grafana-oss

Grafana OSS

Docs: https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/

Dashboard Provisioning

# provisioning/dashboards/default.yaml
apiVersion: 1
providers:
  - name: default
    folder: MyFolder
    type: file
    disableDeletion: false
    updateIntervalSeconds: 30
    options:
      path: /var/lib/grafana/dashboards
      foldersFromFilesStructure: true

Data Source Provisioning

# provisioning/datasources/datasources.yaml
apiVersion: 1
datasources:
  - name: Prometheus
    type: prometheus
    access: proxy
    url: http://prometheus:9090
    isDefault: true
    jsonData:
      timeInterval: 15s
      httpMethod: POST

  - name: Loki
    type: loki
    access: proxy
    url: http://loki:3100

  - name: Tempo
    type: tempo
    access: proxy
    url: http://tempo:3200
    jsonData:
      tracesToLogsV2:
        datasourceUid: loki_uid
        tags: [{ key: "service.name", value: "app" }]
      serviceMap:
        datasourceUid: prometheus_uid
      nodeGraph:
        enabled: true

  - name: Pyroscope
    type: grafana-pyroscope-datasource
    url: http://pyroscope:4040

Panel Types

Panel	Use Case
Time series	Line/bar charts over time (default for metrics)
Stat	Single value with color thresholds
Gauge	Radial gauge for current value
Bar gauge	Horizontal bars for comparisons
Table	Tabular data, sortable columns
Logs	Log stream viewer (Loki)
Traces	Trace visualization (Tempo)
Heatmap	Distribution over time
Histogram	Value distribution
Pie chart	Part-to-whole ratios
Geomap	Geographic data
Canvas	Custom SVG-based layouts
Node graph	Service/topology graphs
Flame graph	CPU/memory profiling
Text	Markdown/HTML content
Alert list	Show firing alerts

Template Variables

{
  "templating": {
    "list": [
      {
        "name": "namespace",
        "type": "query",
        "datasource": { "type": "prometheus", "uid": "prom" },
        "definition": "label_values(kube_pod_info, namespace)",
        "includeAll": true,
        "multi": true
      },
      {
        "name": "env",
        "type": "custom",
        "query": "production,staging,dev",
        "current": { "value": "production" }
      },
      {
        "name": "interval",
        "type": "interval",
        "query": "1m,5m,15m,1h",
        "auto": true
      }
    ]
  }
}

Use variables in queries: rate(http_requests_total{namespace="$namespace"}[$interval])

Alerting Configuration (grafana.ini)

[alerting]
enabled = true

[unified_alerting]
enabled = true

[smtp]
enabled = true
host = smtp.gmail.com:587
user = alerts@example.com
password = yourpassword
from_address = alerts@example.com

Server Configuration (grafana.ini)

[server]
http_port = 3000
domain = grafana.example.com
root_url = https://grafana.example.com/

[database]
type = postgres
host = postgres:5432
name = grafana
user = grafana
password = secret

[auth.generic_oauth]
enabled = true
name = Okta
client_id = your_client_id
client_secret = your_secret
auth_url = https://your-org.okta.com/oauth2/v1/authorize
token_url = https://your-org.okta.com/oauth2/v1/token
api_url = https://your-org.okta.com/oauth2/v1/userinfo
scopes = openid profile email groups

[security]
admin_user = admin
admin_password = secret
allow_embedding = true       # for embedding dashboards

[feature_toggles]
enable = publicDashboards

RBAC

Built-in Roles

Role	Permissions
Viewer	Read dashboards, alerts
Editor	Create/edit dashboards, alerts
Admin	Manage data sources, users, plugins
GrafanaAdmin	Server-wide admin (superuser)

Service Account Provisioning

# provisioning/access-control/service_accounts.yaml
apiVersion: 1
serviceAccounts:
  - name: ci-reader
    orgId: 1
    role: Viewer
    tokens:
      - name: ci-token
        expires: 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z

Custom RBAC Roles (Enterprise / Cloud)

# provisioning/access-control/roles.yaml
apiVersion: 1
roles:
  - name: DashboardEditor
    description: Can create and edit dashboards
    permissions:
      - action: dashboards:create
      - action: dashboards:write
        scope: dashboards:*
      - action: folders:read
        scope: folders:*

Dashboard JSON Model

{
  "title": "Service Overview",
  "uid": "service-overview",
  "time": { "from": "now-1h", "to": "now" },
  "refresh": "30s",
  "panels": [
    {
      "type": "timeseries",
      "title": "Request Rate",
      "gridPos": { "x": 0, "y": 0, "w": 12, "h": 8 },
      "targets": [
        {
          "datasource": { "type": "prometheus" },
          "expr": "rate(http_requests_total{job=\"$job\"}[5m])",
          "legendFormat": "{{method}} {{status}}"
        }
      ],
      "fieldConfig": {
        "defaults": {
          "unit": "reqps",
          "thresholds": {
            "mode": "absolute",
            "steps": [
              { "color": "green", "value": null },
              { "color": "red", "value": 1000 }
            ]
          }
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Annotations

# Create annotation via API
curl -X POST https://grafana.example.com/api/annotations \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "dashboardUID": "service-overview",
    "panelId": 1,
    "time": 1706745600000,
    "timeEnd": 1706749200000,
    "tags": ["deploy", "v2.0"],
    "text": "Deployed v2.0"
  }'

Plugin Provisioning

# provisioning/plugins/plugins.yaml
apiVersion: 1
apps:
  - type: grafana-pyroscope-app
    disabled: false
    jsonData:
      backendUrl: http://pyroscope:4040

Key API Endpoints

# Search dashboards
GET /api/search?query=service&type=dash-db&folderIds=1

# Get dashboard
GET /api/dashboards/uid/{uid}

# Create/update dashboard
POST /api/dashboards/db
{ "dashboard": {...}, "folderUID": "...", "overwrite": true }

# List data sources
GET /api/datasources

# Create data source
POST /api/datasources

# List users
GET /api/org/users

# Create service account token
POST /api/serviceaccounts/{id}/tokens