Grafana - The Open-Source Platform for Monitoring and Observability

Grafana is an open-source platform for monitoring and observability. It allows you to query, visualize, alert on, and understand your metrics no matter where they are stored. Grafana provides a powerful and elegant way to create, explore, and share dashboards, making it a popular choice for monitoring infrastructure, applications, and business metrics. Python developers can extend its functionality by developing custom plugins, or choose from a variety of free open-source plugins provided by the Grafana community, as well as paid commercial plugins.

This appliance includes all the standard features in TurnKey Core:

• Grafana configurations for TurnKey v18.x:

  • Grafana installed from the official Grafana repository.
  • Includes default plugins and the ability to install additional ones.

• Security note: As of 18.0, updates to Grafana ARE NOT configured to install automatically.

• SSL support out of the box.

• Adminer administration frontend for PostgreSQL (listening on port 12322 - uses SSL).

• Webmin modules for configuring Apache2, PostgreSQL, and Postfix.

To create a new Grafana Dashboard

To create a new Grafana dashboard, you can use the Grafana web interface. Follow these steps:

1. Open your browser and navigate to the Grafana login page.
2. Log in with the admin credentials set by default in first boot (user: admin | password:admin).
3. Change the default Grafana Password
4. Click on the "+" icon in the left-hand menu and select "Dashboard".
5. Customize your dashboard by adding panels and configuring data sources.

Managing Grafana via Webmin

Webmin provides a convenient interface for managing your Grafana instance:

1. File Management:
   • Browse to 'Tools' >> 'File Manager'.
   • Navigate to '/etc/grafana' to edit the 'grafana.ini' file if needed.
   • Save any changes you make.
2. Service Management:
   • Navigate to 'System' >> 'Bootup and Shutdown'.
   • Find the "grafana-server.service" in the list and select it via the checkbox.
   • Scroll to the bottom and select 'Restart' to apply changes.

Managing Grafana via CLI

1. Edit Configuration:
   • Edit /etc/grafana/grafana.ini as needed.
2. Restart Grafana Service:

   • Restart the Grafana service:

     systemctl restart grafana-server

Installing Additional Plugins

Grafana supports a variety of plugins. To install a new plugin:

1. Use the Grafana CLI tool:

   grafana-cli plugins install <plugin-name>

2. Restart the Grafana service:

   systemctl restart grafana-server

Credentials (passwords set at first boot)

Note: The Grafana password set at first boot applies to the Grafana admin account. This can be changed individually after first boot.

• Webmin, SSH: username root
• PostgreSQL, Adminer: username postgres
• Grafana Admin Account: admin