GRAFANA
MASTERY

What is Grafana?

Grafana is an open-source platform for monitoring and observability. It connects to multiple data sources and creates interactive, beautiful dashboards.

Key Features

• Visualizations: Graphs, tables, heatmaps, and more
• Alerts: Notify when metrics cross thresholds
• Templating: Dynamic, reusable dashboards
• Plugins: Extend with additional data sources

Installing Grafana

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https software-properties-common
wget -q -O - https://packages.grafana.com/gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://packages.grafana.com/oss/deb stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install grafana

# Start service
sudo systemctl start grafana-server
sudo systemctl enable grafana-server

First Login

Navigate to http://localhost:3000 and login with admin/admin.

Quiz

Supported Data Sources

• Prometheus: Metrics and alerts
• InfluxDB: Time series data
• MySQL/PostgreSQL: SQL databases
• Graphite: Metrics
• Elasticsearch: Logs and metrics

Adding a Data Source

1. Click Configuration (gear icon) → Data Sources
2. Click "Add data source"
3. Select your data source type
4. Configure connection details
5. Click "Save & Test"

Prometheus Example

# In Grafana:
URL: http://localhost:9090
Access: Server (default)
Auth: None (for local)

# Click Save & Test

Quiz

Creating a Dashboard

1. Click "+" icon → Dashboard
2. Click "Add new panel"
3. Select your data source
4. Write a query
5. Configure panel options
6. Click "Save" (Ctrl+S)

A Simple Query

# For Prometheus:
up

# This returns 1 if target is up, 0 if down

Panel Editor

• Queries tab: Write data queries
• Visualization: Choose graph type
• Panel options: Title, description
• Field: Units, decimals
• Alert: Create alerts

Quiz

Graph Panel

Time series visualization. Best for metrics over time.

• Lines, bars, or points
• Multiple series
• Time range selection

Stat Panel

Single big number with optional sparkline.

Gauge Panel

Display current value on a gauge. Good for thresholds.

Table Panel

Tabular data. Transform query results.

Heatmap

Visualize density. Great for frequency data.

Logs Panel

Display log entries. Filter and search.

Quiz

Template Variables

Variables make dashboards dynamic and reusable.

Creating Variables

1. Dashboard settings (gear icon)
2. Variables → Add variable
3. Configure name, query, and options

Example Variable

# Query:
label_values(up, job)

# This creates a dropdown of all job labels

Using Variables in Queries

# Use $variable in queries:
up{job="$job"}

# Or multi-select:
up{job=~"$job"}

Quiz

Creating Alerts

1. Edit a panel
2. Go to "Alert" section
3. Click "Create Alert"
4. Configure conditions
5. Set evaluation interval

Alert Conditions

• OF: Query results
• IS BELOW/Above: Threshold
• FOR: Duration to trigger

Notification Channels

• Email: Simple notifications
• Slack: Team notifications
• PagerDuty: Incident management
• Webhook: Custom integrations
• Telegram: Bot notifications

Configuring Slack

1. Configuration → Notification channels
2. Add Slack
3. Provide Slack webhook URL
4. Select default channels

Quiz

PromQL Basics

# All metrics
up

# With label filter
up{job="node"}

# Rate (per second)
rate(http_requests_total[5m])

# Sum by label
sum by (job) (up)

# Histogram quantile
histogram_quantile(0.95, rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket[5m]))

Useful Prometheus Queries

• CPU usage: 100 - (avg by (instance) (rate(node_cpu_seconds_total{mode="idle"}[5m])) * 100)
• Memory usage: (1 - (node_memory_MemAvailable_bytes / node_memory_MemTotal_bytes)) * 100
• Disk usage: (node_filesystem_size_bytes{mountpoint="/"} - node_filesystem_avail_bytes{mountpoint="/"}) / node_filesystem_size_bytes{mountpoint="/"} * 100

Grafana Explore

Use Explore (compass icon) to query data without creating dashboards.

Quiz

What are Annotations?

Annotations mark events on your graphs. They're perfect for showing deployments, incidents, or changes.

Adding Annotations

1. Click on a graph
2. Click "Add annotation"
3. Enter title and text
4. Optionally set tags

Custom Data Source Annotations

Query annotations from your data source:

# Example query for annotations
SELECT time, title, text FROM events WHERE $__timeFilter(time)

Use Cases

• Deployments
• Incidents
• Config changes
• Maintenance windows

Quiz

Installing Plugins

# Install via CLI
grafana-cli plugins install 

# Or via UI
# Configuration → Plugins → Install

Popular Plugins

• Worldmap Panel: Geographic visualization
• Clock Panel: Time display
• Polystat: Status at a glance
• Apache ECharts: Advanced charting

Transformations

Transform data before visualization:

• Reduce: Aggregate rows
• Filter by name: Include/exclude fields
• Organize fields: Rename, hide, reorder
• Outer join: Merge series
• Calculate fields: Math operations

Quiz

Users & Permissions

• Admin: Full access
• Editor: Can edit dashboards
• Viewer: View only

Organizations

Separate teams or environments:

• Each org has own data sources
• Users belong to orgs
• Switch org in user menu

Teams

1. Configuration → Teams
2. Create team
3. Add members
4. Set team permissions

SSO Integration

• OAuth (GitHub, Google, etc.)
• LDAP/Active Directory
• SAML

Quiz

What is Provisioning?

Configure Grafana as code. No manual setup needed.

Provisioned Files

• datasources/ Data source configs
• dashboards/ Dashboard definitions
• notifiers/ Notification channels

Example Datasource Config

# /etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources/prometheus.yml
apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: Prometheus
    type: prometheus
    access: proxy
    url: http://localhost:9090
    isDefault: true

Dashboard Provisioning

# /etc/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/default.yml
apiVersion: 1

providers:
  - name: 'Default'
    folder: 'Dashboards'
    type: file
    options:
      path: /var/lib/grafana/dashboards

Quiz

Dashboard Design

• Start with high-level overview
• Drill down with detail dashboards
• Use consistent naming
• Add descriptions to panels

Performance Tips

• Reduce query frequency
• Use recording rules for complex queries
• Limit time range by default
• Disable unused panels

Security

• Use HTTPS in production
• Enable authentication
• Restrict data source access
• Rotate API keys

Alert Best Practices

• Alert on symptoms, not causes
• Set reasonable thresholds
• Avoid alert storms
• Include runbook links

Congratulations!

You've completed the Grafana Mastery guide. You now understand:

• Grafana fundamentals
• Data source configuration
• Dashboard creation
• Visualization types
• Variables and templating
• Alerts and notifications
• Prometheus queries
• Annotations
• Plugins and transformations
• User management
• Provisioning
• Best practices