How to Self-Host Grafana for Dashboard Visualization

What Is Grafana?

Grafana is an open-source analytics and interactive visualization platform. It connects to a wide range of data sources including Prometheus, InfluxDB, PostgreSQL, and Elasticsearch, letting you build rich, real-time dashboards for monitoring infrastructure, applications, and business metrics.

Prerequisites

• A Breeze running Ubuntu 22.04 or later with at least 2 GB RAM
• Docker and Docker Compose installed
• A domain name pointed to your Breeze

Docker Compose Setup

Create a project directory and a docker-compose.yml file:

mkdir -p ~/grafana && cd ~/grafana

version: "3.8"
services:
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana-oss:latest
    container_name: grafana
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana
    environment:
      - GF_SERVER_ROOT_URL=https://grafana.yourdomain.com
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=ChangeThisPassword

volumes:
  grafana_data:

Launch and Access

docker compose up -d

Open http://your-breeze-ip:3000 and log in with username admin and the password you set. Navigate to Connections > Data Sources to add your first data source, then build dashboards from the Dashboards menu.

Recommended Configuration

• Set up a reverse proxy with SSL termination for production use
• Configure SMTP settings for alert notifications
• Install community plugins from the Grafana plugin catalog
• Enable anonymous access for public-facing status dashboards if needed