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Hello World in Grafana

Introduction to Grafana

Grafana is an open-source platform for monitoring and observability. It allows users to visualize data from various sources in real-time through dashboards. In this tutorial, we will create a simple "Hello World" dashboard to familiarize ourselves with the Grafana interface and its capabilities.

Setting Up Grafana

Before we dive into creating our "Hello World" dashboard, we need to ensure that Grafana is installed and running. You can install Grafana on various operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. Here’s a brief overview of the installation process:

Installation on Ubuntu

Open your terminal and run the following commands:

sudo apt-get install -y software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:grafana/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grafana

Once installed, start the Grafana server:

sudo systemctl start grafana-server
sudo systemctl enable grafana-server

Grafana will be running on http://localhost:3000.

Accessing Grafana

To access Grafana, open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000. You will be prompted to log in. The default credentials are:

Username: admin

Password: admin

After logging in, you will be prompted to change the password. Follow the instructions to set a new password.

Creating Your First Dashboard

Once logged in, you can create your first dashboard. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Click on the "+" icon in the left sidebar.
  2. Select Dashboard.
  3. Click on Add new panel.

Now, let’s create a simple "Hello World" panel:

Configuring the Panel

  1. In the new panel, select the Text visualization from the options.
  2. In the Content field, enter the following HTML:

    3. Hello World

    Welcome to your first Grafana dashboard!

  3. Click on Apply in the top right corner.

Viewing Your Dashboard

Your dashboard should now display a panel with the message "Hello World". You can resize and move the panel as needed. To save your dashboard, click on the disk icon in the top right corner and give your dashboard a name.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully created your first "Hello World" dashboard in Grafana. This simple project has introduced you to the basics of creating panels and visualizing content. From here, you can explore more advanced features such as connecting data sources, creating dynamic dashboards, and much more!