Grafana Terraform Provider | Monitoring As Code

Introduction

The Grafana Terraform Provider allows you to manage Grafana resources using Terraform, enabling you to treat your monitoring dashboards and configurations as code. This tutorial will guide you through the entire process of setting up and using the Grafana Terraform Provider.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, ensure you have the following:

Terraform installed on your machine. You can download it from Terraform Downloads.
An active Grafana account or Grafana instance running.
Access to the Grafana API with appropriate permissions.

Installation

To use the Grafana Terraform Provider, you need to configure it in your Terraform project.

Step 1: Create a Terraform Configuration File

Begin by creating a directory for your Terraform configuration and navigate into it:

mkdir grafana-terraform && cd grafana-terraform

Create a file named main.tf:

touch main.tf

Step 2: Configure the Provider

Add the following configuration to your main.tf file:

provider "grafana" {
  url  = "https://your-grafana-instance.com"
  auth = "your_api_key"
}

Replace https://your-grafana-instance.com with your Grafana instance URL and your_api_key with your Grafana API key.

Creating Grafana Resources

With the provider configured, you can now create various Grafana resources. Below are examples of how to create a dashboard and a data source.

Example: Creating a Data Source

Add the following code to your main.tf file to create a data source:

resource "grafana_data_source" "my_data_source" {
  name     = "My Data Source"
  type     = "prometheus"
  url      = "http://prometheus:9090"
  access   = "proxy"
  basic_auth = false
}

Example: Creating a Dashboard

Add the following code to your main.tf file to create a dashboard:

resource "grafana_dashboard" "my_dashboard" {
  config_json = jsonencode({
    title = "My Dashboard"
    panels = [
      {
        type = "graph"
        title = "My Graph Panel"
        targets = [
          {
            target = "your_metric"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  })
}

Applying Your Configuration

Once you have defined your resources, you can apply the configuration using the following commands:

Step 1: Initialize Terraform

terraform init

Step 2: Plan the Deployment

terraform plan

Step 3: Apply the Configuration

terraform apply

Type yes when prompted to confirm the changes.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we covered the basics of the Grafana Terraform Provider, including installation, configuration, and resource creation. By managing Grafana as code, you can streamline your monitoring processes and ensure consistency across environments.

For more advanced usage and resource types, refer to the official documentation: Grafana Terraform Provider Documentation.

Grafana Terraform Provider Tutorial