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README-grafana.md

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Using ShipXplorer with Grafana and Prometheus

Grafana is an analytics platform that can provide alternative graphs for readsb.

In this guide we will be using Prometheus as the data repository.

Using Grafana and Prometheus in this configuration does not require a plan, account, or credentials for their respective cloud offerings.

Hardware requirements

Prometheus will store a lot of data, and Grafana will do a lot of data queries. As a result, it would be better if you run these containers on a different system than your feeder Raspberry Pi. This will leave your Pi focused on data collection and processing, and unbothered by the CPU and Disk IO load that Prometheus/Grafana will cause.

You can do it on a single system. We're assuming below that you are not. If you do it on a single system, then you can combine the docker-compose.yml components in a single file

Step 1: Make Prometheus data available for the ShipXplorer

  • Edit your ShipXplorer's docker-compose.yml file and ensure that the following is set for the shipxplorer service:
    environment:
      - PROMETHEUS_ENABLE=true
    ports:
      - 9273:9273

Now recreate the ShipXplorer container (docker-compose up -d shipxplorer) and it will generate Prometheus data.

Step 2: create a container stack for prometheus and grafana

You can skip this if you already have Prometheus and Grafana installed.

On the machine where you will run Prometheus and Grafana, create a docker-compose file in the /opt/grafana directory:

sudo mkdir -p -m777 /opt/grafana/grafana/appdata /opt/grafana/prometheus/config /opt/grafana/prometheus/data
cd /opt/grafana
cat > docker-compose.yml

Now paste in the following text *):

<‐‐ Click the arrow to see the docker-compose.yml text
version: '3.9'

volumes:
  grafana:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: none
      device: "/opt/grafana/grafana/appdata"
      o: bind
  prom-config:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: none
      device: "/opt/grafana/prometheus/config"
      o: bind
  prom-data:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: none
      device: "/opt/grafana/prometheus/data"
      o: bind

services:
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana-oss:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    container_name: grafana
    hostname: grafana
    # uncomment the following section and set the variables if you are exposing Grafana to the internet behind a rev web proxy:
    environment:
    # snuids-radar-panel plugin is needed for polar plots:
      - GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS=snuids-radar-panel
    # uncomment and set the following variables if you are exposing Grafana to the internet behind a rev web proxy:
    #   - GF_SERVER_ROOT_URL=https://mywebsite.com/grafana/
    #   - GF_SERVER_SERVE_FROM_SUB_PATH=true
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    volumes:
      - grafana:/var/lib/grafana

  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus
    container_name: prometheus
    hostname: prometheus
    restart: unless-stopped
    tmpfs:
      - /tmp
    volumes:
      - prom-config:/etc/prometheus
      - prom-data:/prometheus
    ports:
      - 9090:9090

*) The volume definition structure is written this way purposely to ensure that the containers can place files in the persistent directories. Do not try to "directly" map volumes (/opt/grafana/grafana/appdata:/var/lib/grafana).

You should be able to see the following directories:

  • /opt/grafana/grafana/appdata
  • /opt/grafana/prometheus/config
  • /opt/grafana/prometheus/data

Download and create Grafana and Prometheus for the first time with this command:

docker compose up -d

Step 3: Configuring Prometheus

Prometheus needs to be told where to look for the data from the ShipXplorer. We will create a target prometheus configuration file that does this, please copy and paste the following. Make sure to replace ip_of_ShipXplorer_machine:90 with the IP address or hostname of the machine and the web port where shipxplorer is running:

docker exec -it prometheus sh -c "echo -e \"  - job_name: 'ais'\n    static_configs:\n      - targets: ['ip_of_ShipXplorer_machine:90']\" >> /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml"
docker restart prometheus

(If you screw this up, do NOT re-run the command. Instead, try sudo nano /opt/grafana/prometheus/config/prometheus.yml and fix it that way.)

Accessing Prometheus and Grafana via your browser

You should be able to point your web browser at:

  • http://docker.host.ip.addr:9090/ to access the prometheus console.
  • http://docker.host.ip.addr:3000/ to access the grafana console, use admin/admin as initial credentials, you should be prompted to change the password on first login.

Remember to change docker.host.ip.addr to the IP address of the machine where Prometheus and Grafana are located.

Configuring data source and dashboard in Grafana

After you have logged into the grafana console the following manual steps are required to connect to prometheus as the data source. You must do this even if you are already connected to Prometheus for other purposes (such as for getting readsb/ultrafeeder/tar1090 data)

  1. In Grafana, click Configuration (cogwheel) -> Data Sources
  2. Click Add a new data source in the main panel
  3. Click Prometheus from the list of options provided
  4. Input or select the following options, if the option is not listed, do not input anything for that option:
Option Input
Name ais
URL http://prometheus:9090/

Clicking Save & Test should return a green message indicating success. The dashboard can now be imported with the following steps

  1. Hover over the four squares icon in the sidebar, click + Import
  2. Enter 18417 into the Import via grafana.com section and click Load
  3. Select readsb from the bottom drop down list
  4. Click Import on the subsequent dialogue box

At this point you should see a very nice dashboard, you can find it under General in the Dashboards section. image1 image1 image1

Embedding your Grafana Dashboard to your AIS-Catcher About page

This description presumes that you already do the following:

  • have a working Grafana setup as per the instructions above
  • have configured an About page as per the instructions here
  • If your AIS-Catcher/ShipXplorer website is exposed outside your intranet, you should also have an externally accessible link to your Grafana instance.

1 - Create a new Organization in Grafana and import your Data Source and Dashboard

This is not 100% mandatory, but since "anonymous" access enables seeing all Dashboards of an Organization, it's recommendable to isolate your AIS-Catcher dashboard in a separate Organization.

  1. Log in to Grafana with an Admin account
  2. Go to Server Admin (Shield icon) -> Organizations
  3. Click + New org and create a new Organization. You can call it whatever you want; for simplicity, we've called it "public". Click on it to select it.
  4. Now you have to import your Prometheus Data Source and Grafana Dashboard again. Follow the instructions above; make sure it says "Organization: public" at the top of the page. If you have made adjustments to your Grafana Dashboard in your other organization, you can go there, export the JSON "for external use", and then copy this JSON code into a new Dashboard in the public organization.

You should now be able to see your Grafana AIS-Catcher Dashboard in the public organization.

2 - Enable your Grafana Config for showing Dashboards without logging in

This enables Grafana to show and embed dashboards without logging in, limited to a single organization.

Add the following parameters to the environment: section of your Grafana Service definition in docker-compose.yml. If you have named your Organization something else than public, you'll have to adjust that below:

    environment:
      - GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ENABLED=true
      - GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ORG_NAME=public
      - GF_SECURITY_ALLOW_EMBEDDING=true

Then restart the Grafana container with docker restart grafana.

Once you have done this, you need to do a Hard Reload of the Grafana Dashboard in your Web Browser. If you use Chrome, this would be CTRL-SHIFT-R (Windows) or CMD-SHIFT-R (Mac).

3 - Get your Grafana Dashboard Link and add it to about.md

  1. In your Grafana Dashboard page (public organization), click the "Share Dashboard or Panel" button next to the title of the Dashboard
  2. In the Link tab of the pop-up box, make sure that you deselect Lock time range and optionally select Shorten URL. If you usually render a Dark Mode Dashboard, you may want to select "Light Mode" because this fits better with the About page. Then copy the resulting URL
  3. Edit about.md in the /data directory that previously created using the instructions. Wherever you want the Dashboard to appear, add the following Markdown/HTML code block:
<iframe src="http://copied/link/from/grafana" width="100%" height="1300" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Of course, replace http://copied/link/from/grafana by the Dashboard link you copied.