--- title: "The Essential Guide to Grafana Docker Monitoring" description: "Learn the essentials of monitoring your Docker runtime using Prometheus along with Grafana Docker containers in this ATA Learning tutorial!" canonical: "https://adamtheautomator.com/grafana-docker/" --- # The Essential Guide to Grafana Docker Monitoring > Learn the essentials of monitoring your Docker runtime using Prometheus along with Grafana Docker containers in this ATA Learning tutorial! Source: https://adamtheautomator.com/grafana-docker/ --- ATA Learning Tap to hide [ ATA Learning ](/) * [Home](/) * [Tutorials](/tutorials/) * [Instructors](/author/) * [Advertising](/advertising/) * [Recommended Resources](/resources/) * [About Adam](/about-adam/) Search for: * [](https://twitter.com/adbertram) * [](https://github.com/Adam-the-Automator) * [](https://www.linkedin.com/company/adam-the-automator-llc) * [](/feed/) ![The Essential Guide to Grafana Docker Monitoring](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/The-Essential-Guide-to-Grafana-Docker-Monitoring.jpg) # The Essential Guide to Grafana Docker Monitoring [![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ff757e22f03c8a84ce8a2b8f87c53481ba627afec8bd1c8fda5c576097ea027c?s=192&d=mm&r=g)Joseph Eshiett](https://adamtheautomator.com/author/joseph-eshiett/)17 May 202210 min. read Categories: [IT Ops](/category/it-ops/) Tags:[Docker](/tag/docker/)[Grafana](/tag/grafana/)[Prometheus](/tag/prometheus/)[Ubuntu Linux](/tag/ubuntu-linux/) Table of Contents * [Prerequisites](#prerequisites) * [Configuring Docker for Grafana](#configuring-docker-for-grafana) * [Accessing the Docker Metrics](#accessing-the-docker-metrics) * [Setting up Prometheus to Run on Docker](#setting-up-prometheus-to-run-on-docker) * [Running Prometheus and Grafana on Docker](#running-prometheus-and-grafana-on-docker) * [Securing Grafana with NGINX and Let’s Encrypt](#securing-grafana-with-nginx-and-lets-encrypt) * [Creating Visualization in Grafana](#creating-visualization-in-grafana) * [Conclusion](#conclusion) Prometheus and Grafana are great tools for both metric data collection and visualization. But like any other tool, both have their strengths and weaknesses. To get the most out of your metric data, you’ll have both Prometheus and Grafana Docker Monitoring tools work in tandem. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to monitor your Docker instance and collect time-series data for analysis with Grafana Docker monitoring. Read on and take your workflow to a whole new level! ## Prerequisites This tutorial comprises hands-on demonstrations. To follow along, make sure to have the following: * An Ubuntu 20.04 machine – This tutorial uses the Ubuntu 20.04 machine as the Docker host. Related:[How to Install Ubuntu 20.04 \[Step-by-Step\]](https://adamtheautomator.com/install-ubuntu/) * [Docker CE (Community Edition)](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/#install-using-the-repository) and [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/#install-compose-on-linux-systems) – This tutorial uses Docker version 20.10.14 and Docker Compose version 1.29.2 Related:[How to Install and Use Docker on Ubuntu (In the Real World)](https://adamtheautomator.com/docker-ubuntu/) * Configure your [firewall](https://adamtheautomator.com/ufw-firewall/) rules to allow traffic on ports 80, 443, and 9323 for HTTP and HTTPS connection and your Docker metrics. * A user with [sudo](https://www.vultr.com/docs/create-a-sudo-user-on-ubuntu-best-practices) privileges. * A registered domain name that points to your server’s IP address – This tutorial uses NGINX as a reverse proxy to route traffic to Grafana through the domain name to Grafana running in Docker. Related:[How To Serve NGINX Subdomains or Multiple Domains](https://adamtheautomator.com/nginx-subdomain/) ## Configuring Docker for Grafana Before viewing all sorts of Docker metrics on Grafana, you must configure Docker first to expose its metrics via an HTTP endpoint. These Docker metrics can be states of containers available on the Docker host and resource utilization of each container. To expose the Docker metrics, you’ll create a _.json_ file to configure the Docker daemon: 1\. Open the _daemon.json_ file in the _/etc/docker/_ directory using your preferred text editor and add the following code. The code below configures the Docker daemon to expose the Docker metrics at 0.0.0.0 via port 9323 (endpoint: _http://0.0.0.0:9323_). ```bash { "metrics-addr" : "0.0.0.0:9323", "experimental" : true } ``` 2\. Run the following command to `restart` the `docker` service for the changes you made on the _daemon.json_ file to take effect. This command doesn’t provide output, but you’ll check the Docker service’s status in the following step. ```bash sudo service docker restart ``` 3\. Lastly, run the below command to confirm that the Docker service is running properly. ```bash sudo service docker status ``` The output below indicates the Docker service is **active (running)**. As you see in the logs, the Docker metrics API is listening on **0.0.0.0:9323**. ![Verifying the Docker Service is Running](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-243.png) Verifying the Docker Service is Running ## Accessing the Docker Metrics Now that you’ve configured Docker for Grafana, feel free to access your raw and unrefined Docker metrics, but only in plain text format. You can access your Docker metrics via the endpoint you set in the _daemon.json_ file. Run the `curl` command below to view your Docker metrics via the localhost endpoint (`http://localhost:9323/metrics`). ```bash curl -i ``` Your raw and unrefined Docker metrics (metric queries and values) should look similar to those below. ![Accessing Docker Metrics](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-244.png) Accessing Docker Metrics Since this tutorial focuses only on container state metrics, pipe the `grep` command to extract metrics on the state of available Docker containers. ```bash curl -i | grep containers ``` The image below displays the queries and values for the different container states (**paused**, **running**, and **stopped**). The values for each query shown below are set to 0 for all the container states, indicating no containers are currently available. ![Finding Docker Metric Queries for the Docker Container States](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-245.png) Finding Docker Metric Queries for the Docker Container States ## Setting up Prometheus to Run on Docker The Docker metrics are currently exposed via the endpoint you previously configured. Now it’s time to set up Prometheus to run on Docker via Docker-compose. You’ll configure a job on Prometheus to scrape the Docker metric data from the exposed endpoint configured as a Prometheus target. 1\. Run each command below to create a project directory (`~/monitoring`) and configuration directories as volumes for each service running via Docker-compose. ```bash # Create a directory for prometheus.yml, # docker-compose.yml configuration file for the Prometheus, # Grafana, NGINX, and Certbot container deployments mkdir -p ~/monitoring/prometheus # Create a directory for Grafana datasource configurations mkdir -p ~/monitoring/grafana/provisioning/datasources # Create a directory for NGINX configurations mkdir -p ~/monitoring/nginx/conf # Create www and conf directories for Certbot configurations mkdir -p ~/monitoring/certbot/www mkdir -p ~/monitoring/certbot/conf # Set ~/monitoring directory as the working directory cd monitoring ``` 2\. Next, create a file called _prometheus.yml_ with your preferred editor in the _~/monitoring/prometheus_ directory, and populate the code below. Be sure to replace `` with your server’s IP address, and save the changes. Without this file, Prometheus can’t scrape metrics and store them in a time-series database for analysis. The following code configures Prometheus and the Docker metric endpoint as a target on Prometheus for scraping at set intervals. ```yaml # Set global configuration global: scrape_interval: 15s # By default, scrape targets every 15 seconds. evaluation_interval: 15s # By default, scrape targets every 15 seconds. # scrape_timeout is set to the global default (10s). # Attach these labels to any time series or alerts when communicating with # external systems (federation, remote storage, Alertmanager). external_labels: monitor: 'my-project' # Load and evaluate rules in this file every 'evaluation_interval' seconds. rule_files: # - "first.rules" # - "second.rules" # A scrape configuration containing exactly one endpoint to scrape: # Here it's Prometheus itself. scrape_configs: # The job name is added as a label `job=` to any timeseries # scraped from this config. - job_name: 'prometheus' # Override the global default and scrape targets from this job every 5 seconds. scrape_interval: 5s static_configs: - targets: ['localhost:9090'] - job_name: 'docker-metrics' scrape_interval: 5s static_configs: # Replace with your server IP - targets: [':9323'] ``` 3\. Create another file called _datasource.yml_ in the _~/monitoring/grafana/provisioning/datasources_ directory, add the code below and save the file. The code below sets Prometheus as a data source on Grafana since Grafana requires a data source to pull data from. ```yaml # config file version apiVersion: 1 # list of datasources to insert/update depending # on what's available in the database datasources: # name of the datasource. Required - name: Prometheus # datasource type. Required type: prometheus # access mode. direct or proxy. Required access: proxy # url url: http://prometheus:9090 ``` 4\. Lastly, create a file named _grafana.config_ in the _~/monitoring/grafana/provisioning/_ directory and add the configurations below. The following lines set your Grafana admin password and user sign-up to `false` as you will not need the feature. ```yaml GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin GF_USERS_ALLOW_SIGN_UP=false ``` ## Running Prometheus and Grafana on Docker You’ve created the necessary configurations and dependencies to run Prometheus and Docker. So it’s time to start up Prometheus and Grafana from the _docker-compose.yml_ configuration file you will create shortly. Create a configuration file called _docker-compose.yml_ in your project’s root directory (_~/monitoring_), add the code below, save the file and close the editor. The following configuration uses version 3.7 of the Docker-compose file format and defines all Prometheus and Grafana configurations. ```yaml version: '3.7' # Persist data from Prometheus and Grafana with Docker volumes volumes: prometheus_data: {} grafana_data: {} # Connect containers via the front-tier and back-tier network networks: backend: # Container services services: prometheus: # Prometheus uses the latest image image: prom/prometheus:latest # Stores Prometheus data locally in the prometheus directory volumes: - ./prometheus/:/etc/prometheus/ - prometheus_data:/prometheus # Setup commands for Prometheus command: - '--config.file=/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml' - '--storage.tsdb.path=/prometheus' - '--web.console.libraries=/usr/share/prometheus/console_libraries' - '--web.console.templates=/usr/share/prometheus/consoles' # Exposes port 9090 to access Prometheus web UI ports: - 9090:9090 # Connects Prometheus service to the back-tier network networks: - backend # Restart policy for Prometheus service set to always restart: always grafana: # Grafana uses the latest image image: grafana/grafana:latest # Sets user ID to 472 user: "472" depends_on: - prometheus ports: - 3000:3000 volumes: - grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana - ./grafana/provisioning/:/etc/grafana/provisioning/ env_file: - ./grafana/grafana.config networks: - backend restart: always ``` Now, run the [`docker-compose up`](https://docs.docker.com/compose/reference/up/) command below to create a container in detached (`-d`) mode. This command runs Prometheus and Grafana on Docker via Docker-composes as configured in the _docker-compose.yml_ file. ```bash sudo docker-compose up -d ``` ![Running Prometheus and Grafana on Docker via Docker-compose](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/318ecfe0-9387-4426-9747-efe43ddc5cff/Untitled.png) ![Running Prometheus and Grafana on Docker via Docker-compose](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-246.png) Running Prometheus and Grafana on Docker via Docker-compose ## Securing Grafana with NGINX and Let’s Encrypt Your Grafana dashboard at this point can be accessed and intercepted by attackers. How to secure the dashboard? You’ll need NGINX to act as a reverse proxy to route traffic to your domain name. At the same time, you’ll set up SSL certificates with Let’s Encrypt to authenticate your server. Related:[Create an NGINX Reverse Proxy in Docker](https://adamtheautomator.com/nginx-reverse-proxy-in-docker/) Create another docker-compose config file called _docker-compose-nginx.yml_ in your project’s root directory (_~/monitoring_), and add the code below to the file. The following code serves as NGINX and Certbot docker-compose service configurations, setting NGINX to listen to ports 80 for HTTP connections and 443 for HTTPS. Related:[Activating NGINX to Redirect HTTP to HTTPS Traffic](https://adamtheautomator.com/nginx-to-redirect-http-to-https/) ```yaml version: '3' services: # NGINX service nginx: # NGINX uses the latest image image: nginx:latest ports: - 80:80 - 443:443 # NGINX service restart policy set to "always" restart: always # Persist and share NGINX configuration data volumes: - ./nginx/conf/:/etc/nginx/conf.d/ - ./certbot/www:/var/www/certbot/ - ./certbot/conf/:/etc/nginx/ssl/ # Certbot service certbot: image: certbot/certbot:latest # Persist and share Certbot configuration data volumes: - ./certbot/www/:/var/www/certbot/ - ./certbot/conf/:/etc/letsencrypt/ ``` 2\. Next, create a file named _nginx.conf_ in the _~/monitoring/nginx/conf_ directory and add the configuration below to the _nginx.conf_ file. The code snippet below configures NGINX as a reverse proxy to route incoming traffic port through the default port 80 to the Grafana port 3000. Be sure to replace all occurrences of `grafana.example.com` with your Grafana endpoint URL. > _Be sure to replace all occurrences of `grafana.example.com` on each code and command through this tutorial with your Grafana endpoint URL._ ```bash server { # Listen for incoming connections on port 80 listen 80 default_server; # Set your Grafana endpoint URL server_name grafana.example.com; # Location to store certbot configurations location ~ /.well-known/acme-challenge/ { root /var/www/certbot; } location / { # Assign incoming requests from port 80 to this URL proxy_pass http://grafana.example.com:3000/; } } ``` 3\. Run the `docker-compose` command below to reload the NGINX container to apply the NGINX configurations (`docker-compose-nginx.yml`). ```bash sudo docker-compose -f docker-compose-nginx.yml exec nginx nginx -s reload ``` As soon as you run the command, you’ll get the following output. ![Reloading NGINX Container](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-247.png) Reloading NGINX Container 4\. Now, run the below command to run the Certbot container and create the certificates in the _/etc/letsencrypt/_ directory. Be sure to change `grafana.example.com` with your domain name. You can access the certificates stored in the _/etc/letsencrypt/_ directory locally in _/certbot/conf_. ```bash # Change grafana.example.com to your Grafana URL sudo docker-compose -f docker-compose-nginx.yml run \ --rm certbot certonly --webroot \ -w /var/www/certbot -d grafana.example.com ``` Once the certificates are created, you’ll get the following output. ![Creating Certificates](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-248.png) Creating Certificates 5\. Open the _nginx.conf_ file and add the following code to allow access to Grafana via HTTPS: ```bash server { # Listen for incoming connections on port 80 listen 80 default_server; # Change grafana.example.com to your Grafana endpoint URL server_name grafana.example.com; # Return all HTTP requests to URL to HTTPS return 301 https://grafana.example.com$request_uri; } server { # Listen form incoming connections on port 443 via HTTPS listen 443 ssl http2; # SSL certificate and private key ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/live/grafana.example.com/fullchain.pem; ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/live/grafana.example.com/privkey.pem; # Change grafana.example.com to your Grafana endpoint URL server_name grafana.example.com; location ~ /.well-known/acme-challenge/ { # Location to store certbot configurations root /var/www/certbot; } location / { # Assign incoming requests from port 80 to this URL proxy_pass http://grafana.example.com:3000/; } } ``` 6\. Next, run the following command to apply the modified NGINX configurations. ```bash sudo docker-compose -f docker-compose-nginx.yml exec nginx nginx -s reload ``` 7\. Finally, open your favorite web browser and navigate to your domain name. This article uses the domain name _grafana.joeshiett.xyz_. You’ll get secure access to Grafana (login page) if all goes well, as shown below. ![Accessing Grafana Securely with SSL Certificates](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-249.png) Accessing Grafana Securely with SSL Certificates ## Creating Visualization in Grafana With everything set up and running, you’re ready to create your first visualization in Grafana to view your Docker metrics. But you’ll first have to log in to Grafana to access your Grafana dashboard. 1\. Log in to your Grafana with admin as the **Username** and **Password**. ![Logging into Grafana Dashboard ](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-250.png) Logging into Grafana Dashboard Once logged in, you’ll be on the Grafana home page shown below. ![Viewing Grafana’s Home Page](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-251.png) Viewing Grafana’s Home Page 2\. Click on the **+** icon (left toolbar) and choose **Dashboard** to access your Grafana dashboard to see options for creating a new dashboard. ![Navigating to Grafana Dashboard](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-252.png) Navigating to Grafana Dashboard 3\. On the dashboard, click **Add a new panel** to create a panel where you can visualize your Docker metrics. ![Adding a New Panel](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-253.png) Adding a New Panel 4\. Now, click on the drop-down menu and select **Prometheus**, as shown below, to add Prometheus to the panel as a Data source. ![Adding Prometheus Data Source](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-254.png) Adding Prometheus Data Source 5\. Add the following Docker metric query to the Metric browser field to get the different states of available Docker containers. ````bash ```bash engine_daemon_container_states_containers{} ``` ```` ![Running Docker Metric Query ](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-255.png) Running Docker Metric Query > _To query for specific Docker state on Grafana, run the following queries: engine\_daemon\_container\_states\_containers{state=”running”} engine\_daemon\_container\_states\_containers{state=”paused”} engine\_daemon\_container\_states\_containers{state=”stopped”}_ 6\. Next, click the drop-down menu (top-right of the page) to see other types of visualization you can choose. ![Accessing Visualization Menu](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-256.png) Accessing Visualization Menu 7\. Choose your preferred visualization from the list, but this tutorial uses the **Stat** visualization. ![Setting Stat Visualization ](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-257.png) Setting Stat Visualization If you choose the **Stat** visualization, your new dashboard should look similar to the one below. For this tutorial, the number **3** represents three running containers, **1** represents one stopped container, and **0** represents no paused container. ![Viewing Stat Visualization](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-258.png) Viewing Stat Visualization 8\. Change the panel **Title** as you like under **Panel options** (right panel) and click on **Save** (top-right). The panel title is set to **Docker States** in this tutorial. After saving the title, a pop-up window appears where you’ll set a name for your dashboard (step nine). ![Saving the Panel Title](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-259.png) Saving the Panel Title 9\. Finally, name the dashboard as you like, but the dashboard is called **Docker Metrics** in this tutorial. Once you’re happy with the dashboard name, click on the **Save** button to save the dashboard. ![Saving Dashboard](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-260.png) Saving Dashboard Your dashboard (**Docker Metrics**) should now be available on your Grafana Home page, as shown below. At this point, you now have a fully functional dashboard you can use to monitor your Docker metrics. ![Dashboard available on Grafana Home page](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-261.png) Dashboard available on Grafana Home page ## Conclusion In this tutorial, you learned how to export Docker metrics to Prometheus via the configured endpoint and made queries on Prometheus to display their values. You’ve also configured Prometheus as a data source on Grafana and finally created a sample dashboard to better view the values obtained from the metric query. To build on this newfound knowledge, why not set up alerts with [Alertmanager](https://grafana.com/docs/grafana/latest/datasources/alertmanager/), and set up both Prometheus and Grafana on a separate dedicated Ubuntu server? You can also configure more dashboards to your heart’s content so you can view more metrics on your Grafana Home page. 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