# The Dashboard
See What's Going On
{: .subtitle }
The dashboard is the central place that shows you the current active routes handled by Traefik.
The dashboard is available at the same location as the [API](./api.md) but on the path `/dashboard/` by default.
!!! warning "The trailing slash `/` in `/dashboard/` is mandatory"
There are 2 ways to configure and access the dashboard:
- [Secure mode (Recommended)](#secure-mode)
- [Insecure mode](#insecure-mode)
!!! note ""
There is also a redirect of the path `/` to the path `/dashboard/`,
but one should not rely on that property as it is bound to change,
and it might make for confusing routing rules anyway.
## Secure Mode
This is the **recommended** method.
Start by enabling the dashboard by using the following option from [Traefik's API](./api.md):
```toml tab="File (TOML)"
[api]
# Dashboard
#
# Optional
# Default: true
#
dashboard = true
```
```yaml tab="File (YAML)"
api:
# Dashboard
#
# Optional
# Default: true
#
dashboard: true
```
```bash tab="CLI"
# Dashboard
#
# Optional
# Default: true
#
--api.dashboard=true
```
Then specify a router associated to the service `api@internal` to allow:
- Defining one or more security features through [middlewares](../middlewares/overview.md)
like authentication ([basicAuth](../middlewares/basicauth.md) , [digestAuth](../middlewares/digestauth.md),
[forwardAuth](../middlewares/forwardauth.md)) or [whitelisting](../middlewares/ipwhitelist.md).
- Defining your own [HTTP routing rule](../../routing/routers/#rule) for accessing the dashboard,
through Traefik itself (sometimes referred as "Traefik-ception").
Please visit the ["Configuration" section of the API documentation](./api.md#configuration)
to learn about configuring a router with the service `api@internal` and enabling the security features.
## Insecure Mode
This mode is not recommended because it does not allow the use of security features.
To enable the "insecure mode", use the following options from [Traefik's API](./api.md#insecure):
```toml tab="File (TOML)"
[api]
dashboard = true
insecure = true
```
```yaml tab="File (YAML)"
api:
dashboard: true
insecure: true
```
```bash tab="CLI"
--api.dashboard=true --api.insecure=true
```
You can now access the dashboard on the port `8080` of the Traefik instance,
at the following URL: `http://:8080/dashboard/` (trailing slash is mandatory).