Grafana is a multi-platform open source analytics and interactive visualization web application. It provides charts, graphs, and alerts for the web when connected to supported data sources. 

Grafana connects with every possible data source, commonly referred to as databases such as _Graphite, Prometheus, Influx DB, ElasticSearch, MySQL, PostgreSQL _etc. Grafana being an open source solution also enables us to write plugins from scratch for integration with several different data sources. The tool helps us study, analyse & monitor data over a period of time, technically called time series analytics.

Ansible is an open-source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool enabling infrastructure as code. It runs on many Unix-like systems, and can configure both Unix-like systems as well as Microsoft Windows.

In this guide we will learn how to install and set up Grafana in Ubuntu 20.04 using Ansible.

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Table of Content

1. Ensuring that the OS is updated
2. Installing required packages
3. Add the Grafana GPG key and APT repository
4. Optional step: Installing and setting up Nginx as a proxy

1. Ensure that the OS is up to date

Before proceeding, let us ensure that we have the latest packages. Use these tasks to update the repositories and upgrade OS packages.

- name: Update apt repo and cache on all Ubuntu box
  apt:
    update_cache: yes
    force_apt_get: yes
    cache_valid_time: 3600

- name: Upgrade all packages on servers
  apt:
    upgrade: dist
    force_apt_get: yes

2. Install required packages

Let us also install some packages that will be needed in the operations that we do later.

- name: Install required packages
  apt:
    name:
      - gnupg2
      - curl
      - software-properties-common
    state: present

3. Add the Grafana GPG key and APT repository

Since Grafana is not available in the default repositories, we will set up Grafana OSS ones. This task will add the gpg key and the apt repository.

- name: Add the Grafana GPG key and APT repository
  shell: |
    curl https://packages.grafana.com/gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
    add-apt-repository "deb https://packages.grafana.com/oss/deb stable main"
  args:
    warn: no

4. Install the grafana package

Once the repository is set up, we can install the grafana package. We are updating the cache before doing the install since we added a new repository.

- name: Install the grafana package
  apt:
    name: grafana
    state: present
    update_cache: yes
  notify:
    - Start grafana
    - Enable grafana

5. Optional step: Installing and setting up Nginx as a proxy

To access Grafana from a domain, let us install Nginx and set up a virtual host. The site will be available through url grafana.citizix.com.

- name: Ensure Nginx is installed
  apt:
    name: nginx
    state: present
  notify: Start and Enable Nginx

- name: Create grafana nginx config file
  copy:
      dest: /etc/nginx/conf.d/grafana.conf
      mode: 0755
      content: |
        server {
          listen 80;
          server_tokens off;
          client_max_body_size 10M;
          server_name grafana.citizix.com;

          ignore_invalid_headers off;

          if ($host !~* ^(grafana.citizix.com)$ ) {
              return 444;
          }

          location / {
              send_timeout            600;
              proxy_read_timeout      600;
              proxy_send_timeout      600;
              proxy_connect_timeout   600;
              proxy_redirect          off;
              proxy_set_header        Host $host;
              proxy_set_header        X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
              proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
              proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
              proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
              proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
          }
        }

6. Setting up handlers

Handlers will be triggered after the tasks are done. We will use handlers to start and enable Grafana and Nginx.

- name: Start grafana
  systemd:
    name: grafana-server
    state: started

- name: Enable grafana
  systemd:
    name: grafana-server
    enabled: yes

- name: Start and Enable Nginx
  systemd:
    name: nginx
    state: started
    enabled: yes

7. Full code

This is the final code. I have this saved to a file grafana.yaml.

---
- name: Install and set up grafana on Ubuntu 20.04
  hosts: ubuntusrv
  become: yes
  gather_facts: False
  tasks:
    - name: Update apt repo and cache on all Ubuntu box
      apt:
        update_cache: yes
        force_apt_get: yes
        cache_valid_time: 3600

    - name: Upgrade all packages on servers
      apt:
        upgrade: dist
        force_apt_get: yes

    - name: Install required packages
      apt:
        name:
          - gnupg2
          - curl
          - software-properties-common

    - name: Add the Grafana GPG key
      shell: |
        curl https://packages.grafana.com/gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
        add-apt-repository "deb https://packages.grafana.com/oss/deb stable main"
      args:
        warn: no

    - name: Install the grafana package
      apt:
        name: grafana
        state: present
        update_cache: yes
      notify:
        - Start grafana
        - Enable grafana

    - name: Ensure Nginx is installed
      apt:
        name: nginx
        state: present
      notify: Start and Enable Nginx

    - name: Create grafana nginx config file
      copy:
          dest: /etc/nginx/conf.d/grafana.conf
          mode: 0755
          content: |
            server {
              listen 80;
              server_tokens off;
              client_max_body_size 10M;
              server_name grafana1.citizix.com;

              ignore_invalid_headers off;

              if ($host !~* ^(grafana1.citizix.com)$ ) {
                  return 444;
              }

              location / {
                  send_timeout            600;
                  proxy_read_timeout      600;
                  proxy_send_timeout      600;
                  proxy_connect_timeout   600;
                  proxy_redirect          off;
                  proxy_set_header        Host $host;
                  proxy_set_header        X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
                  proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
                  proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
                  proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
                  proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
              }
            }

  handlers:
    - name: Start grafana
      systemd:
        name: grafana-server
        state: started

    - name: Enable grafana
      systemd:
        name: grafana-server
        enabled: yes

    - name: Start and Enable Nginx
      systemd:
        name: nginx
        state: started
        enabled: yes

8. Creating a hosts file

Hosts file will define connection to our server. In the same directory where the playbook is located, add this file, saved as hosts.yaml.

all:
  hosts:
    ubuntusrv:
      ansible_ssh_host: 10.2.11.9
      ansible_ssh_user: ubuntu
      ansible_ssh_private_key_file: ~/.ssh/admin.pem

9. Running the playbook

To run the playbook we need ansible installed locally. If you do not have ansible installed, use this pip command:

pip install -U ansible

We can then use ansible playbook to run the tasks:

ansible-playbook -i hosts.yaml grafana.yaml -vv

This should go through the tasks provisioning the server. When done, Grafana will be available in the URL you set up. You will need to add a DNS A record for the server for the domain to work.

Conclusion

In this guide we were able to use ansible to set up Grafana on an Ubuntu 20.04 server. We also installed Nginx and set up a virtual host to serve the site using a subdomain.