Grafana in Docker

Introduction

This guide will cover how to host a local Grafana instance as a Docker Container. This guide will use Portainer as a graphical front end for Docker, but the steps should remain relatively similar if using docker-compose or another graphical front end.

Prerequisites

Docker must be installed before proceeding. Portainer can optionally be installed.

OSS vs Enterprise

There are two versions: OSS (open source) and Enterprise. They are both free and have the same features. If you may want to get a license and pay for Grafana then use the Enterprise version as it can be unlocked without needing to reinstall. I will use the OSS version in this guide.

Stack File

Open up Portainer and create a new Stack file. I use "grafana" as the name for my stack file. Paste in the below docker-compose into the stack file:

services:
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana-oss
    container_name: grafana
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - grafana-data:/var/lib/grafana
    restart: unless-stopped
 
volumes:
  grafana-data:

Change Ports

If you want to change the ports, update the ports section. The left value is what is exposed to your operating system. So to use port "9999" it can be updated to:

    ports:
     - '9999:3000'

Sign In

Open Web Browser

By default Grafana should be running on http://localhost:3000. If you installed Grafana on a different host than what you use to connect to it, replace "localhost" with the internal IP address of the host where Grafana was installed.

Credentials

The username and password is admin.

When prompted, change the password to something more secure.

Once you have signed in you can begin adding data sources and creating dashboards.