Provision Grafana

In previous versions of Grafana, you could only use the API for provisioning data sources and dashboards. But that required the service to be running before you started creating dashboards and you also needed to set up credentials for the HTTP API. In v5.0 we decided to improve this experience by adding a new active provisioning system that uses config files. This will make GitOps more natural as data sources and dashboards can be defined via files that can be version controlled. We hope to extend this system to later add support for users and orgs as well.

Config File

See Configuration for more information on what you can configure in grafana.ini.

Config File Locations

Default configuration from $WORKING_DIR/conf/defaults.ini
Custom configuration from $WORKING_DIR/conf/custom.ini
The custom configuration file path can be overridden using the --config parameter

NOTE
If you have installed Grafana using the deb or rpm packages, then your configuration file is located at /etc/grafana/grafana.ini. This path is specified in the Grafana init.d script using --config file parameter.

Using Environment Variables

It is possible to use environment variable interpolation in all 3 provisioning configuration types. Allowed syntax is either $ENV_VAR_NAME or ${ENV_VAR_NAME} and can be used only for values not for keys or bigger parts of the configurations. It is not available in the dashboard’s definition files just the dashboard provisioning configuration. Example:

yaml
datasources:
  - name: Graphite
    url: http://localhost:$PORT
    user: $USER
    secureJsonData:
      password: $PASSWORD

If you have a literal $ in your value and want to avoid interpolation, $$ can be used.

Configuration Management Tools

Currently we do not provide any scripts/manifests for configuring Grafana. Rather than spending time learning and creating scripts/manifests for each tool, we think our time is better spent making Grafana easier to provision. Therefore, we heavily rely on the expertise of the community.

Tool	Project
Puppet	https://forge.puppet.com/puppet/grafana
Ansible	https://github.com/grafana/grafana-ansible-collection
Chef	https://github.com/sous-chefs/chef-grafana
Saltstack	https://github.com/salt-formulas/salt-formula-grafana
Jsonnet	https://github.com/grafana/grafonnet-lib/
NixOS	services.grafana.provision module

Data sources

NOTE
Available in Grafana v5.0 and higher.

You can manage data sources in Grafana by adding YAML configuration files in the provisioning/datasources directory. Each config file can contain a list of datasources to add or update during startup. If the data source already exists, Grafana reconfigures it to match the provisioned configuration file.

The configuration file can also list data sources to automatically delete, called deleteDatasources. Grafana deletes the data sources listed in deleteDatasources before adding or updating those in the datasources list.

Running multiple Grafana instances

If you run multiple instances of Grafana, add a version number to each data source in the configuration and increase it when you update the configuration. Grafana updates only data sources with the same or lower version number than specified in the config. This prevents old configurations from overwriting newer ones if you have different versions of the datasource.yaml file that don’t define version numbers, and then restart instances at the same time.

Example data source config file

This example provisions a Graphite data source:

yaml
# Configuration file version
apiVersion: 1

# List of data sources to delete from the database.
deleteDatasources:
  - name: Graphite
    orgId: 1

# List of data sources to insert/update depending on what's
# available in the database.
datasources:
  # <string, required> Sets the name you use to refer to
  # the data source in panels and queries.
  - name: Graphite
    # <string, required> Sets the data source type.
    type: graphite
    # <string, required> Sets the access mode, either
    # proxy or direct (Server or Browser in the UI).
    # Some data sources are incompatible with any setting
    # but proxy (Server).
    access: proxy
    # <int> Sets the organization id. Defaults to orgId 1.
    orgId: 1
    # <string> Sets a custom UID to reference this
    # data source in other parts of the configuration.
    # If not specified, Grafana generates one.
    uid: my_unique_uid
    # <string> Sets the data source's URL, including the
    # port.
    url: http://localhost:8080
    # <string> Sets the database user, if necessary.
    user:
    # <string> Sets the database name, if necessary.
    database:
    # <bool> Enables basic authorization.
    basicAuth:
    # <string> Sets the basic authorization username.
    basicAuthUser:
    # <bool> Enables credential headers.
    withCredentials:
    # <bool> Toggles whether the data source is pre-selected
    # for new panels. You can set only one default
    # data source per organization.
    isDefault:
    # <map> Fields to convert to JSON and store in jsonData.
    jsonData:
      # <string> Defines the Graphite service's version.
      graphiteVersion: '1.1'
      # <bool> Enables TLS authentication using a client
      # certificate configured in secureJsonData.
      tlsAuth: true
      # <bool> Enables TLS authentication using a CA
      # certificate.
      tlsAuthWithCACert: true
    # <map> Fields to encrypt before storing in jsonData.
    secureJsonData:
      # <string> Defines the CA cert, client cert, and
      # client key for encrypted authentication.
      tlsCACert: '...'
      tlsClientCert: '...'
      tlsClientKey: '...'
      # <string> Sets the database password, if necessary.
      password:
      # <string> Sets the basic authorization password.
      basicAuthPassword:
    # <int> Sets the version. Used to compare versions when
    # updating. Ignored when creating a new data source.
    version: 1
    # <bool> Allows users to edit data sources from the
    # Grafana UI.
    editable: false

For provisioning examples of specific data sources, refer to that data source’s documentation.

JSON Data

Since not all data sources have the same configuration settings, we include only the most common ones as fields. To provision the rest of a data source’s settings, include them as a JSON blob in the jsonData field.

Common settings in the built-in core data sources include:

NOTE
Data sources tagged with HTTP* communicate using the HTTP protocol, which includes all core data source plugins except MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MSSQL.

Name	Type	Data source	Description
tlsAuth	boolean	HTTP*, MySQL	Enable TLS authentication using client cert configured in secure json data
tlsAuthWithCACert	boolean	HTTP*, MySQL, PostgreSQL	Enable TLS authentication using CA cert
tlsSkipVerify	boolean	HTTP*, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL	Controls whether a client verifies the server’s certificate chain and host name.
serverName	string	HTTP*, MSSQL	Optional. Controls the server name used for certificate common name/subject alternative name verification. Defaults to using the data source URL.
timeout	string	HTTP*	Request timeout in seconds. Overrides dataproxy.timeout option
graphiteVersion	string	Graphite	Graphite version
timeInterval	string	Prometheus, Elasticsearch, InfluxDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL and MSSQL	Lowest interval/step value that should be used for this data source.
httpMode	string	Influxdb	HTTP Method. ‘GET’, ‘POST’, defaults to GET
maxSeries	number	Influxdb	Max number of series/tables that Grafana processes
httpMethod	string	Prometheus	HTTP Method. ‘GET’, ‘POST’, defaults to POST
customQueryParameters	string	Prometheus	Query parameters to add, as a URL-encoded string.
manageAlerts	boolean	Prometheus and Loki	Manage alerts via Alerting UI
alertmanagerUid	string	Prometheus and Loki	UID of Alert Manager that manages Alert for this data source.
timeField	string	Elasticsearch	Which field that should be used as timestamp
interval	string	Elasticsearch	Index date time format. nil(No Pattern), ‘Hourly’, ‘Daily’, ‘Weekly’, ‘Monthly’ or ‘Yearly’
logMessageField	string	Elasticsearch	Which field should be used as the log message
logLevelField	string	Elasticsearch	Which field should be used to indicate the priority of the log message
maxConcurrentShardRequests	number	Elasticsearch	Maximum number of concurrent shard requests that each sub-search request executes per node
sigV4Auth	boolean	Elasticsearch and Prometheus	Enable usage of SigV4
sigV4AuthType	string	Elasticsearch and Prometheus	SigV4 auth provider. default/credentials/keys
sigV4ExternalId	string	Elasticsearch and Prometheus	Optional SigV4 External ID
sigV4AssumeRoleArn	string	Elasticsearch and Prometheus	Optional SigV4 ARN role to assume
sigV4Region	string	Elasticsearch and Prometheus	SigV4 AWS region
sigV4Profile	string	Elasticsearch and Prometheus	Optional SigV4 credentials profile
authType	string	Cloudwatch	Auth provider. default/credentials/keys
externalId	string	Cloudwatch	Optional External ID
assumeRoleArn	string	Cloudwatch	Optional ARN role to assume
defaultRegion	string	Cloudwatch	Optional default AWS region
customMetricsNamespaces	string	Cloudwatch	Namespaces of Custom Metrics
profile	string	Cloudwatch	Optional credentials profile
tsdbVersion	string	OpenTSDB	Version
tsdbResolution	string	OpenTSDB	Resolution
sslmode	string	PostgreSQL	SSLmode. ‘disable’, ‘require’, ‘verify-ca’ or ‘verify-full’
tlsConfigurationMethod	string	PostgreSQL	SSL Certificate configuration, either by ‘file-path’ or ‘file-content’
sslRootCertFile	string	PostgreSQL, MSSQL	SSL server root certificate file, must be readable by the Grafana user
sslCertFile	string	PostgreSQL	SSL client certificate file, must be readable by the Grafana user
sslKeyFile	string	PostgreSQL	SSL client key file, must be readable by only the Grafana user
encrypt	string	MSSQL	Determines SSL encryption handling. Options include: `disable` - data sent between client and server is not encrypted; `false` - data sent between client and server is not encrypted beyond the login packet; `true` - data sent between client and server is encrypted. Default is `false`.
postgresVersion	number	PostgreSQL	Postgres version as a number (903/904/905/906/1000) meaning v9.3, v9.4, …, v10
timescaledb	boolean	PostgreSQL	Enable usage of TimescaleDB extension
maxOpenConns	number	MySQL, PostgreSQL and MSSQL	Maximum number of open connections to the database (Grafana v5.4+)
maxIdleConns	number	MySQL, PostgreSQL and MSSQL	Maximum number of connections in the idle connection pool (Grafana v5.4+)
connMaxLifetime	number	MySQL, PostgreSQL and MSSQL	Maximum amount of time in seconds a connection may be reused (Grafana v5.4+)
keepCookies	array	HTTP*	Cookies that needs to be passed along while communicating with data sources
prometheusVersion	string	Prometheus	The version of the Prometheus data source, such as `2.37.0`, `2.24.0`
prometheusType	string	Prometheus	Prometheus database type. Options are `Prometheus`, `Cortex`, `Mimir` or`Thanos`.
cacheLevel	string	Prometheus	Determines the duration of the browser cache. Valid values include: `Low`, `Medium`, `High`, and `None`. This field is configurable when you enable the `prometheusResourceBrowserCache` feature flag.
incrementalQuerying	string	Prometheus	Experimental: Turn on incremental querying to enhance dashboard reload performance with slow data sources
incrementalQueryOverlapWindow	string	Prometheus	Experimental: Configure incremental query overlap window. Requires a valid duration string, i.e. `180s` or `15m` Default value is `10m` (10 minutes).
disableRecordingRules	boolean	Prometheus	Experimental: Turn off Prometheus recording rules
implementation	string	AlertManager	The implementation of the AlertManager data source, such as `prometheus`, `cortex` or `mimir`
handleGrafanaManagedAlerts	boolean	AlertManager	When enabled, Grafana-managed alerts are sent to this Alertmanager

For examples of specific data sources’ JSON data, refer to that data source’s documentation.

Secure JSON Data

Secure JSON data is a map of settings that will be encrypted with secret key from the Grafana config. The purpose of this is only to hide content from the users of the application. This should be used for storing TLS Cert and password that Grafana will append to the request on the server side. All of these settings are optional.

NOTE
The HTTP* tag denotes data sources that communicate using the HTTP protocol, including all core data source plugins except MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MSSQL.

Name	Type	Data source	Description
tlsCACert	string	HTTP*, MySQL, PostgreSQL	CA cert for out going requests
tlsClientCert	string	HTTP*, MySQL, PostgreSQL	TLS Client cert for outgoing requests
tlsClientKey	string	HTTP*, MySQL, PostgreSQL	TLS Client key for outgoing requests
password	string	HTTP*, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL	password
basicAuthPassword	string	HTTP*	password for basic authentication
accessKey	string	Cloudwatch	Access key for connecting to Cloudwatch
secretKey	string	Cloudwatch	Secret key for connecting to Cloudwatch
sigV4AccessKey	string	Elasticsearch and Prometheus	SigV4 access key. Required when using keys auth provider
sigV4SecretKey	string	Elasticsearch and Prometheus	SigV4 secret key. Required when using keys auth provider

Custom HTTP headers for data sources

Data sources managed by Grafanas provisioning can be configured to add HTTP headers to all requests going to that data source. The header name is configured in the jsonData field and the header value should be configured in secureJsonData.

yaml
apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: Graphite
    jsonData:
      httpHeaderName1: 'HeaderName'
      httpHeaderName2: 'Authorization'
    secureJsonData:
      httpHeaderValue1: 'HeaderValue'
      httpHeaderValue2: 'Bearer XXXXXXXXX'

Plugins

NOTE
Available in Grafana v7.1 and higher.

You can manage plugin applications in Grafana by adding one or more YAML config files in the provisioning/plugins directory. Each config file can contain a list of apps that will be updated during start up. Grafana updates each app to match the configuration file.

NOTE
This feature enables you to provision plugin configurations, not the plugins themselves. The plugins must already be installed on the Grafana instance.

Example plugin configuration file

yaml
apiVersion: 1

apps:
  # <string> the type of app, plugin identifier. Required
  - type: raintank-worldping-app
    # <int> Org ID. Default to 1, unless org_name is specified
    org_id: 1
    # <string> Org name. Overrides org_id unless org_id not specified
    org_name: Main Org.
    # <bool> disable the app. Default to false.
    disabled: false
    # <map> fields that will be converted to json and stored in jsonData. Custom per app.
    jsonData:
      # key/value pairs of string to object
      key: value
    # <map> fields that will be converted to json, encrypted and stored in secureJsonData. Custom per app.
    secureJsonData:
      # key/value pairs of string to string
      key: value

Dashboards

You can manage dashboards in Grafana by adding one or more YAML config files in the provisioning/dashboards directory. Each config file can contain a list of dashboards providers that load dashboards into Grafana from the local filesystem.

The dashboard provider config file looks somewhat like this:

yaml
apiVersion: 1

providers:
  # <string> an unique provider name. Required
  - name: 'a unique provider name'
    # <int> Org id. Default to 1
    orgId: 1
    # <string> name of the dashboard folder.
    folder: ''
    # <string> folder UID. will be automatically generated if not specified
    folderUid: ''
    # <string> provider type. Default to 'file'
    type: file
    # <bool> disable dashboard deletion
    disableDeletion: false
    # <int> how often Grafana will scan for changed dashboards
    updateIntervalSeconds: 10
    # <bool> allow updating provisioned dashboards from the UI
    allowUiUpdates: false
    options:
      # <string, required> path to dashboard files on disk. Required when using the 'file' type
      path: /var/lib/grafana/dashboards
      # <bool> use folder names from filesystem to create folders in Grafana
      foldersFromFilesStructure: true

When Grafana starts, it will update/insert all dashboards available in the configured path. Then later on poll that path every updateIntervalSeconds and look for updated json files and update/insert those into the database.

Note: Dashboards are provisioned to the root level if the folder option is missing or empty.

Making changes to a provisioned dashboard

It’s possible to make changes to a provisioned dashboard in the Grafana UI. However, it is not possible to automatically save the changes back to the provisioning source. If allowUiUpdates is set to true and you make changes to a provisioned dashboard, you can Save the dashboard then changes will be persisted to the Grafana database.

Note: If a provisioned dashboard is saved from the UI and then later updated from the source, the dashboard stored in the database will always be overwritten. The version property in the JSON file will not affect this, even if it is lower than the existing dashboard.
If a provisioned dashboard is saved from the UI and the source is removed, the dashboard stored in the database will be deleted unless the configuration option disableDeletion is set to true.

If allowUiUpdates is configured to false, you are not able to make changes to a provisioned dashboard. When you click Save, Grafana brings up a Cannot save provisioned dashboard dialog. The screenshot below illustrates this behavior.

Grafana offers options to export the JSON definition of a dashboard. Either Copy JSON to Clipboard or Save JSON to file can help you synchronize your dashboard changes back to the provisioning source.

Note: The JSON definition in the input field when using Copy JSON to Clipboard or Save JSON to file will have the id field automatically removed to aid the provisioning workflow.

Reusable Dashboard URLs

If the dashboard in the JSON file contains an UID, Grafana forces insert/update on that UID. This allows you to migrate dashboards between Grafana instances and provisioning Grafana from configuration without breaking the URLs given because the new dashboard URL uses the UID as identifier. When Grafana starts, it updates/inserts all dashboards available in the configured folders. If you modify the file, then the dashboard is also updated. By default, Grafana deletes dashboards in the database if the file is removed. You can disable this behavior using the disableDeletion setting.

NOTE
Provisioning allows you to overwrite existing dashboards which leads to problems if you reuse settings that are supposed to be unique. Be careful not to reuse the same title multiple times within a folder or uid within the same installation as this will cause weird behaviors.

Provision folders structure from filesystem to Grafana

If you already store your dashboards using folders in a git repo or on a filesystem, and also you want to have the same folder names in the Grafana menu, you can use foldersFromFilesStructure option.

For example, to replicate these dashboards structure from the filesystem to Grafana,

/etc/dashboards
├── /server
│   ├── /common_dashboard.json
│   └── /network_dashboard.json
└── /application
    ├── /requests_dashboard.json
    └── /resources_dashboard.json

you need to specify just this short provision configuration file.

yaml
apiVersion: 1

providers:
  - name: dashboards
    type: file
    updateIntervalSeconds: 30
    options:
      path: /etc/dashboards
      foldersFromFilesStructure: true

server and application will become new folders in Grafana menu.

NOTE
folder and folderUid options should be empty or missing to make foldersFromFilesStructure work.

NOTE
To provision dashboards to the root level, store them in the root of your path.

NOTE
This feature doesn’t currently allow you to create nested folder structures, that is, where you have folders within folders.

Alerting

For information on provisioning Grafana Alerting, refer to Provision Grafana Alerting resources.

Supported Settings

The following sections detail the supported settings and secure settings for each alert notification type. Secure settings are stored encrypted in the database and you add them to secure_settings in the YAML file instead of settings.

NOTE
Secure settings is supported since Grafana v7.2.

Alert notification `pushover`

Name	Secure setting
apiToken	yes
userKey	yes
device
priority
okPriority
retry
expire
sound
okSound

Alert notification `discord`

Name	Secure setting
url	yes
avatar_url
content
use_discord_username

Alert notification `slack`

Name	Secure setting
url	yes
recipient
username
icon_emoji
icon_url
uploadImage
mentionUsers
mentionGroups
mentionChannel
token	yes

Alert notification `victorops`

Name
url
autoResolve

Alert notification `kafka`

Name
kafkaRestProxy
kafkaTopic

Alert notification `LINE`

Name	Secure setting
token	yes

Alert notification `pagerduty`

Name	Secure setting
integrationKey	yes
autoResolve

Alert notification `sensu`

Name	Secure setting
url
source
handler
username
password	yes

Alert notification `sensugo`

Name	Secure setting
url
apikey	yes
entity
check
handler
namespace

Alert notification `prometheus-alertmanager`

Name	Secure setting
url
basicAuthUser
basicAuthPassword	yes

Alert notification `teams`

Name
url

Alert notification `dingding`

Name
url

Alert notification `email`

Name
singleEmail
addresses

Alert notification `hipchat`

Name
url
apikey
roomid

Alert notification `opsgenie`

Name	Secure setting
apiKey	yes
apiUrl
autoClose
overridePriority
sendTagsAs

Alert notification `telegram`

Name	Secure setting
bottoken	yes
chatid
uploadImage

Alert notification `threema`

Name	Secure setting
gateway_id
recipient_id
api_secret	yes

Alert notification `webhook`

Name	Secure setting
url
httpMethod
username
password	yes

Alert notification `googlechat`

Name
url

Alert notification `Cisco Webex Teams`

Name	Secure setting
message
room_id
api_url
bot_token	yes