Creating and managing folders, data sources, and dashboards using the Grafana Operator

Learn how to manage data sources, folders and dashboard, using Grafana Operator.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you should have the following available:

An existing Grafana Cloud stack.
Grafana Operator Installed in your Cluster, as shown in Grafana Operator Installation.

Grafana Operator Setup

The Grafana Operator allows us to authenticate with the Grafana instance using the Grafana Custom Resource (CR).

Create the Grafana API Token Secret:

Store the Grafana API Token in a secret with the following content in a file named grafana-token.yml:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: grafana-cloud-credentials
  namespace: <grafana-operator-namespace>
stringData:
  GRAFANA_CLOUD_INSTANCE_TOKEN: <Grafana-API-Key>
type: Opaque

Replace the following field values:

<Grafana-API-Key> with API key from the Grafana instance. To create an API key, refer Grafana API Key Documentation.
<grafana-operator-namespace> with the namespace where the grafana-operator is deployed in Kubernetes Cluster.

Configure the Grafana Custom Resource:

Set up connection to your Grafana Cloud instance by creating a file named grafana-cloud.yml with the following contents:

apiVersion: grafana.integreatly.org/v1beta1
kind: Grafana
metadata:
  name: <Grafana-cloud-stack-name>
  namespace: <grafana-operator-namespace>
  labels:
    dashboards: <Grafana-cloud-stack-name>
spec:
  external:
    url: https://<Grafana-cloud-stack-name>.grafana.net/
    apiKey:
      name: grafana-cloud-credentials
      key: GRAFANA_CLOUD_INSTANCE_TOKEN

Replace the following field values:

<Grafana-API-Key> with API key from the Grafana instance.
<Grafana-cloud-stack-name> with the name of your Grafana Cloud Stack.
<grafana-operator-namespace> with the namespace where the grafana-operator is deployed in Kubernetes Cluster.

Add a data source

The following steps use the Prometheus data source. The required arguments vary depending on the data source you select.

Create the Data Source Configuration:

Save a new YAML file datasource.yml with the following content:

apiVersion: grafana.integreatly.org/v1beta1
kind: GrafanaDatasource
metadata:
  name: <data-source-name>
  namespace: <grafana-operator-namespace>
spec:
  instanceSelector:
    matchLabels:
      dashboards: <Grafana-cloud-stack-name>
  allowCrossNamespaceImport: true
  datasource:
    access: proxy
    database: prometheus
    jsonData:
      timeInterval: 5s
      tlsSkipVerify: true
    name: <data-source-name>
    type: prometheus
    url: <data-source-url>

Replace the following field values:

<data-source-name> with the name of the data source to be added in Grafana.
<data-source-url> with URL of your data source.
<Grafana-cloud-stack-name> with the name of your Grafana Cloud Stack.
<grafana-operator-namespace> with the namespace where the grafana-operator is deployed in Kubernetes Cluster.

Add a dashboard to a folder

Use the following YAML definition to create a simple dashboard in the Grafana instance under a custom folder. If the folder defined under spec.folder fields doesnt not exist, The operator will create it before placing the dashboard inside the folder.

Prepare the Dashboard Configuration File:

In dashboard.yml, define the dashboard and assign it to a folder:

apiVersion: grafana.integreatly.org/v1beta1
kind: GrafanaDashboard
metadata:
  name: <folder-name>
  namespace: <grafana-operator-namespace>
spec:
  instanceSelector:
    matchLabels:
      dashboards: <Grafana-cloud-stack-name>
  folder: "<folder-name>"
  json: >
  {
    "title": "as-code dashboard",
    “uid” : “ascode”
  }

Replace the following field values:

<folder-name> with the name of the folder in which you want the Dashboard to be created.
<Grafana-cloud-stack-name> with the name of your Grafana Cloud Stack.
<grafana-operator-namespace> with the namespace where the grafana-operator is deployed in Kubernetes Cluster.

Apply Kubernetes Manifests

In a terminal, run the following commands from the directory where all of the above Kubernetes YAML definitions are located.

Create Kubernetes Custom resources for all of the above configurations.

kubectl apply -f grafana-token.yml grafana-cloud.yml datasource.yml dashboard.yml

Validation

Once you apply the configurations, you should be able to verify the following:

A new data source is visible in Grafana. In the following image a datasource named InfluxDB was created.
A new dashboard and folder in Grafana. In the following image a dashboard named InfluxDB Cloud Demos was created inside the Demos folder.