Run Grafana behind a reverse proxy

By Grafana Labs Team

Last update on July 18, 2023

Advanced

Introduction

In this tutorial, you’ll configure Grafana to run behind a reverse proxy.

When running Grafana behind a proxy, you need to configure the domain name to let Grafana know how to render links and redirects correctly.

In the Grafana configuration file, change server.domain to the domain name you’ll be using:

[server]
domain = example.com

Restart Grafana for the new changes to take effect.

You can also serve Grafana behind a sub path, such as http://example.com/grafana.

To serve Grafana behind a sub path:

Include the sub path at the end of the root_url.
Set serve_from_sub_path to true.

[server]
domain = example.com
root_url = %(protocol)s://%(domain)s:%(http_port)s/grafana/
serve_from_sub_path = true

Next, you need to configure your reverse proxy.

Configure NGINX

NGINX is a high performance load balancer, web server, and reverse proxy.

In your NGINX configuration file inside http section, add the following:

# this is required to proxy Grafana Live WebSocket connections.
map $http_upgrade $connection_upgrade {
  default upgrade;
  '' close;
}

upstream grafana {
  server localhost:3000;
}

server {
  listen 80;
  root /usr/share/nginx/html;
  index index.html index.htm;

  location / {
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_pass http://grafana;
  }

# Proxy Grafana Live WebSocket connections.
  location /api/live/ {
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_pass http://grafana;
  }
}

Reload the NGINX configuration.
Navigate to port 80 on the machine NGINX is running on. You’re greeted by the Grafana login page.

For Grafana Live which uses WebSocket connections you may have to raise Nginx worker_connections option which is 512 by default – which limits the number of possible concurrent connections with Grafana Live.

Also, be aware that the above configuration will work only when the proxy_pass value for location / is a literal string. If you are using a variable here, read this GitHub issue. You will need to add an appropriate NGINX rewrite rule.

To configure NGINX to serve Grafana under a sub path, update the location block:

# this is required to proxy Grafana Live WebSocket connections.
map $http_upgrade $connection_upgrade {
  default upgrade;
  '' close;
}

upstream grafana {
  server localhost:3000;
}

server {
  listen 80;
  root /usr/share/nginx/www;
  index index.html index.htm;

  location /grafana/ {
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_pass http://grafana;
  }

  # Proxy Grafana Live WebSocket connections.
  location /grafana/api/live/ {
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_pass http://grafana;
  }
}

If your Grafana configuration does not set serve_from_sub_path to true then you need to add a rewrite rule to each location block:

 rewrite  ^/grafana/(.*)  /$1 break;

Note: If Grafana is being served from behind a NGINX proxy with TLS termination enabled, then the root_url should be set accordingly. For example, if Grafana is being served from https://example.com/grafana then the root_url should be set to https://example.com/grafana/ or https://%(domain)s/grafana/ (and the corresponding domain should be set to example.com) in the server section of the Grafana configuration file. The protocol setting should be set to http, because the TLS handshake is being handled by NGINX.

Configure HAProxy

To configure HAProxy to serve Grafana under a sub path:

frontend http-in
  bind *:80
  use_backend grafana_backend if { path /grafana } or { path_beg /grafana/ }

backend grafana_backend
  # Requires haproxy >= 1.6
  http-request set-path %[path,regsub(^/grafana/?,/)]

  # Works for haproxy < 1.6
  # reqrep ^([^\ ]*\ /)grafana[/]?(.*) \1\2

  server grafana localhost:3000

Configure IIS

IIS requires that the URL Rewrite module is installed.

To configure IIS to serve Grafana under a sub path, create an Inbound Rule for the parent website in IIS Manager with the following settings:

pattern: grafana(/)?(.*)
check the Ignore case checkbox
rewrite URL set to http://localhost:3000/{R:2}
check the Append query string checkbox
check the Stop processing of subsequent rules checkbox

This is the rewrite rule that is generated in the web.config:

  <rewrite>
      <rules>
          <rule name="Grafana" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">
              <match url="grafana(/)?(.*)" />
              <action type="Rewrite" url="http://localhost:3000/{R:2}" logRewrittenUrl="false" />
          </rule>
      </rules>
  </rewrite>

See the tutorial on IIS URL Rewrites for more in-depth instructions.

Configure Traefik

Traefik Cloud Native Reverse Proxy / Load Balancer / Edge Router

Using the docker provider the following labels will configure the router and service for a domain or subdomain routing.

labels:
  traefik.http.routers.grafana.rule: Host(`grafana.example.com`)
  traefik.http.services.grafana.loadbalancer.server.port: 3000

To deploy on a sub path

labels:
  traefik.http.routers.grafana.rule: Host(`example.com`) && PathPrefix(`/grafana`)
  traefik.http.services.grafana.loadbalancer.server.port: 3000

Examples using the file provider.

http:
  routers:
    grafana:
      rule: Host(`grafana.example.com`)
      service: grafana
  services:
    grafana:
      loadBalancer:
        servers:
          - url: http://192.168.30.10:3000

http:
  routers:
    grafana:
      rule: Host(`example.com`) && PathPrefix(`/grafana`)
      service: grafana
  services:
    grafana:
      loadBalancer:
        servers:
          - url: http://192.168.30.10:3000

Summary

In this tutorial you learned how to run Grafana behind a reverse proxy.

Feedback