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Documentation Docs Home Beginner Guides Data Sources Using MySQL in Grafana

Using MySQL in Grafana

Only available in Grafana v4.3+. This data source is not ready for production use, currently in development (alpha state).

Grafana ships with a built-in MySQL data source plugin that allow you to query any visualize data from a MySQL compatible database.

Adding the data source

1. Open the side menu by clicking the Grafana icon in the top header.
2. In the side menu under the Dashboards link you should find a link named Data Sources.
3. Click the + Add data source button in the top header.
4. Select MySQL from the Type dropdown.

Database User Permissions (Important!)

The database user you specify when you add the data source should only be granted SELECT permissions on the specified database & tables you want to query. Grafana does not validate that the query is safe. The query could include any SQL statement. For example, statements like USE otherdb; and DROP TABLE user; would be executed. To protect against this we Highly recommmend you create a specific mysql user with restricted permissions.

Example:

sql Copy

 CREATE USER 'grafanaReader' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
 GRANT SELECT ON mydatabase.mytable TO 'grafanaReader';

You can use wildcards (*) in place of database or table if you want to grant access to more databases and tables.

Macros

To simplify syntax and to allow for dynamic parts, like date range filters, the query can contain macros.

We plan to add many more macros. If you have suggestions for what macros you would like to see, please open an issue in our GitHub repo.

The query editor has a link named Generated SQL that show up after a query as been executed, while in panel edit mode. Click on it and it will expand and show the raw interpolated SQL string that was executed.

Table queries

If the Format as query option is set to Table then you can basically do any type of SQL query. The table panel will automatically show the results of whatever columns & rows your query returns.

Query editor with example query:

The query:

sql Copy

SELECT
  title as 'Title',
  user.login as 'Created By' ,
  dashboard.created as 'Created On'
 FROM dashboard
INNER JOIN user on user.id = dashboard.created_by
WHERE $__timeFilter(dashboard.created)

You can control the name of the Table panel columns by using regular as SQL column selection syntax.

The resulting table panel:

Time series queries

If you set Format as to Time series, for use in Graph panel for example, then there are some requirements for what your query returns.

• Must be a column named time_sec representing a unix epoch in seconds.
• Must be a column named value representing the time series value.
• Must be a column named metric representing the time series name.

Example:

sql Copy

SELECT
  min(UNIX_TIMESTAMP(time_date_time)) as time_sec,
  max(value_double) as value,
  metric1 as metric
FROM test_data
WHERE   $__timeFilter(time_date_time)
GROUP BY metric1, UNIX_TIMESTAMP(time_date_time) DIV 300
ORDER BY time_sec asc

Currently, there is no support for a dynamic group by time based on time range & panel width. This is something we plan to add.

Templating

You can use variables in your queries but there are currently no support for defining Query variables that target a MySQL data source.

Alerting

Time series queries should work in alerting conditions. Table formatted queries is not yet supported in alert rule conditions.