grafana

TLDR

Start Grafana server

$ grafana-server

Start with config file

$ grafana-server --config [/etc/grafana/grafana.ini]

Check version

$ grafana-server -v

Access web interface

$ http://localhost:3000

Grafana is an open-source analytics and visualization platform. It creates dashboards for monitoring metrics from data sources like Prometheus, InfluxDB, Elasticsearch, and many others.
Grafana provides rich visualization options including graphs, tables, heatmaps, and alerting. It's commonly used for infrastructure monitoring, application metrics, and business analytics.

PARAMETERS

--config file

Configuration file path.

--homepath path

Grafana home directory.

--pidfile file

PID file path.

-v, --version

Show version.

DEFAULT CREDENTIALS

$ URL: http://localhost:3000
Username: admin
Password: admin (change on first login)

KEY FEATURES

- Multi-source dashboards
- Alerting with notifications
- User authentication and teams
- Plugin ecosystem
- Dashboard templating
- Annotations and annotations

CAVEATS

Runs as service; requires systemd or init setup. Data sources need separate installation. Complex dashboards may impact performance. Consider security for internet exposure.

HISTORY

Grafana was created by Torkel Ödegaard in 2014, initially as a fork of Kibana for Graphite visualization. It grew into a leading visualization platform, with Grafana Labs founded in 2015 to support commercial development.