Grafana Guide for the Monitoring Stack¶

Grafana provides the dashboards and log views for the monitoring lab.

Important Files¶

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

What Happens Automatically¶

Grafana is provisioned on startup, so you do not need to create data sources and dashboards by hand every time.

That usually gives you:

A Prometheus data source
A Loki data source
A ready-made dashboard for the stack

Why Provisioning Matters¶

Keeps dashboards reproducible
Prevents manual drift
Makes reviews easier because changes live in Git

What to Validate¶

Prometheus data source is healthy
Loki data source is healthy
Dashboards load without broken panels
Panels show useful host, container, and probe metrics

Good Dashboard Areas¶

CPU, memory, disk, and network
Container resource trends
Prometheus target health
Probe success rate
Recent logs from Loki
Alert summary

Quick Check¶

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

Default login:

Username: admin
Password: admin

FAQ¶

What is Grafana used for?¶

Grafana is used to build dashboards, explore metrics and logs, and make system health easier to understand during normal operations and incidents.

Does Grafana store metrics?¶

Grafana usually visualizes data from other systems. In this stack, metrics come from Prometheus and logs come from Loki.

Why provision Grafana dashboards?¶

Provisioning keeps data sources and dashboards reproducible. It also lets teams review dashboard changes in Git instead of relying on manual UI edits.

What should a good monitoring dashboard show?¶

A useful dashboard shows service health, latency or probe success, resource usage, error signals, recent logs, and alert context without overwhelming the operator.