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Anonymous time-limited sharing

Share one dashboard through a link that expires, without creating an account for the viewer.

Where this page ends: a link that expires on its own, letting someone without a Nightingale account open exactly one dashboard — and that you can revoke at any point before it expires.

The entry point is not on the dashboard itself, it is on the list: Explorer → Dashboards, find the row, and click the pencil icon in the Public column.

Top to bottom in the dialog:

OptionWhat it means
PublicChoose Public — the type selector only appears afterwards
TypeAnonymous access / Login access / Authorized access. For someone without an account, pick Anonymous access
NoteRequired. One dashboard can carry several live links; without a note you cannot tell which one to revoke
ExpirationA number plus a unit (hours / days / months / years), 30 days by default
ThemeSystem / Dark / Light. Affects only the link you copy, not the token itself

Once Anonymous access is selected, the lower half of the dialog expands into Sharing link (anonymous access). Fill in the note and expiration, then click Generate link.

If the dashboard is not already stored as "Public — Anonymous access", a confirmation asks whether to change that too. Confirming saves the public setting first, then issues the link. Do not skip it: a link works regardless of the public setting, so if the setting is left alone, the Public column gives no hint that this dashboard is exposed.

Expected result: a new row in the table below with note, link, expiry and creator. The link looks like this:

https://<your-nightingale>/dashboards/share/<dashboard id>?__token=<uuid>

2. Check it yourself before sending it​

Open the link in a private window. It should render the dashboard directly, with no side menu and no redirect to the login page.

Landing on the login page means the token did not take effect — most often because ?__token=... was lost while copying.

3. Revoke before it expires​

Back in the same dialog, click Revoke on the row. The link stops working immediately, and the action cannot be undone.

Expired links stay in the table (marked expired) rather than disappearing, so you can clean them up in the same place.

They can:

  • open that one dashboard without logging in, for as long as the link is valid;
  • query the data sources the dashboard references — the ones hard-coded in panels, plus every source of the same category expanded from a "Datasource"-type variable.

They cannot:

  • Open a different dashboard. A token is bound to one dashboard id; using a valid link against another dashboard is rejected outright, even if that dashboard allows anonymous access on its own.
  • Reach a data source outside the dashboard. A request for a source not in the dashboard's set returns 403.
  • Write anything. SQL data sources are forced through a strict read-only check on this channel, and proxied requests only pass read-only query endpoints (/api/v1/query, _search, /select/logsql/ and similar). _bulk, /-/reload and the like are refused.

Two things that catch people out:

  • A link's validity is decoupled from the public setting. The token is checked before the public/login decision, so switching the dashboard back to "Not public" does not kill links already handed out. When you change the type, the UI warns that "this dashboard still has N sharing link(s) that have not expired" and offers to revoke them — answer it properly.
  • There is no "never expires". The ceiling is 99 years; for long-term exposure set the unit to years. It stays a revocable link rather than becoming a permanent switch.
  • The dashboard uses a "Host ident" variable. That variable type needs an authenticated API, so an anonymous viewer would get nothing. The generate button is disabled with "The dashboard has been configured with a host_ident variable and cannot be accessed anonymously". Replace it with a plain query variable first.
  • The dashboard config could not be read. Generation is disabled the same way ("Could not read the dashboard config"). That is deliberate: unknown means not allowed.
  • Insufficient permission. Issuing, listing and revoking all require dashboard write permission plus read-write membership of the business group. A read-only member sees none of it — being able to list links is the same as being able to forward a working anonymous link.

Two other kinds of sharing, with different properties​

  • Temporary chart link. The chart in the Metrics explorer has a share icon; it stores the current query as a temporary chart and gives you a /chart/<id> link that opens without login (it relies on PromQuerier under [Center.AnonymousAccess], on by default). It has no expiry and no revoke. Fine as a replacement for a screenshot; not a controlled way to expose data.
  • Alert event detail sharing. An event detail page can issue its own time-limited link (7 days by default) with the same mechanism, but it shares one event rather than a dashboard. See Active and historical events.

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