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Docker integration for Grafana Cloud

Docker is a popular open-source platform that enables developers to create, deploy, and run applications in a virtualized environment called a container. It allows developers to package an application with all its dependencies, libraries, and other components required to run it, into a single container image. The Docker integration collects metrics and logs from a Docker instance and provides useful pre-built dashboards to monitor them.

This integration includes 2 pre-built dashboards to help monitor and visualize Docker metrics and logs.

Before you begin

This integration uses Grafana Alloy Docker service discovery feature to identify and collect logs. To do this, it must have access to docker daemon. To give this access, add the “alloy” user to “docker” group with the following command:

sudo usermod -a -G docker alloy

Elevated privileges are required to run cAdvisor in Grafana Alloy in standalone mode, See cAdvisor documentation. After installing Grafana Alloy, you must give it elevated permissions. Follow the instructions below:

Open the systemctl unit file to change the user running Grafana Alloy process:

sudo systemctl edit --full alloy.service

Change User=alloy to User=root and save the file.

Reload systemctl changes using:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Then restart Grafana Alloy:

sudo systemctl restart alloy.service

In order to successfully collect logs and test the integration connection, at least one container should be running in the docker engine.

Install Docker integration for Grafana Cloud

  1. In your Grafana Cloud stack, click Connections in the left-hand menu.
  2. Find Docker and click its tile to open the integration.
  3. Review the prerequisites in the Configuration Details tab and set up Grafana Agent to send Docker metrics and logs to your Grafana Cloud instance.
  4. Click Install to add this integration’s pre-built dashboards to your Grafana Cloud instance, and you can start monitoring your Docker setup.

Configuration snippets for Grafana Alloy

Simple mode

These snippets are configured to scrape a single Docker engine running locally with default ports.

Manually copy and append the following snippets into your Grafana Alloy configuration file.

Integrations snippets

alloy 
prometheus.exporter.cadvisor "integrations_cadvisor" {
    docker_only = true
}
discovery.relabel "integrations_cadvisor" {
    targets = prometheus.exporter.cadvisor.integrations_cadvisor.targets

    rule {
        target_label = "job"
        replacement  = "integrations/docker"
    }

    rule {
        target_label = "instance"
        replacement  = constants.hostname
    }
}
prometheus.scrape "integrations_cadvisor" {
    targets    = discovery.relabel.integrations_cadvisor.output
    forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
}

Logs snippets

linux

alloy 
discovery.docker "logs_integrations_docker" {
    host             = "unix:///var/run/docker.sock"
    refresh_interval = "5s"
}
discovery.relabel "logs_integrations_docker" {
    targets = []

    rule {
        target_label = "job"
        replacement  = "integrations/docker"
    }

    rule {
        target_label = "instance"
        replacement  = constants.hostname
    }

    rule {
        source_labels = ["__meta_docker_container_name"]
        regex         = "/(.*)"
        target_label  = "container"
    }

    rule {
        source_labels = ["__meta_docker_container_log_stream"]
        target_label  = "stream"
    }
}
loki.source.docker "logs_integrations_docker" {
    host             = "unix:///var/run/docker.sock"
    targets          = discovery.docker.logs_integrations_docker.targets
    forward_to       = [loki.write.grafana_cloud_loki.receiver]
    relabel_rules    = discovery.relabel.logs_integrations_docker.rules
    refresh_interval = "5s"
}

Advanced mode

To instruct Grafana Alloy to scrape your docker engine, go though the subsequent instructions.

The snippets provide examples to guide you through the configuration process.

First, manually copy and append the following snippets into your Grafana Alloy configuration file.

Then follow the instructions below to modify the necessary variables.

Advanced integrations snippets

alloy 
prometheus.exporter.cadvisor "integrations_cadvisor" {
    docker_only = true
}
discovery.relabel "integrations_cadvisor" {
    targets = prometheus.exporter.cadvisor.integrations_cadvisor.targets

    rule {
        target_label = "job"
        replacement  = "integrations/docker"
    }

    rule {
        target_label = "instance"
        replacement  = constants.hostname
    }
}
prometheus.scrape "integrations_cadvisor" {
    targets    = discovery.relabel.integrations_cadvisor.output
    forward_to = [prometheus.remote_write.metrics_service.receiver]
}

Add a pair of prometheus.exporter.cadvisor and discovery.relabel to your Grafana Alloy configuration to monitor a docker daemon.

For ease of use, the provided snippets sets the instance label to the hostname using the constants.hostname Agent Flow constant variable.

If you want to monitor more than one daemon running within the same host, set a different value for each to avoid instance label conflicts. You will also need to set the docker_host and containerd_host properties within prometheus.exporter.cadvisor for each daemon.

There is an array of options available within this component, like setting up tls connection, specific cgroup collection, amongst others.

Refer to prometheus.exporter.cadvisor in Grafana Alloy reference documentation for a complete description of the configuration options.

Finally, reference each discovery.relabel component within the targets property of the prometheus.scrape component.

Advanced logs snippets

linux

alloy 
discovery.docker "logs_integrations_docker" {
    host             = "unix:///var/run/docker.sock"
    refresh_interval = "5s"
}
discovery.relabel "logs_integrations_docker" {
    targets = []

    rule {
        target_label = "job"
        replacement  = "integrations/docker"
    }

    rule {
        target_label = "instance"
        replacement  = constants.hostname
    }

    rule {
        source_labels = ["__meta_docker_container_name"]
        regex         = "/(.*)"
        target_label  = "container"
    }

    rule {
        source_labels = ["__meta_docker_container_log_stream"]
        target_label  = "stream"
    }
}
loki.source.docker "logs_integrations_docker" {
    host             = "unix:///var/run/docker.sock"
    targets          = discovery.docker.logs_integrations_docker.targets
    forward_to       = [loki.write.grafana_cloud_loki.receiver]
    relabel_rules    = discovery.relabel.logs_integrations_docker.rules
    refresh_interval = "5s"
}

Add a group of discovery.docker, discovery.relabel and loki.source.docker to your Grafana Alloy configuration to monitor a docker daemon.

For ease of use, the provided snippets sets the instance label to the hostname using the constants.hostname Agent Flow constant variable.

If you want to monitor more than one daemon running within the same host, set a different value for each to avoid instance label conflicts. You will also need to set the host property within discovery.docker and loki.source.docker for each daemon.

Make sure that for each docker daemon you are monitoring the instance label is set to the same value within the discovery.relabel components collecting cadvisor metrics and the daemon logs.

Grafana Agent static configuration (deprecated)

The following section shows configuration for running Grafana Agent in static mode which is deprecated. You should use Grafana Alloy for all new deployments.

Dashboards

The Docker integration installs the following dashboards in your Grafana Cloud instance to help monitor your system.

  • Docker logs
  • Docker overview

Overview & Compute

Overview & Compute

Logs

Logs

Metrics

The most important metrics provided by the Docker integration, which are used on the pre-built dashboards, are as follows:

  • container_cpu_usage_seconds_total
  • container_fs_reads_total
  • container_fs_usage_bytes
  • container_fs_writes_total
  • container_last_seen
  • container_memory_usage_bytes
  • container_network_receive_bytes_total
  • container_network_receive_errors_total
  • container_network_receive_packets_dropped_total
  • container_network_transmit_bytes_total
  • container_network_transmit_errors_total
  • container_network_transmit_packets_dropped_total
  • container_spec_memory_reservation_limit_bytes
  • machine_memory_bytes
  • machine_scrape_error
  • up

Changelog

md 
# 1.3.4 - December 2024

* Removes ID filter for containers
* Updates status version panel

# 1.3.3 - November 2024

* Update status panel check queries

# 1.3.2 - September 2024

* Mixin update:
  - Split DiskIO metric into reads/writes metrics
  - Legend improvements:
      - Add {{device}} to all disks signals
      - Add {{interface}} to all network signals
  - fix softmax=100 on CPU panel.

# 1.3.1 - August 2024

* Update mixin
* Add filter for root cgroup metrics

# 1.3.0 - July 2024

* Add asserts support

# 1.2.1 - June 2024

* Update pre instructions

# 1.2.0 - May 2024

* Mixin update:
  - Reworked panels based on commonlib
  - Added storage metrics
  - Added network errors/drops metrics
  - Updated logs dashboard

# 1.1.0 - January 2024

* Remove windows and darwin as supported platforms
  - For windows and darwin, the recommended integration to use now is docker-desktop

# 1.0.0 - January 2024

* Update mixin to remove deprecated angular panels

# 0.1.0 - September 2023

* Add updated status panels

# 0.0.8 - August 2023

* Add regex filter for logs datasource

# 0.0.7 - August 2023

* New Filter Metrics option for configuring the Grafana Agent, which saves on metrics cost by dropping any metric not used by this integration. Beware that anything custom built using metrics that are not on the snippet will stop working.
* New hostname relabel option, which applies the instance name you write on the text box to the Grafana Agent configuration snippets, making it easier and less error prone to configure this mandatory label.

# 0.0.6 - April 2023

* Add missing descriptions to panels

# 0.0.5 - November 2022

* Add integration status panel

# 0.0.4 - May 2022

* Update mixin to latest version:
  - Fix log line counts

# 0.0.3 - April 2022

* Add instructions for scraping docker logs
* Update integration to work with embedded Grafana agent Cadvisor

# 0.0.2 - April 2022

* Update mixin to latest version:
  - Update variable display names
  - Rename datasource to prometheus_datasource
  - Group by instance as well on disk usage
  - Fix total images / containers showing up as double
  - Add integration status panels
  - Convert to gridpos
  - Remove deprecated singlestat panel
  - Disable shared tooltip

# 0.0.1 - October 2020

* Initial release

Cost

By connecting your Docker instance to Grafana Cloud, you might incur charges. To view information on the number of active series that your Grafana Cloud account uses for metrics included in each Cloud tier, see Active series and dpm usage and Cloud tier pricing.