Grafana Dashboard Walkthrough

This page explains how Grafana is provisioned in the monitoring repository and what to validate after the stack starts.

Key Files

• grafana/provisioning/datasources/datasources.yml
• grafana/provisioning/dashboards/dashboards.yml
• grafana/dashboards/advanced-monitoring-dashboard.json

What Happens Automatically

Grafana is pre-provisioned, which means the repo loads core configuration on startup instead of relying on manual UI steps.

That gives you:

• Prometheus as a metrics data source
• Loki as a logs data source
• A ready-made dashboard for the stack

Why Provisioning Matters

Provisioning is important in DevOps because it makes dashboards reproducible.

Without provisioning:

• Environments drift
• Manual steps are forgotten
• Rebuilding monitoring becomes slower

With provisioning:

• Dashboards are version controlled
• Data source setup is repeatable
• Teams can review dashboard changes in Git

What to Validate in Grafana

After login, confirm:

• Prometheus data source is healthy
• Loki data source is healthy
• The dashboard loads without broken panels
• Panels show host, container, and probe metrics

Good Dashboard Areas to Include

• Host CPU, memory, disk, and network
• Container CPU and memory trends
• Prometheus target health
• Blackbox probe success rate
• Recent logs from Loki
• Alert state summary

Verification

docker compose logs -f grafana
curl http://localhost:3000/api/health

Default login:

• Username: admin
• Password: admin