Grafana for visualization in Kubernetes - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Grafana for visualization

📖 Scenario: You are working in a team that manages a Kubernetes cluster. You want to visualize the cluster's CPU usage using Grafana. To do this, you will deploy Grafana in the cluster and configure it to display CPU metrics.

🎯 Goal: Deploy Grafana on Kubernetes and configure it to visualize CPU usage metrics.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a Kubernetes deployment for Grafana with the exact name grafana-deployment.

Create a Kubernetes service named grafana-service to expose Grafana on port 3000.

Add a ConfigMap named grafana-config with a basic Grafana configuration.

Print the command to get the Grafana service URL.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Grafana is widely used to visualize metrics from Kubernetes clusters and other systems. This project shows how to deploy and expose Grafana in a Kubernetes environment.

💼 Career

Understanding how to deploy monitoring tools like Grafana on Kubernetes is a key skill for DevOps engineers and site reliability engineers.

1

Create Grafana Deployment

Create a Kubernetes deployment named grafana-deployment with one replica. Use the image grafana/grafana:latest. Set the container port to 3000.

Kubernetes

# Create a deployment named grafana-deployment with 1 replica using image grafana/grafana:latest
# Set container port to 3000

Need a hint?

Use kind: Deployment and specify replicas: 1. Set the container image and port exactly as instructed.

2

Create Grafana Service

Create a Kubernetes service named grafana-service of type NodePort that exposes port 3000 and targets the deployment with label app: grafana.

Kubernetes

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: grafana-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: grafana
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: grafana
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: grafana
        image: grafana/grafana:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 3000

# Create a NodePort service named grafana-service exposing port 3000

Need a hint?

Use kind: Service with type: NodePort. Match the selector label to the deployment's label.

3

Add Grafana ConfigMap

Create a ConfigMap named grafana-config with a key grafana.ini containing the text [server]\nhttp_port = 3000.

Kubernetes

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: grafana-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: grafana
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: grafana
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: grafana
        image: grafana/grafana:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 3000
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: grafana-service
spec:
  type: NodePort
  selector:
    app: grafana
  ports:
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 3000
    targetPort: 3000

# Create a ConfigMap named grafana-config with key grafana.ini and value '[server]\nhttp_port = 3000'

Need a hint?

Use kind: ConfigMap and add the key grafana.ini with the exact content.

4

Display Grafana Service URL

Write the command to get the NodePort of the grafana-service and print the full URL assuming the cluster node IP is 192.168.99.100. The output should be exactly: http://192.168.99.100:PORT where PORT is the NodePort number.

Kubernetes

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: grafana-deployment
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: grafana
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: grafana
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: grafana
        image: grafana/grafana:latest
        ports:
        - containerPort: 3000
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: grafana-service
spec:
  type: NodePort
  selector:
    app: grafana
  ports:
  - protocol: TCP
    port: 3000
    targetPort: 3000
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: grafana-config
data:
  grafana.ini: |
    [server]
    http_port = 3000

# Write code to get the NodePort of grafana-service and print the URL with IP 192.168.99.100

Need a hint?

Use kubectl get service grafana-service -o jsonpath={.spec.ports[0].nodePort} to get the NodePort. Then print the URL with the given IP.