Docker: how to work with Grafana and influxdb

In this article i will show you how to create a docker-compose file that will create a Grafana and an influxdb instance

Create the following docker-compose.yml fileversion: '3'
services:
 influxdb:
   image: influxdb:1.6.4
   container_name: influxdb
   ports:
     - 8086:8086
     - 8088:8088
   volumes:
     - /db_graf/influxdb:/var/lib/influxdb
   environment:
     - INFLUXDB_DB=METRICS
     - INFLUXDB_USERNAME=${INFLUXDB_USERNAME}
     - INFLUXDB_PASSWORD=${INFLUXDB_PASSWORD}
   networks:
     - external_network
 grafana:
   image: grafana/grafana:latest
   container_name: grafana
   ports:
     - 3000:3000
   volumes:
     - /db_graf/grafana-storage:/var/lib/grafana
     - /db_graf/grafana-provisioning/:/etc/grafana/provisioning
   depends_on:
     - influxdb
   environment:
     - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER=${GRAFANA_USERNAME}
     - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=${GRAFANA_PASSWORD}
   networks:
     - external_network
networks:
 external_network:
   external: true

I will not explain everything since i assume you know the basics of Docker

• volumes: all volumes are bind volumes

I know that the right way is to mess with the uid of the users inside the container in order to set rights but in order to simplify things i just chmod 777 the dirs

chmod 777 grafana-storage 
chmod 777 grafana-provisioning

• environment: various variables that the docker images need, their source is a .env file in the same directory as the docker-compose.yml file, i have left some environment variables of influxdb empty since i didn't want a username and a password.

The .env fileINFLUXDB_DB=METRICS
GRAFANA_USERNAME=admin
GRAFANA_PASSWORD=admin

networks, both containers are attached to an external network named external_network, you need to create the network first.docker network create external_network

Start your containers with docker-compose up inside the docker-compose.yml pathdocker-compose up -d

if everything is ok you should see the containers up and running using docker ps

Grafana configuration

On the url you need to enter the influxdb container name and its port

I hope you found this short article easy to follow and save you a lot of time configuring Grafana and influxdb