Monthly Archives: January 2019

Setup Grafana, Influxdb, and Telegraf on Ubuntu 18.04

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There’s great how-tos out there, like this and this. This is just the striped down steps that worked for me. I’m not a expert in any of these services.

Overview:

Assuming you already have an Ubuntu VM/box setup and configured how you want.

  • Install & Configure Influxdb
  • Install & Configure Telegraf
  • Install & Configure Grafana
  • Configure SSL With Self-Signed Certs For Grafana
  • Setup Influxdb With Self-Signed Certs

Install & Configure Influxdb
See documentation for changes or newer versions.

Default config file: /etc/influxdb/influxdb.conf

Install influxdb 1.7.3 (current version at the time), and set as a service to start at boot:

wget https://dl.influxdata.com/influxdb/releases/influxdb_1.7.3_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i influxdb_1.7.3_amd64.deb
sudo systemctl start influxdb
sudo systemctl enable influxdb

create the default influxdb database and user:

create database telegraf
create user telegraf with password 'password'
GRANT ALL ON telegraf TO telegraf

Set a retention policy name “Two_Weeks” for db telegraf, set it to 14 days and make it the default policy:

CREATE RETENTION POLICY Two_Weeks ON telegraf DURATION 14d REPLICATION 1 DEFAULT

Sanity checks to show that the db, user, and retention policy were created:

show databases
show users
SHOW RETENTION POLICIES ON telegraf

Install & Configure Telegraf

See documentation for changes or newer versions.
Default config file: /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

Install Telegraf 1.9.2 (current version at the time), and start as a network service at boot:

wget https://dl.influxdata.com/telegraf/releases/telegraf_1.9.2-1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i telegraf_1.9.2-1_amd64.deb
sudo systemctl start telegraf
sudo systemctl enable telegraf
Create Telegraf Configuration File

If /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf already exist make sure at least these options are uncommented and updated to your appropriate settings. Other wise create the file and paste these settings in.

[agent]
hostname = "nameofyourgrafanaserver"
flush_interval = "15s"
interval = "15s"

[[inputs.cpu]]

[[inputs.mem]]

[[inputs.system]]

[[inputs.disk]]
mount_points = ["/"]

[[inputs.processes]]

[[inputs.net]]
fieldpass = [ "bytes_*" ]

[[outputs.influxdb]]
database = "telegraf"
urls = [ "http://127.0.0.1:8086" ]
username = "telegraf"
password = "password"

After updating the config file, always restart Telegraf:

sudo systemctl restart telegraf

To test that Telegraf is setup correct:

#path_to_telegraf -test -config /path_to_telegraf.conf
telegraf -test -config /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

Install & Configure Grafana

See documentation for changes or newer versions.

Default config file: /etc/grafana/grafana.ini

Default log file: /var/log/grafana

Install Grafana 5.4.3 (current version at the time), and set as a network service at boot.

wget https://dl.grafana.com/oss/release/grafana_5.4.3_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install -y adduser libfontconfig
sudo dpkg -i grafana_5.4.3_amd64.deb
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start grafana-server
sudo systemctl status grafana-server
sudo systemctl enable grafana-server.service

Logging in for the first time:

To run Grafana open your browser and go to http://localhost:3000/. 3000 is the default http port that Grafana listens to if you haven’t configured a different port. The defaults login ia admin/admin

Configure SSL With Self-Signed Certs For Grafana

Steps to enable SSL for Grafana. Change to the grafana config directory and create certs:

cd /etc/grafana
sudo openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout grafana-key.pem -out grafana-cert.pem -days 3650 -nodes

After creating the .pem files. Change the mode and owner:

sudo chmod 644 grafana-key.pem
sudo chmod 644 grafana-cert.pem
sudo chown root grafana-key.pem
sudo chown root grafana-cert.pem

Update /etc/grafana/grafana.ini with these options:

# Protocol (http, https, socket)
protocol = https

# https certs & key file
cert_file =/etc/grafana/grafana-cert.pem
cert_key =/etc/grafana/grafana-key.pem

Restart Grafana:

systemctl restart grafana-server

You should be able to access Grafana on https://localhost:3000/

Setup Influxdb With Self-Signed Certs:

Create the certs:

sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/ssl/influxdb-selfsigned.key -out /etc/ssl/influxdb-selfsigned.crt -days 3650

After creating the .pem files. Change the mode and owner:

sudo chmod 644 /etc/ssl/influxdb-selfsigned.crt
sudo chmod 644 /etc/ssl/influxdb-selfsigned.key
sudo chown root /etc/ssl/influxdb-selfsigned.crt
sudo chown root /etc/ssl/influxdb-selfsigned.key

Update the influxdb.conf file:

[http]

#Determines whether HTTPS is enabled.
https-enabled = true

#The SSL certificate to use when HTTPS is enabled.
https-certificate = "/etc/ssl/influxdb-selfsigned.crt"

#Use a separate private key location.
https-private-key = "/etc/ssl/influxdb-selfsigned.key"

Restart influxdb:

sudo systemctl restart influxdb

You also need to update Telegraf so it knows to use ssl when sending to influxdb. Update the telegraf.config file.

sudo nano /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

Update these settings:

[[outputs.influxdb]]
urls = ["https://127.0.0.1:8086"]

## Optional TLS Config for use on HTTP connections.
insecure_skip_verify = true

## HTTP Basic Auth
username = "telegraf"
password = "password"

Log into Grafana web and update the Influxdb datasoure:
– change URL to https://localhost:8086
– check box for Skip TLS Verify

That’s it. You should be able to create a new dashboard in Grafana and start adding panels with stats collected from Telegraf on the local Ubuntu machine.