Ansible Role: 🌈 📊 Grafana

Table of Contents

• Supported Platforms
• Requirements
• Role Variables
  • Install
  • Config
  • Launch
  • Uninstall
• Dependencies
• Example Playbook
• License
• Author Information

This Ansible role installs and configures Grafana, a platform for analytics and monitoring.

Supported Platforms:

* Debian
* Redhat (CentOS/Fedora)
* Ubuntu

Requirements

You need to have the unzip/gtar tool installed on the target host. For more details, check the Ansible unarchive module notes. Also, make sure you have Grafana version 5.0 or higher.

Role Variables

The role variables are categorized into these stages:

• install
• config
• launch
• uninstall

Install

grafana can be installed using compressed files (.tar, .zip) or DEB and RPM packages, obtained from different sources.

The following variables can be changed to customize the installation process:

grafana_user: <service-user-name> (default: grafana)

grafana_group: <service-group-name> (default: grafana)

• This is the service user and group used by grafana for better security.

install_type: <package | archive> (default: archive)

• package: For Debian and Redhat distributions, it gets the specified package from the package management repository.

  • Note: The installation path is determined by the package system and defaults to /usr/{sbin,lib, share}.

• archive: It can use both tar and zip formats. You can get the installation files from local and remote compressed archives.

install_dir: </path/to/installation/dir> (default: /opt/grafana)

• Path on the target host where the grafana files will be saved.

archive_url: <path-or-url-to-archive> (default: see defaults/main.yml)

• Link to a compressed tar or zip file with grafana files. You can find links to official versions here.

archive_checksum: <path-or-url-to-checksum> (default: see defaults/main.yml)

• Link to a checksum file for checking the integrity of the grafana archive. It's a good practice to use it but it's not required.

package_url: <path-or-url-to-package> (default: see defaults/main.yml)

• Link to a debian (DEB) or RPM package with grafana files. You can find links to official versions here.

Config

With this role, you can customize your grafana installation using these components:

• Grafana service settings (grafana.ini)
• Data source setups (provisioning/datasources - *.[json|yml])
• Dashboard setups (provisioning/dashboards - *.[json|yml])
• Notifications (provisioning/notifiers - [json|yml])

Here are some configuration variables you can adjust:

config_dir: </path/to/configuration/dir> (default: {{ install_dir }})

• Path on the target host for the grafana config file.

provision_configs: <['datasources', 'dashboards' and/or 'notifiers']> (default: [])

• List of Grafana components to configure.

Grafana Service Configuration

The Grafana service settings are found in an INI file called grafana.ini. This file organizes different settings of the Grafana service.

You can define sections within the grafana_config hash, using key-value pairs for settings.

Example:

grafana_config:
  paths:
    data: /mnt/data/grafana
    logs: /mnt/logs/grafana

And others like:

server:
  http_addr: 127.0.0.1
  http_port: 3030

You can customize many sections related to the server, database, security, users, alerting, plugins, and more.

Launch

This role can start the grafana web server using the systemd tool.

You can adjust these variables to manage how the service is started:

extra_run_args: <grafana-cli-options> (default: [])

• Additional arguments for the grafana command when launched.

custom_unit_properties: <hash-of-systemd-service-settings> (default: [])

• Custom settings for the [Service] unit configuration and environment of the Grafana systemd service.

Uninstall

You can remove Grafana and its files, returning the host to its previous state.

You can customize this uninstall process with:

perform_uninstall: <true | false> (default: false)

• Set this to true to uninstall and delete everything related to grafana.

Dependencies

• 0x0i.systemd

Example Playbook

For a default installation:

- hosts: all
  roles:
  - role: 0x0I.grafana

To install a specific version of Grafana:

- hosts: all
  roles:
  - role: 0x0I.grafana
    vars:
      archive_url: https://dl.grafana.com/oss/release/grafana-6.6.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
      archive_checksum: 0edc8207e356ef66eb7b1c78a1cdabc2cd5c0655de774000de2ad0397e543377

To adjust installation paths:

- hosts: all
  roles:
  - role: 0x0I.grafana
    vars:
      install_dir: /usr/local
      config_dir: /etc/grafana
      data_dir: /mnt/grafana

To launch Grafana in debug mode:

- hosts: all
  roles:
  - role: 0x0I.grafana
    vars:
      grafana_config:
        log:
          level: debug
          mode: console

License

MIT

Author Information

This role was created in 2019 by O1.IO.