Plugins 〉Grafana Image Renderer
Grafana Image Renderer
A Grafana backend plugin that handles rendering panels and dashboards to PNGs using a headless browser (Chromium).
Requirements
Supported operating systems
- Linux (x64)
- Windows (x64)
- Mac OS X (x64)
Dependencies
This plugin is packaged in a single executable with Node.js runtime and Chromium browser. This means that you don't need to have Node.js and Chromium installed in your system for the plugin to function.
However, the Chromium browser depends on certain libraries. If you don't have all of those libraries installed in your system, you may see some errors when you try to render an image. For more information including troubleshooting help, refer to Grafana Image Rendering documentation.
Memory requirements
Rendering images requires a lot of memory, mainly because Grafana creates browser instances in the background for the actual rendering. We recommend a minimum of 16GB of free memory on the system rendering images.
Rendering multiple images in parallel requires an even bigger memory footprint. You can use the remote rendering service in order to render images on a remote system, so your local system resources are not affected.
Plugin installation
You can install the plugin using Grafana CLI (recommended way) or with Grafana Docker image.
Grafana CLI (recommended)
grafana-cli plugins install grafana-image-renderer
Grafana Docker image
This plugin is not compatible with the current Grafana Docker image and requires additional system-level dependencies. We recommend setting up another Docker container for rendering and using remote rendering instead. For instruction, refer to Run in Docker.
If you still want to install the plugin with the Grafana Docker image, refer to the instructions on building a custom Grafana image in Grafana Docker documentation.
Remote rendering service installation
Note: Requires an internet connection.
You can run this plugin as a remote HTTP rendering service. In this setup, Grafana renders an image by making an HTTP request to the remote rendering service, which in turn renders the image and returns it back in the HTTP response to Grafana.
You can run the remote HTTP rendering service using Docker or as a standalone Node.js application.
Run in Docker
Grafana Docker images are published at Docker Hub.
The following example shows how you can run Grafana and the remote HTTP rendering service in two separate Docker containers using Docker Compose.
- Create a
docker-compose.ymlwith the following content:
version: '2'
services:
grafana:
image: grafana/grafana:latest
ports:
- ‘3000:3000’
environment:
GF_RENDERING_SERVER_URL: http://renderer:8081/render
GF_RENDERING_CALLBACK_URL: http://grafana:3000/
GF_LOG_FILTERS: rendering:debug
renderer:
image: grafana/grafana-image-renderer:latest
ports:
- 8081
- Next, run docker compose.
docker-compose up
Run as standalone Node.js application
The following example describes how to build and run the remote HTTP rendering service as a standalone Node.js application and configure Grafana appropriately.
Clone the Grafana image renderer plugin Git repository.
Install dependencies and build:
yarn install --pure-lockfile yarn run buildRun the server:
node build/app.js server --port=8081Update Grafana configuration:
[rendering] server_url = http://localhost:8081/render callback_url = http://localhost:3000/Restart Grafana.
Configuration
For available configuration settings, please refer to Grafana Image Rendering documentation.
Troubleshooting
For troubleshooting help, refer to Grafana Image Rendering troubleshooting documentation.
Enterprise plugins, along with support and assistance from the core team behind Grafana, are available with Grafana Enterprise.
Installing Grafana Image Renderer on Grafana Cloud:
Installing plugins on a Grafana Cloud instance is a one-click install; same with updates. Cool, right?
Note that it could take up to 1 minute to see the plugin show up in your Grafana.
For more information, visit the docs on plugin installation.
Installing on a local Grafana:
For local instances, plugins are installed and updated via a simple CLI command. Plugins are not updated automatically, however you will be notified when updates are available right within your Grafana.
1. Install the Renderer
Use the grafana-cli tool to install Grafana Image Renderer from the commandline:
grafana-cli plugins install The plugin will be installed into your grafana plugins directory; the default is /var/lib/grafana/plugins. More information on the cli tool.
Alternatively, you can manually download the .zip file for your architecture below and unpack it into your grafana plugins directory.
Alternatively, you can manually download the .zip file and unpack it into your grafana plugins directory.
3.2.0 (2021-09-17)
- Docs: Update documentation to improve visibility and avoid duplicates with Grafana documentation #277, AgnesToulet
- Instrumentation: Update grafana_image_renderer_step_duration_seconds buckets #287, AgnesToulet
- Security: Bump chokidar from 3.5.1 to 3.5.2 #284, AgnesToulet
- Instrumentation: Add gauge of total number of requests in flight #281, AgnesToulet
- Security: Bump axios from 0.21.1 to 0.21.4 #283, dependabot[bot]
- Chore: Add self-contained setup for load test #275, pianohacker
3.1.0 (2021-09-01)
- Settings: Set the maximum device scale factor to 4 as default #276, AgnesToulet
- Metrics: Add browser timing metrics #263, AgnesToulet
- Settings: Add --disable-gpu in the default Chromium args #262, AgnesToulet
- Security: Update path-parse to v1.0.7 #268, joanlopez
- Chore: Upgrade dependencies #246, Clarity-89
- Docker: Run image renderer under non-root Grafana user #144, wardbekker
Important change
The default Chromium flags have been updated to include --disable-gpu as it fixes memory leaks issues when using the default rendering mode. If you don't want to use this flag, you need to update your service configuration, either through the service configuration file, the environment variables or the Grafana configuration file (if you're using the plugin mode).
3.0.1 (2021-06-10)
- Browser: Fix panel timezone when the timezone query parameter is specified #224, Bujupah
- Docker: Fix version endpoint for Docker images #248, mbentley
3.0.0 (2021-06-07)
- Security: Bump path-parse from 1.0.6 to 1.0.7 #244, AgnesToulet
- HTTP Server: Add version endpoint to get the current version #239, AgnesToulet
- Security: Bump ws from 7.4.5 to 7.4.6 #238, dependabot[bot]
- Remove support for plugin V1 protocol #233, AgnesToulet
- Browser: Fix moving CSV file when the tmp folder is not on the same device as the target file path #232, AgnesToulet
- Chore: Upgrade grabpl version #231, AgnesToulet
- Add CSV rendering feature #217, AgnesToulet
3.0.0-beta2 (2021-05-26)
- Remove support for plugin V1 protocol #233, AgnesToulet
- Browser: Fix moving CSV file when the tmp folder is not on the same device as the target file path #232, AgnesToulet
- Chore: Upgrade grabpl version #231, AgnesToulet
3.0.0-beta1 (2021-05-19)
- Add CSV rendering feature #217, AgnesToulet
2.1.1 (2021-05-18)
- Chore: Add changelog in package files #226, AgnesToulet
2.1.0 (2021-05-11)
- Chore/Security: Upgrade dependencies and bump Node to LTS (14.16.1) #218, AgnesToulet
2.0.1 (2021-01-26)
- Browser: Use timeout parameter for initial navigation to the dashboard being rendered #171,
2.0.0 (2020-05-16)
- Plugin: Migrate to @grpc/grpc-js to resolve problems when IPv6 is disabled #135, aknuds1
- Adds support for new Grafana backend plugin system #128, marefr
- Browser: Adds support for setting viewport device scale factor #128, marefr
- Browser: Adds support for attaching Accept-Language header to support render is name locale as Grafana user #128, marefr
- Browser: Fail render if the URL has socket protocol #127, aknuds1
- Chore: Upgrade typescript dependencies #129, marefr
2.0.0-beta1 (2020-04-22)
- Adds support for new Grafana backend plugin system #128, marefr
- Browser: Adds support for setting viewport device scale factor #128, marefr
- Browser: Adds support for attaching Accept-Language header to support render is name locale as Grafana user #128, marefr
- Browser: Fail render if the URL has socket protocol #127, aknuds1
- Chore: Upgrade typescript dependencies #129, marefr
1.0.12 (2020-03-31)
- Remote rendering: Delete temporary file after serving it to client #120, marefr
- Remote rendering: More configuration options #123, marefr
1.0.12-beta1 (2020-03-30)
1.0.11 (2020-03-20)
- Render: Add support for enabling verbose logging using environment variable #105, marefr
- Render: Fix panel titles should not be focused when rendering #114, AgnesToulet
- Security: Upgrade minimist dependency to v1.2.5 #118, marefr
1.0.10 (2020-02-18)
1.0.9 (2020-01-30)
- Remote rendering: Improve error handling, logging and metrics #92, marefr
- Service: Don't swallow exceptions and fix logging of parameters
- Metrics: Use status 499 when client close the connection
- Docker: Set NODE_ENV=production
- Changed request logging to use debug level if status < 400 and error if >= 400
- Plugin: Adds icon #95, marefr
1.0.8 (2020-01-20)
- Build: Upgrade Node.js requirement to LTS (v12) #57, marefr
- Docker: Add unifont font to support rendering other language, like Chinese/Japanese #75, okhowang
- Subscribing to page events to catch errors from browser #88, marefr
- Plugin: Automatically assign grpc port per default #87, marefr
- Plugin: Support configuring default timezone thru environment variable #86, marefr
- Remote rendering: Support configuring default timezone thru config file and environment variable #86, marefr
- Remote rendering: Support configuring HTTP host and port thru config and environment variables #40, marefr
- Remote rendering: Support reading config from file #73, marefr
- Remote rendering: Collect and expose Prometheus metrics #71, marefr
Breaking changes
- Plugin now automatically assigns gPRC port not in use. Before port
50059was used. You can change this by using theGF_RENDERER_PLUGIN_GRPC_PORTenvironment variable.
1.0.8-beta1 (2019-12-17)
- Remote rendering: Collect and expose Prometheus metrics #71, marefr
- Build: Upgrade Node.js requirement to LTS (v12) #57, marefr
1.0.7 (2019-12-03)
- Provide correctly named config parameter to Chromium when overriding to skip https errors using environment variable
GF_RENDERER_PLUGIN_IGNORE_HTTPS_ERRORSand/orIGNORE_HTTPS_ERRORS#62, marefr
1.0.6 (2019-11-25)
- Wait until all network connections to be idle before rendering #24, d1ff
- Support ignoring https errors using environment variable #59, marefr
- Docker: Update dependencies to remove vulnerabilities #53, marefr
- Fix typo in log statement #39, ankon
- Updated documentation
1.0.5 (2019-09-11)
- Include md5 checksums in release artifacts
1.0.4 (2019-09-11)
- Update readme and docs
1.0.3 (2019-09-10)
- Automate docker release
1.0.2 (2019-09-10)
- Don't include dist directory in archive (zip) files
1.0.1 (2019-09-09)
- Switch docker base image from node:10 to node:alpine-10 #36, marefr
- Updated the panel render wait function to account for Grafana version 6 #26, bmichaelis
- Updated dependencies
1.0.0 (2019-08-16)
Initial release containing prebuilt binaries available for download. Right now the binaries themselves should be considered alpha as they need more testing.
