP whitelisting is another feature that is available to your QuickNode endpoint. You can add up to 25 IP addresses you wish to whitelist for your endpoint. This security feature differs from referrer whitelisting as it takes an IP (e.g., 123.123.123.123 vs. quicknode.com).

Domain Masks

You may want to mask your endpoint with another name (for example, your branded domain name). Domain masking can help you accomplish this. You'll want to add the domain to the list and then update your domain's CNAME settings to include your endpoint name. Check out this QuickNode guide to learn more about domain masks.

Contract addresses

You can also limit which smart contracts your endpoint can make requests to. This feature is only supported for EVM-based chains and the eth_call RPC method, but additional methods will be added in the future.

Marketplace Add-ons

QuickNode Marketplace allows users to enhance their endpoints capabilities by installing add-ons. There are a variety of useful add-ons and tools you can use to supplement your blockchain infrastructure. Here are a few worth considering:

• Single Flight RPC: Bundles multiple RPC calls to get full block and transaction receipts so you don't have to.
• Multi-region Transaction Broadcast: Send transactions to multiple regions in a single RPC call.
• Flashbots Protect: An RPC endpoint that users can add to their wallets, which sends their transactions to Flashbots to prevent frontrunning.
• Crossmint NFT Mint API: Create and send NFTs to your users with a single line of code. Check out this QuickNode guide to learn how.

To see the full list of add-ons, check out the QuickNode Marketplace. If you want to become a marketplace partner and publish your own add-on, apply for a developer account here.

QuickAlerts

For an easy way to track certain blockchain activities, such as a transfer of funds or when an NFT gets sold on a marketplace, you can use QuickAlerts. With QuickAlerts, users can create custom expressions and receive real-time notifications for almost any type of blockchain activity. Notifications can be received via Webhooks, with other destinations such as email, Discord, Slack, and Telegram coming soon!

Take a look at these example scenarios you can use QuickAlerts for:

• When a specific wallet sends/receives a transaction to/from another specific wallet
• When a new NFT is minted
• When a failed transaction occurs
• And even more complex activity, such as whenever the fees burned in a block are > 0.2 ETH AND there is at least one Uniswap transaction within the block

Check out this QuickNode guide for an overview of QuickAlerts.

Graph API

The QuickNode Graph API enables you to fetch powerful market insights, historical trading data, NFT and ERC20 Token holdings, and more with our simple-yet-powerful GraphQL API. Currently, the Graph API supports Ethereum mainnet, Sepolia testnet and Polygon mainnet.

You can create a Graph API key here. Learn more about the Graph API in the QuickNode Docs.

Final Thoughts

By applying the knowledge acquired from this guide, you can create a secure, reliable, and efficient infrastructure that meets your needs. Good luck!

If you need help or want to share what you are building, let us know on Discord or Twitter.

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