Grafana dashboards for containers in Docker - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Grafana Dashboards for Containers

📖 Scenario: You work in a small team managing containerized applications. You want to monitor your containers' performance using Grafana dashboards. This project will guide you to set up a simple Docker Compose file that runs Prometheus and Grafana containers, and configure Grafana to display container metrics.

🎯 Goal: Build a Docker Compose setup that runs Prometheus and Grafana containers. Configure Grafana to connect to Prometheus as a data source and prepare a basic dashboard to monitor container metrics.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Docker Compose file with Prometheus and Grafana services

Add a Prometheus configuration file to scrape container metrics

Configure Grafana to use Prometheus as a data source

Verify Grafana dashboard is accessible and shows container metrics

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Monitoring container performance is essential in real-world DevOps to ensure applications run smoothly and issues are detected early.

💼 Career

This project teaches skills used by DevOps engineers and site reliability engineers to set up monitoring and observability for containerized environments.

1

Create Docker Compose file with Prometheus and Grafana

Create a file named docker-compose.yml with two services: prometheus and grafana. Use the images prom/prometheus:latest and grafana/grafana:latest. Map port 9090 for Prometheus and port 3000 for Grafana. Mount a local directory ./prometheus to /etc/prometheus/ in the Prometheus container.

Docker

# Create docker-compose.yml with prometheus and grafana services
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use version: '3.8' at the top. Define two services with correct images, ports, and volume for Prometheus.

2

Add Prometheus scrape configuration

Create a file named prometheus/prometheus.yml with a scrape config to monitor Docker containers. Use job_name: 'docker' and scrape targets at 'host.docker.internal:9323'. Set scrape interval to 15s.

Docker

version: '3.8'
services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:latest
    ports:
      - "9090:9090"
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus:/etc/prometheus/
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"

# Create prometheus/prometheus.yml with scrape_configs
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Define scrape_configs with job_name, scrape_interval, and static_configs with the target address.

3

Configure Grafana to use Prometheus data source

Add environment variables to the grafana service in docker-compose.yml to set up Prometheus as a data source automatically. Use GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin and GF_DATASOURCES_PROMETHEUS_URL=http://prometheus:9090.

Docker

version: '3.8'
services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:latest
    ports:
      - "9090:9090"
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus:/etc/prometheus/
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    # Add environment variables below
    # Your code here

# prometheus/prometheus.yml
scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'docker'
    scrape_interval: 15s
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['host.docker.internal:9323']

Need a hint?

Add an environment section under grafana with the two variables exactly as shown.

4

Start containers and verify Grafana dashboard

Run docker-compose up -d in your terminal to start Prometheus and Grafana containers. Then, open http://localhost:3000 in your browser. Log in with username admin and password admin. Verify you can add Prometheus as a data source and see container metrics.

Docker

version: '3.8'
services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:latest
    ports:
      - "9090:9090"
    volumes:
      - ./prometheus:/etc/prometheus/
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana:latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      - GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin
      - GF_DATASOURCES_PROMETHEUS_URL=http://prometheus:9090

# prometheus/prometheus.yml
scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'docker'
    scrape_interval: 15s
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['host.docker.internal:9323']

# Run 'docker-compose up -d' and open Grafana at http://localhost:3000
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the terminal command docker-compose up -d to start containers. Open Grafana in your browser and log in with admin for both username and password.