How-To: Observe metrics with Grafana

The template shows Dapr system component status, dapr-operator, dapr-sidecar-injector, dapr-sentry, and dapr-placement:

The grafana-sidecar-dashboard.json template shows Dapr sidecar status, including sidecar health/resources, throughput/latency of HTTP and gRPC, Actor, mTLS, etc.:

Screenshot of the sidecar dashboard

The grafana-actor-dashboard.json template shows Dapr Sidecar status, actor invocation throughput/latency, timer/reminder triggers, and turn-based concurrnecy:

Pre-requisites

  1. Install the chart:

    1. helm install grafana grafana/grafana -n dapr-monitoring

    Note

    If you are Minikube user or want to disable persistent volume for development purpose, you can disable it by using the following command instead:

  2. Retrieve the admin password for Grafana login:

    1. kubectl get secret --namespace dapr-monitoring grafana -o jsonpath="{.data.admin-password}" | base64 --decode ; echo

  3. Validation Grafana is running in your cluster:

Configure Prometheus as data source

First you need to connect Prometheus as a data source to Grafana.

  1. Port-forward to svc/grafana:

    3. Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8080 -> 3000
    4. Forwarding from [::1]:8080 -> 3000
    5. Handling connection for 8080
    6. Handling connection for 8080

  2. Open a browser to http://localhost:8080

  3. Login to Grafana

    • Password = Password from above

  4. Select and Data Sources

    Screenshot of the Grafana add Data Source menu

  5. Add Prometheus as a data source.

  6. Get your Prometheus HTTP URL

    Start by getting the Prometheus server endpoint by running the following command:

    In this guide the server name is dapr-prom-prometheus-server and the namespace is dapr-monitoring, so the HTTP URL will be http://dapr-prom-prometheus-server.dapr-monitoring.

  7. Fill in the following settings:

    • Name: Dapr
    • HTTP URL: http://dapr-prom-prometheus-server.dapr-monitoring
    • Default: On

    Screenshot of the Prometheus Data Source configuration

  8. Click button to verify that the connection succeeded.

Import dashboards in Grafana

  1. In the upper left corner of the Grafana home screen, click the “+” option, then “Import”.

    You can now import Grafana dashboard templates from for your Dapr version:

  2. Find the dashboard that you imported and enjoy

    Screenshot of Dapr service dashboard

    Tip

    Hover your mouse over the i in the corner to the description of each chart:

Example