---
layout: docs
page_title: Vault client usage
description: |-
Learn how to discover the number of Vault clients for each namespace in Vault.
---
> [!IMPORTANT]
> **Documentation Update:** Product documentation, which were located in this repository under `/website`, are now located in [`hashicorp/web-unified-docs`](https://github.com/hashicorp/web-unified-docs), colocated with all other product documentation. Contributions to this content should be done in the `web-unified-docs` repo, and not this one. Changes made to `/website` content in this repo will not be reflected on the developer.hashicorp.com website.
# Monitor client usage in Vault
Client calculation and sizing can be complex to compute when you have multiple
namespaces and auth mounts. The **Vault Client Usage** dashboard in the Vault GUI
provides the information where you can filter the data by namespace and/or auth
mounts. You can also use Vault CLI or API to query the usage metrics.
## Enable client usage metrics
Client usage metrics are a feature that is enabled by default for Vault Enterprise and
HCP Vault Dedicated. However, if you are running Vault Community Edition, you
need to enable usage data collection since it is disabled by default.
1. Open a web browser to access the Vault UI, and sign in.
1. Select **Client Count** from the left navigation menu.
1. Select **Configuration**.
1. Select **Edit configuration**.
1. Select the toggle for **Usage data collection** so that the text reads **Data
collection is on**.
The retention period sets the number of months for which Vault will maintain
activity logs to track active clients. (Default: 48 months)
1. Click **Save** to apply the changes.
1. Click **Continue** in the confirmation dialog to enable usage metrics tracking.
```shell-session
$ vault write sys/internal/counters/config enabled=enable
```
Valid values for `enabled` parameter are: `default`, `enable`, and `disable`.
By default, Vault maintains activity logs to track
active clients for 24 months. If you wish to change the retention period, use
the `retention_months` parameter.
**Example:**
```shell-session
$ vault write sys/internal/counters/config \
enabled=enable \
retention_months=12
```
```shell-session
$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: " \
--request POST \
--data '{"enabled": "enable"}' \
$VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/internal/counters/config
```
Valid values for `enabled` parameter are: `default`, `enable`, and `disable`.
By default, Vault maintains activity logs to track
active clients for 24 months. If you wish to change the retention period, use
the `retention_months` parameter.
**Example:**
```shell-session
$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: " \
--request POST \
--data '{"enabled": "enable", "retention_months": 12}' \
$VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/internal/counters/config
```
## Client usage dashboard
1. Sign into Vault UI. The **Client count** section displays the total number of
clients for the current billing period.
1. Select **Details**.
1. Examine the **Vault Client Usage** dashboard to learn your Vault usage.
#### Client usage data categories
- **Running client total** are the primary metric on which pricing is based.
It is the sum of entity clients (or distinct entities) and non-entity clients.
- **Entity clients** (distinct entities) are representations of a particular
user, client, or application that belongs to a defined Vault entity. If you
are unfamiliar with Vault entities, refer to the [Identity: Entities and
Groups](/vault/tutorials/auth-methods/identity) tutorial.
- **Non-entity clients** are clients without an entity attached.
This is because some customers or workflows might avoid using entity-creating
authentication methods and instead depend on token creation through the Vault
API. Refer to [understanding non-entity
tokens](/vault/docs/concepts/client-count#understanding-non-entity-tokens)
to learn more.
The non-entity client count excludes `root` tokens.
- **Secrets sync clients** are the number of external destinations Vault
connects to sync the secrets. Refer to the
[documentation](/vault/docs/concepts/client-count#secret-sync-clients) for
more details.
- **ACME clients** are the ACME connections that authenticate under the same
certificate identifier (domain) as the same certificate entity for client
count calculations. Refer to the
[documentation](/vault/docs/concepts/client-count#entity-assignment-with-acme)
for more details.
## Select a data range
For Vault Enterprise, under the **Change billing period**, select **Billing start date** to query the data for
a different billing period.
For Vault Community, under the **Client counting period**, select **Edit** to query the data for
a different billing period.
Keep in mind that Vault begins collecting data when the feature is enabled. For
example, if you enabled the usage metrics in March of 2023, you cannot query
data in January of 2023.
Vault will return metrics from March of 2023 through most recent full month.
## Filter by namespaces
Use the **Filters** to view the metrics data of a specific namespace.
## Filter by month
Use the **Client attribution table** to view the metrics data of a specific month.
## Query usage metrics via CLI
Retrieve the usage metrics for the current billing period.
```shell-session
$ vault operator usage
```
**Example output:**
```plaintxt
Period start: 2024-03-01T00:00:00Z
Period end: 2024-10-31T23:59:59Z
Namespace path Entity Clients Non-Entity clients Secret syncs ACME clients Active clients
-------------- -------------- ------------------ ------------ ------------ --------------
[root] 86 114 0 0 200
education/ 31 31 0 0 62
education/certification/ 18 25 0 0 43
education/training/ 192 197 0 0 389
finance/ 18 26 0 0 44
marketing/ 28 17 0 0 45
test-ns-1-with-namespace-length-over-18-characters/ 84 75 0 0 159
test-ns-1/ 59 66 0 0 125
test-ns-2-with-namespace-length-over-18-characters/ 58 46 0 0 104
test-ns-2/ 56 47 0 0 103
Total 630 644 0 0 1274
```
The output shows client usage metrics for each namespace.
### Filter by namespace
You can narrow the scope for `education` namespace and its child namespaces.
```shell-session
$ vault operator usage -namespace education
Period start: 2024-03-01T00:00:00Z
Period end: 2024-10-31T23:59:59Z
Namespace path Entity Clients Non-Entity clients Secret syncs ACME clients Active clients
-------------- -------------- ------------------ ------------ ------------ --------------
education/ 31 31 0 0 62
education/certification/ 18 25 0 0 43
education/training/ 192 197 0 0 389
Total 241 253 0 0 494
```
### Query with a time frame
To query the client usage metrics for the month of June, 2024. The start
time is June 1, 2024 (`2024-06-01T00:00:00Z`) and the end time is June
30, 2024 (`2024-06-30T23:59:59Z`).
The `start_time` and `end_time` should be an RFC3339 timestamp or Unix epoch
time.
```shell-session
$ vault operator usage \
-start-time=2024-06-01T00:00:00Z \
-end-time=2024-06-30T23:59:59Z
```
**Example output:**
```plaintext
Period start: 2024-06-01T00:00:00Z
Period end: 2024-06-30T23:59:59Z
Namespace path Entity Clients Non-Entity clients Secret syncs ACME clients Active clients
-------------- -------------- ------------------ ------------ ------------ --------------
[root] 10 16 0 0 26
education/ 7 1 0 0 8
education/certification/ 2 4 0 0 6
education/training/ 37 30 0 0 67
finance/ 3 6 0 0 9
marketing/ 2 2 0 0 4
test-ns-1-with-namespace-length-over-18-characters/ 6 9 0 0 15
test-ns-1/ 9 12 0 0 21
test-ns-2-with-namespace-length-over-18-characters/ 5 5 0 0 10
test-ns-2/ 9 7 0 0 16
Total 90 92 0 0 182
```
## Export the metrics data
You can export the metrics data by clicking on the **Export attribution data**
button.
This downloads the usage metrics data on your local drive in comma separated
values format (`.csv`) or JSON.
## API
- Refer to the
[`sys/internal/counters`](/vault/api-docs/system/internal-counters#client-count)
page to retrieve client count using API.
- [Activity export API](/vault/api-docs/system/internal-counters#activity-export) to
export activity log.