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

Laradock CLI

./laradock start grafana

Docker Compose

docker compose up -d grafana

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

Stop Grafana

Stopping just pauses the container; your dashboards and data source config are safe (kept under DATA_PATH_HOST/grafana):

Laradock CLI

./laradock stop grafana

Docker Compose

docker compose stop grafana

To delete the container entirely (the data on disk is still untouched):

Laradock CLI

./laradock remove grafana

Docker Compose

docker compose rm -sf grafana

Configuration

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

Variable	Default	What it does
GRAFANA_PORT	3000	Host-side port Grafana is published on (container port 3000).

grafana/Dockerfile builds from grafana/grafana:latest, there's no version env var, see Pin a specific version below if you need a fixed release instead of always tracking latest.

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).

Reset the admin password

If you changed the admin password after first login and forgot it, reset it from inside the container without losing any dashboards:

Laradock CLI

./laradock enter grafana

Docker Compose

docker compose exec grafana bash

Then, inside the container:

grafana-cli admin reset-admin-password newpassword

Backup and restore

Grafana keeps everything, dashboards, data source configs, users, in a single SQLite database plus assets under DATA_PATH_HOST/grafana. Back it up as a plain file copy while the container is stopped, so the SQLite file isn't mid-write:

Laradock CLI

./laradock stop grafana

Docker Compose

docker compose stop grafana

tar -czf grafana-backup.tar.gz -C "${DATA_PATH_HOST:-~/.laradock/data}/grafana" .

Restart it once the copy finishes with ./laradock start grafana. To restore, stop Grafana, clear the folder, extract the backup into it, then start again:

rm -rf "${DATA_PATH_HOST:-~/.laradock/data}/grafana"/*
tar -xzf grafana-backup.tar.gz -C "${DATA_PATH_HOST:-~/.laradock/data}/grafana"

For a single dashboard instead of the whole instance, use the web UI's Share → Export → Save to file on that dashboard to get a portable JSON file, no container access needed.

Start completely fresh (wipe all data)

To throw away every dashboard, data source, and user and start Grafana from a clean, empty state (⚠️ this permanently deletes everything, back up first if you need any of it):

Laradock CLI

./laradock stop grafana
./laradock remove grafana
rm -rf "${DATA_PATH_HOST:-~/.laradock/data}/grafana"
./laradock start grafana

Docker Compose

docker compose stop grafana
docker compose rm -sf grafana
rm -rf "${DATA_PATH_HOST:-~/.laradock/data}/grafana"
docker compose up -d grafana

DATA_PATH_HOST is whatever you have set in .env (~/.laradock/data by default). Deleting the folder and starting again re-runs first-boot setup: the admin/admin login, an empty dashboard list, and no data sources, exactly like a brand-new install.

Pin a specific version

grafana/Dockerfile builds from grafana/grafana:latest, so a plain rebuild always pulls whatever Grafana currently tags as latest. To pin a fixed version instead, edit the FROM line in grafana/Dockerfile:

FROM grafana/grafana:11.2.0

Then apply the change:

Laradock CLI

./laradock rebuild grafana

Docker Compose

docker compose build grafana

Common issues

• Can't log in. Default credentials are admin/admin. If you already changed the password and forgot it, reset it from inside the container instead of wiping DATA_PATH_HOST/grafana (that loses every dashboard too).
• Port already in use on your host. Change GRAFANA_PORT in .env and restart: ./laradock restart 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.

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