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Grafana

What is Grafana?​

Grafana is the standard open-source dashboarding and visualization tool for metrics, most commonly paired with a time-series data source like Prometheus or InfluxDB. Laradock builds it as its own container so you can chart data from the other monitoring services without installing anything on your host.

Start Grafana​

docker compose up -d grafana

Grafana is only useful once it has a data source to query, typically start it alongside prometheus or influxdb.

Stop Grafana​

docker compose stop grafana

This stops the container without deleting its dashboards or data source config (kept under DATA_PATH_HOST/grafana). To remove the container: docker compose rm -f grafana.

Configuration​

All settings live in grafana/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

VariableDefaultWhat it does
GRAFANA_PORT3000Host-side port Grafana is published on (container port 3000).

Log in​

Open http://localhost:3000. Default credentials are user admin, password admin, Grafana will prompt you to change the password on first login.

Add a data source​

From the web UI, go to Connections → Data sources → Add data source and point it at another Laradock container by name, for example http://prometheus:9090 for Prometheus or http://influxdb:8086 for InfluxDB (both reachable over the internal backend network).

Common issues​

  • Can't log in. Default credentials are admin/admin. If you already changed the password and forgot it, you'll need to reset it from inside the container or drop DATA_PATH_HOST/grafana (loses dashboards).
  • Port already in use on your host. Change GRAFANA_PORT in .env and restart: docker compose up -d grafana.
  • Data source connection fails. Use the container name (prometheus, influxdb, etc.), not localhost, when configuring a data source URL, Grafana runs in its own container and can't reach your host's localhost.
  • Dashboards disappear after a rebuild. Dashboards and data source configs persist under DATA_PATH_HOST/grafana; if you changed DATA_PATH_HOST or ran on a fresh data folder, they won't carry over.

Visualizing metrics from Prometheus? See Prometheus. Need a time-series store instead? See InfluxDB. New to Laradock? Start with Getting Started.