---
title: "Centralized Ruby Logging with Retrace"
slug: "errors-and-logs-configure-ruby-applications"
description: "Configure Ruby application with Stackify's API for sending Errors and Logs. Follow the step-by-step process and visit Stackify API for Ruby Github page."
updated: 2020-03-13T20:35:08Z
published: 2020-03-13T20:35:08Z
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.stackify.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Configure Ruby Logging

To configure your Ruby application, an Application Programming Interface (API) can also be used to send Errors and Logs to Retrace. The step-by-step process is presented below and for more information, visit this Stackify API for Ruby Github page: [https://github.com/stackify/stackify-api-ruby.](https://github.com/stackify/stackify-api-ruby)

## Installation and Configuration

### Requirements:

- Ruby 1.9/2.0/2.1
- Rails 3.x/4.x (optional)

### Rails

Add the Stackify gem to your Gemfile. In the Gemfile:

```
gem 'stackify-api-ruby'
```

Run the bundle command to install it using the following command:

```
$ bundle install
```

Or install it manually:

```
$ gem install stackify-api-ruby
```

Once you are done installing stackify-api-ruby, you need to run the generator:

```
$ rails g stackify --api_key=your_api_key
```

The generator creates a file 'config/initializers/stackify.rb' that configures stackify-api-ruby with your API key. You can change the default settings in there.

### Non-Rails

When using stackify-api-ruby gem within any Ruby application, add the following code snippet on the top of your main file:

```
require 'stackify-api-ruby'
```

Once you are done, you need to make a base configuration:

```
Stackify.setup do |config|
  config.api_key = "your_api_key"
  config.env = :development
  config.app_name = "Your app name"
end
```

## Optional Configuration

The gem has three modes of configuration: "both", "logging", and "metrics". The mode "both" turns on both parts of gem - logging and metrics. If you only need one, either logging or metrics, choose "logging" or "metrics" mode accordingly.

```
config.mode = :metrics
```

If you want to use a proxy for sending a request, you can configure it like this:

```
config.proxy = { uri: '127.0.0.1:8118', user: 'user_name', password: 'some_password' }
```

## Log API Usage

### Rails

The stackify-api-ruby runs when Rails server is started. Every error, which occurs within your application, will be caught and sent to Retrace automatically. It has the same process with logs - you simply use the Rails logger using the following code snippet:

```
Rails.logger.info "Some log message"
```

If you want to redefine the **logger**, you should add the following

```
config.logger = ::Stackify::LoggerProxy.new(ActiveSupport::Logger.new(Rails.root.join('log', "#{Rails.env}.log")))
```

to your config/environments/%environment%.

> In this case, Stackify#config.log_level will affect entire system.

### Non-Rails

Once you are done with logs configuration, you should wrap up your logger:

```
logger = Logger.new('mylog.log')
logger = Stackify::LoggerProxy.new(logger)
```

And the last thing you need to do is to call the method "run":

```
Stackify.run #remember that this call is running in the background of your main script
```

## Metrics API Usage

          Prerequisite

          

Metrics requires **Ruby APM** to be enabled.

There are four different types of metrics:

- **Gauge**: Keeps track of the last value that was set in the current minute

```
Stackify::Metrics.set_gauge "MyCategory", "MyGauge", 100
```

- **Counter**: Calculates the rate per minute

```
Stackify::Metrics.count "MyCategory", "MyCounter"
```

- **Average**: Calculates the average of all values in the current minute

```
Stackify::Metrics.average "MyCategory", "AverageSpeed", 200
```

- **Timer**: Calculates the average elapsed time for an operation in the current minute

```
t = Time.now
Stackify::Metrics.time "MyCategory", "ElapsedTime", t
# or
Stackify::Metrics.time_duration "MyCategory", "ElapsedTime", 5.seconds
```

- **Counter and Timer**: Composite of the Counter and Timer metrics for convenience

```
t = Time.now
Stackify::Metrics.count_and_time "Metric", "CounterWithTime", t<
```

We can configure every metric with settings:

```
settings = Stackify::Metrics::MetricSettings.new
settings.autoreport_zero_if_nothing_reported = true
# or
settings.autoreport_last_value_if_nothing_reported = true
Stackify::Metrics.set_gauge "MyCategory", "MyGauge", 100 , settings
```

> The "autoreport_last_value_if_nothing_reported" property has influence only on "average" metric.

## Troubleshooting

If there are problems, you can enable internal logging of the stackify-api-ruby project. You need to uncomment the config.logger and config.logger.level lines in the 'config/initializers/stackify.rb' file:

```
config.logger = Logger.new(Rails.root.join("log", "stackify.log"))
config.logger.level = Logger::DEBUG
```