Skip to main content

Grafana

Grafana allows you to quickly see the current state of your cluster and deployments.

Details​

For customers who need to visualise the state of their NKE cluster, nine provides a default dashboard, built with Grafana.

You are also free to create your own dashboards, manage them in folders to create different hierarchies and add alerts to them.

Availability​

Grafana is available as an optional service for NKE and it can be deployed using Cockpit.

Restrictions​

Please note the following restrictions:

  • Grafana Alerting: Grafana Alerting is currently not supported when using the metrics agent. Please use Alertmanager instead.

Usage​

You can log in with your Cockpit account credentials.

Custom Dashboards and Alerts​

To create your own dashboards, have a look at the official Grafana Documentation.

By default, Nine Managed Grafana comes with certain restrictions:

  • Currently, it is not possible to add your own datasources.
  • Editing the pre-deployed dashboards is not allowed, however, you can copy the JSON-definition of panels and use it in your own dashboard.
  • It is not possible to configure alerts via email
  • Alerts can only be defined on Dashboards & Panels that you have created

Some of these restrictions can be removed by enabling admin access.

Admin Access​

warning

We advise you to be careful with the admin permissions, as you could potentially break your Grafana instance. Nine reserves the right to remove admin permissions at any moment if the admin access is deemed a security or an operational risk.

Enabling admin access grants the Grafana Admin role to all users in your organization, replacing the default Editor role. This removes most of the default restrictions listed above and gives you full control over your Grafana instance, including the ability to add datasources and manage users.

Set EnableAdminAccess to true in the Grafana parameters in Cockpit.

Local Users​

By default, all Grafana login attempts are redirected to the nine.ch OIDC provider. Once you have enabled admin access, you can create local Grafana users via the built-in user management. To allow those local users to reach the login form, enable AllowLocalUsers using nctl. Without this setting, local users are immediately redirected to the OAuth login page and cannot sign in.

nctl update grafana <name> --local-users
nctl update grafana <name> --no-local-users
warning

When AllowLocalUsers is enabled, OIDC users are no longer auto-redirected and must manually click Sign in with OAuth on the login form.

Migration Guide for AngularJS-Based Panels​

With the upcoming deprecation of AngularJS support in Grafana, it is essential to migrate all AngularJS-based panels to the supported frameworks to avoid future disruptions. Grafana 10.4 offers a Migration Wizard that makes this process straightforward. In your dashboard, AngularJS-based panels are flagged with an exclamation mark (!), helping you quickly identify the panels that require migration.

Docusaurus themed imageDocusaurus themed image

Simply open each identified panel in edit mode and follow the steps in the Migration Wizard to complete the conversion process.

Docusaurus themed imageDocusaurus themed image

Tips and Common Issues During Migration​

Migration From Graph (old) to Time Series Panel​

Problem: The graph is not visible, but some data can be seen by hovering mouse pointer over the render area. This means that while the data is present, it is not being properly displayed in the graph visualization.

Solution: This issue is often caused by incorrect or invalid threshold configurations. To verify if this is the root cause, access the Dashboard Configuration (ensure you have Edit mode enabled in the Dashboard settings), select the JSON Model tab, and locate the relevant panel by searching for its name in the JSON data structure source code. Check if each color setting (under thresholds) has a value assigned (note that "value": "nil" is a valid entry). If any threshold configuration is missing a value definition, for example, if the configuration for red is invalid, simply remove the red object from steps to resolve the issue:

...
{
  "fieldConfig": {
    "defaults": {
      "custom": {...},
      "thresholds": {
        "mode": "absolute",
        "steps": [
          {
            "color": "transparent",
            "value": null
          },
          {
            "color": "red"
          }
        ]
      },
      "unit": "none"
    },
    "overrides": [...]
  },
  "gridPos": {...},
  "options": {...},
  "pluginVersion": "10.4.7",
  "targets": [...],
  "title": "Average CPU Usage",
  "type": "timeseries"
},
...

Once you remove this invalid step, the graph should render correctly. Afterward, you can redefine the threshold settings, such as specifying the red configuration again, but ensure to use an updated format to prevent the initial rendering problem from recurring.

Migration From Table (old) to Table Panel​

Problem: After migrating, some columns may be missing, or there could be changes to data types, formatting, or threshold configurations.

Solution: These issues often stem from Overrides configurations. Follow these steps, which may resolve the issue:

  • Change Field Overrides. In the panel properties, tab Overrides, update the Fields with name setting to a selectable option from the dropdown list (e.g., Time). If it changes to something like Time (not found), use the dropdown again and select an appropriate field (for example Field).
  • Edit Display Name and Units. Navigate to the relevant text box for Change the field or series name and manually input the correct name. Similarly, in the Unit text box, experiment with available types — for instance, try selecting Misc > String.
  • Correct additional columns. Repeat the process for the remaining columns as needed. For instance, for the second column, set the Fields with name option to Last * and make sure you select the correct name and unit. This should help resolve formatting issues and ensure the threshold display renders colors correctly.