mash-playbook/docs/services/grafana.md

Grafana

Grafana is an open and composable observability and data visualization platform, often used with Prometheus.

Dependencies

This service requires the following other services:

• a Traefik reverse-proxy server

Configuration

To enable this service, add the following configuration to your vars.yml file and re-run the installation process:

########################################################################
#                                                                      #
# grafana                                                              #
#                                                                      #
########################################################################

grafana_enabled: true

grafana_hostname: mash.example.com
grafana_path_prefix: /grafana

grafana_default_admin_user: admin
# Generating a strong password (e.g. `pwgen -s 64 1`) is recommended
grafana_default_admin_password: ''

########################################################################
#                                                                      #
# /grafana                                                             #
#                                                                      #
########################################################################

In the example configuration above, we configure the service to be hosted at https://mash.example.com/grafana.

You can remove the grafana_path_prefix variable definition, to make it default to /, so that the service is served at https://mash.example.com/.

Configuring data sources

Grafana is merely a visualization tool. It needs to pull data from a metrics (time-series) database, like Prometheus.

You can add multiple data sources to Grafana.

Below, we show a few examples of connecting Grafana to local datasources (running in containers on the same machine). If you're enabling multiple, you need to "merge" the configurations. That is, don't define grafana_provisioning_datasources or grafana_container_additional_networks_custom twice, but combine them.

Integrating with a local Prometheus instance

If you're installing Prometheus on the same server, you can hook Grafana to it over the container network with the following additional configuration:

grafana_provisioning_datasources:
  - name: Prometheus
    type: prometheus
    access: proxy
    url: "http://{{ prometheus_identifier }}:9090"
	# Enable below if connecting to a remote instance that uses Basic Auth.
	# basicAuth: true
    # basicAuthUser: loki
    # secureJsonData:
    #   basicAuthPassword: ""

# Prometheus runs in another container network, so we need to connect to it.
grafana_container_additional_networks_custom:
  - "{{ prometheus_container_network }}"

For connecting to a remote Prometheus instance, you may need to adjust this configuration.

Integrating with a local Loki instance

If you're installing Grafana Loki on the same server, you can hook Grafana to it over the container network with the following additional configuration:

grafana_provisioning_datasources:
  - name: Loki (your-tenant-id)
    type: loki
    access: proxy
    url: "http://{{ loki_identifier }}:{{ loki_server_http_listen_port }}"
	# Enable below and also (basicAuthPassword) if connecting to a remote instance that uses Basic Auth.
	# basicAuth: true
    # basicAuthUser: loki
    jsonData:
      httpHeaderName1: X-Scope-OrgID
    secureJsonData:
      httpHeaderValue1: "your-tenant-id"
      # basicAuthPassword: ""

# Loki runs in another container network, so we need to connect to it.
grafana_container_additional_networks_custom:
  - "{{ loki_container_network }}"

For connecting to a remote Loki instance, you may need to adjust this configuration.

If you're installing Promtail on the same server as Loki, by default it's configured to send mash as the tenant ID.

Integrating with Prometheus Node Exporter

If you've installed Prometheus Node Exporter on any host (target) scraped by Prometheus, you may wish to install a dashboard for Prometheus Node Exporter.

The Prometheus Node Exporter role exposes a list of URLs containing dashboards (JSON files) in its prometheus_node_exporter_dashboard_urls variable.

You can add this additional configuration to make the Grafana service pull these dashboards:

grafana_dashboard_download_urls: |
  {{
    prometheus_node_exporter_dashboard_urls
  }}  

Single-Sign-On

Grafana supports Single-Sign-On (SSO) via OAUTH. To make use of this you'll need a Identity Provider like authentik, Keycloak or Authelia.

Below, you can find some examples for Grafana configuration.

Single-Sign-On / Authentik

• Create a new OAUTH provider in authentik called grafana
• Create an application also named grafana in authentik using this provider
• Add the following configuration to your vars.yml file and re-run the installation process (make sure to adjust authentik.example.com)

# To make Grafana honor the expiration time of JWT tokens, enable this experimental feature below.
# grafana_feature_toggles_enable: accessTokenExpirationCheck

grafana_environment_variables_additional_variables: |
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_ENABLED=true
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_NAME=authentik
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID=COPIED-CLIENTID
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET=COPIED-CLIENTSECRET
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_SCOPES=openid profile email
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_AUTH_URL=https://authentik.example.com/application/o/authorize/
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_TOKEN_URL=https://authentik.example.com/application/o/token/
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_API_URL=https://authentik.example.com/application/o/userinfo/
  GF_AUTH_SIGNOUT_REDIRECT_URL=https://authentik.example.com/application/o/grafana/end-session/
  # Optionally enable auto-login (bypasses Grafana login screen)
  #GF_AUTH_OAUTH_AUTO_LOGIN="true"
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_ALLOW_ASSIGN_GRAFANA_ADMIN=true
  # Optionally map user groups to Grafana roles
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_ROLE_ATTRIBUTE_PATH=contains(groups[*], 'Grafana Admins') && 'Admin' || contains(groups[*], 'Grafana Editors') && 'Editor' || 'Viewer'  

Make sure the user you want to login as has an email address in authentik, otherwise there will be an error.

Single-Sign-On / Authelia

The configuration flow below assumes Authelia configured via the playbook, but you can run Authelia in another way too.

• Come up with a client ID you'd like to use. Example: grafana
• Generate a shared secret for the OpenID Connect application: pwgen -s 64 1. This is to be used in GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET below
• Hash the shared secret for use in Authelia's configuration (authelia_config_identity_providers_oidc_clients): php -r 'echo password_hash("PASSWORD_HERE", PASSWORD_ARGON2ID);'. Feel free to use another language (or tool) for creating a hash as well. A few different hash algorithms are supported besides Argon2id.
• Define this grafana client in Authelia via authelia_config_identity_providers_oidc_clients. See example configuration on the Authelia documentation page.

# To make Grafana honor the expiration time of JWT tokens, enable this experimental feature below.
# grafana_feature_toggles_enable: accessTokenExpirationCheck

grafana_environment_variables_additional_variables: |
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_ENABLED=true
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_NAME=Authelia
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID=grafana
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET=PLAIN_TEXT_SHARED_SECRET
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_SCOPES=openid profile email groups
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_EMPTY_SCOPES=false
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_AUTH_URL=https://authelia.example.com/api/oidc/authorization
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_TOKEN_URL=https://authelia.example.com/api/oidc/token
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_API_URL=https://authelia.example.com/api/oidc/userinfo
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_LOGIN_ATTRIBUTE_PATH=preferred_username
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_GROUPS_ATTRIBUTE_PATH=groups
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_NAME_ATTRIBUTE_PATH=name
  GF_AUTH_GENERIC_OAUTH_USE_PKCE=true  

Usage

After installation, you should be able to access your new Grafana instance at the configured URL (see above).

Going there, you'll be taken to the initial setup wizard, which will let you assign some paswords and other configuration.

Recommended other services

Grafana is just a visualization tool which requires pulling data from a metrics (time-series) database like.

You may be interested in combining it with Prometheus.