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Documentation Plugins Oracle data source for Grafana

Oracle data source for Grafana

The following instructions assume that you’re configuring the Oracle data source on-premises. To view a video on Cloud configuration, see visualizing Oracle with Grafana Cloud.

Requirements

This plugin has the following requirements:

• An Oracle instance with at least one user
• One of the following account types:
  • Grafana Cloud: Pro customers, Advanced customers, or Pro trial users with the Enterprise plugin add-on enabled
  • Grafana Enterprise: Customers with an activated license and a user with Grafana server or organization administration permissions
• The Enterprise plugin add-on enabled

Known limitations

• In the Oracle data source settings the default timezone cannot be changed. Instead you can apply an offset to times in the query editor.
• Oracle plugin is not supported in ARM64 architecture (e.g. M1/M2 Macbook).

Install the data source

To install the data source, refer to Installation.

Configure the data source

Set up an Oracle database user with only SELECT permissions on the databases and tables you want to query. Grafana does not validate that queries are safe. Queries can contain any SQL statement. For example, statements like DELETE FROM user; and DROP TABLE user; would be executed.

Follow these instructions to add a new Oracle data source, and choose from three datasource configuration options:

• Host with TCP Port with basic authentication

  Field	Option
  Enable TNSNames	disable
  Host	hostname (or IP address) and port number
  Database	database name
  Enable Kerberos Authentication	disable
  User	Oracle username
  Password	Oracle user’s password

• TNSNames entry with basic authentication

  Field	Option
  Enable TNSNames	enable
  TNSNAME	Any valid entry found in your tnsnames.ora
  Enable Kerberos Authentication	disable
  User	Oracle username
  Password	Oracle user’s password

• TNSNames entry with Kerberos authentication

  To learn more about kerberos, refer to kerberos

  Field	Option
  Enable TNSNames	enable
  TNSNAME	Any valid entry found in your tnsnames.ora
  Enable Kerberos Authentication	enable

Configure the data source with provisioning

Data sources can be configured with Grafana’s provisioning system. You can read more about how it works and all the settings you can set for data sources on the provisioning docs page

Here is a provisioning examples for this data source

TNSNames enabled with basic auth:

yaml Copy

apiVersion: 1
datasources:
  - name: Oracle (TNS-BASICAUTH)
    type: grafana-oracle-datasource
    access: proxy
    basicAuth: false
    editable: true
    jsonData:
      timezone_name: UTC
      useKerberosAuthentication: false
      useTNSNamesBasedConnection: true
      user: USERNAME
    secureJsonData:
      password: PASSWORD
    url: TNSNAME
    version: 1

TNSNames disabled with basic auth:

yaml Copy

apiVersion: 1
datasources:
  - name: Oracle (Integration)
    type: grafana-oracle-datasource
    access: proxy
    basicAuth: false
    editable: true
    jsonData:
      database: DATABASE
      user: USERNAME
    secureJsonData:
      password: PASSWORD
    url: HOST
    version: 1

Query the data source

The query editor allows you to query Oracle to return time series data or a table. Queries can contain macros which simplify syntax and allow for dynamic parts.

Query as time series

If you set Format as to Time series, for use in Graph panel for example, then the query must return a column named time that returns either a sql datetime or any numeric datatype representing unix epoch in seconds. Grafana interprets DATE and TIMESTAMP columns without explicit time zone as UTC. Any column except time and metric is treated as a value column. You may return a column named metric that is used as metric name for the value column.

Example with metric column

sql Copy

SELECT
  $__timeGroup(time_date_time, '5m') AS time,
  MIN(value_double),
  'MIN' as metric
FROM test_data
WHERE $__timeFilter(time_date_time)
GROUP BY $__timeGroup(time_date_time, '5m')
ORDER BY time

Query as table

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

Macros

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

The plugin also supports notation using braces {}. Use this notation when queries are needed inside parameters.

NOTE: Use one notation type per query, if the query needs braces, all macros in the query will need to use braces.

SQL Copy

$__timeGroup{dateColumn,'5m'}
$__timeGroup{SYS_DATE_UTC(SDATE),'5m'}
$__timeGroup{FROM_TZ(CAST(SDATE as timestamp), 'UTC'), '1h'}

The query editor has a link named Generated SQL that shows 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.

Templates and variables

Follow these instructions to add a new Oracle query variable. Use your Oracle data source as your data source

Oracle query can return things like measurement names, key names or key values that are shown as a dropdown select box.

Examples:

• you can have a variable that contains all values for the hostname column in the host table

  sql Copy

  SELECT hostname FROM host

• A query can return multiple columns and Grafana will automatically create a list from them. For example, the query below will return a list with values from hostname and hostname2.

  sql Copy

  SELECT host.hostname, other_host.hostname2 FROM host JOIN other_host ON host.city = other_host.city

• To use time range dependent macros like $__timeFilter(column) in your query the refresh mode of the template variable needs to be set to On Time Range Change.

  sql Copy

  SELECT event_name FROM event_log WHERE $__timeFilter(time_column)

• Another option is a query that can create a key/value variable. The query should return two columns that are named __text and __value. The __text column value should be unique (if it is not unique then the first value is used). The options in the dropdown will have a text and value that allows you to have a friendly name as text and an id as the value. An example query with hostname as the text and id as the value:

  sql Copy

  SELECT hostname AS __text, id AS __value FROM host

• You can also create nested variables. For example if you had another variable named region. Then you could have the hosts variable only show hosts from the current selected region with a query like this (if region is a multi-value variable then use the IN comparison operator rather than = to match against multiple values):

  sql Copy

  SELECT hostname FROM host WHERE region IN($region)

If the variable is a multi-value variable then use the IN comparison operator rather than = to match against multiple values.

After creating a variable it can be used in your Oracle queries by using this syntax.

For more information on variables refer this.

Get the most out of the plugin

• Add annotations
• Configure and use template variables
• Add transformations
• Set up alerting

Annotation Queries

Annotation queries require results to have columns “time”, “text”, and “tags” which will be displayed as vertical lines in a graph, which a tooltip that displays the text on mouse-over.

The time value must be in unix epoch “seconds”.

A typical timestamp column will need to be cast to unix epoch seconds, see example below.

SQL Copy

SELECT
  $__time("createdAt"),
  "value"
FROM
  GRAFANA_METRIC
WHERE
  "datacenter" = '$datacenter' AND
  $__timeFilter("createdAt")

SQL Copy

SELECT
  (cast(sys_extract_utc("createdAt") as date) - TO_DATE('1970-01-01 00:00:00','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS')) * 86400 as time,
  "message" as text,
  "datacenter" as tags
FROM
  GRAFANA_EVENTS
WHERE  $__timeFilter("createdAt")

With template variables included

SQL Copy

SELECT
  (cast(sys_extract_utc("createdAt") as date) - TO_DATE('1970-01-01 00:00:00','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS')) * 86400 as time,
  "message" as text,
  "datacenter" as tags
FROM
  GRAFANA_EVENTS
WHERE  $__timeFilter("createdAt") AND "datacenter" = '$datacenter'

Environment Variables

GF_PLUGINS_ORACLE_DATASOURCE_MAX_RESPONSE_SIZE can be set in your environment variable to change query response data size (default: 16, maximum: 512)

Copy

export GF_PLUGINS_ORACLE_DATASOURCE_MAX_RESPONSE_SIZE=<number>