Deploying Grafana on Openshift 4

OpenShift users want access to a Grafana interface in order to build custom dashboards for their cluster and application workloads. The Grafana that shipped with OpenShift was read-only and has been deprecated in OpenShift 4.11 and removed in OpenShift 4.12.

Since OpenShift uses Prometheus for both Cluster and User Workload metrics, its fairly straight forward to deploy a Grafana instance using the Grafana Operator and then view those cluster metrics and create custom Dashboards.

Grafana Operator

1. Create a namespace for the Grafana Operator to be installed in

   oc new-project grafana-operator
   

2. Deploy the Grafana Operator

   cat << EOF | oc create -f -
   apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1
   kind: OperatorGroup
   metadata:
     generateName: grafana-operator-
     namespace: grafana-operator
   spec:
     targetNamespaces:
     - grafana-operator
   ---
   apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
   kind: Subscription
   metadata:
     generateName: grafana-operator-
     namespace: grafana-operator
   spec:
     channel: v4
     name: grafana-operator
     installPlanApproval: Automatic
     source: community-operators
     sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace
   EOF
   

3. Wait for the Operator to be ready

   oc -n grafana-operator rollout status \
     deployment grafana-operator-controller-manager
   

Deploy Grafana

1. Add the Managed OpenShift Black Belt helm repo

   helm repo add mobb https://mobb.github.io/helm-charts
   

2. Deploy Grafana

   helm upgrade --install -n grafana-operator \
     grafana mobb/grafana-cr --set "basicAuthPassword=myPassword"
   

Create Prometheus DataSource

1. Give the Grafana service account the cluster-monitoring-view role

   oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user \
     cluster-monitoring-view -z grafana-serviceaccount
   

2. Get a bearer token for the grafana service account

   BEARER_TOKEN=$(oc create token grafana-serviceaccount)
   

3. Deploy the prometheus data source

   cat << EOF | oc apply -f -
   apiVersion: integreatly.org/v1alpha1
   kind: GrafanaDataSource
   metadata:
     name: prometheus-grafanadatasource
   spec:
     datasources:
       - access: proxy
         editable: true
         isDefault: true
         jsonData:
           httpHeaderName1: 'Authorization'
           timeInterval: 5s
           tlsSkipVerify: true
         name: Prometheus
         secureJsonData:
           httpHeaderValue1: 'Bearer ${BEARER_TOKEN}'
         type: prometheus
         url: 'https://thanos-querier.openshift-monitoring.svc.cluster.local:9091'
     name: prometheus-grafanadatasource.yaml
   EOF
   

4. Deploy a Dashboard

   oc apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kevchu3/openshift4-grafana/master/dashboards/crds/cluster_metrics.ocp412.grafanadashboard.yaml
   

5. Get the URL for Grafana

   oc get route grafana-route -o jsonpath='{"https://"}{.spec.host}{"\n"}'
   

6. Browse to the URL from above, log in via your OCP credentials

7. Click Dashboards -> Manage -> grafana-operator -> Cluster Metrics