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Self-host Grafana with Docker Compose

Visualize metrics, logs and traces with customizable dashboards and alerts.

grafana

postgres

postgres:18.3-alpine3.23

The steps below take a few minutes end to end.

  1. Docker compose setup and file
    save the generated compose and env files.
  2. Secret generation
    create the random passwords Grafana needs.
  3. Start Grafana with Docker Compose
    bring the stack up and check it's healthy.

Requirements

You'll need these installed on the machine you're deploying to:

Docker

Packages Grafana and everything it depends on into an isolated container, so it runs the same way on your machine as it does everywhere else.

Install guide

Docker Compose

Reads docker-compose.ymland starts everything in it together. Ships with Docker Desktop. On Linux servers it's usually a separate install.

Install guide

1. Docker compose setup and file

Create a folder for Grafana and save the file below into it as docker-compose.yml. It describes every container the stack needs — Grafanaitself and any supporting services, such as its database — along with the ports, volumes and environment variables each one uses. You'll also need an empty .env file in the same folder; Docker Compose reads it automatically and uses it to fill in the ${VARIABLE}references you'll see in the file below.

docker-compose.yml

version: "3.9"
services:
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    environment:
      GF_DATABASE_HOST: localhost
      GF_DATABASE_NAME: app
      GF_DATABASE_PASSWORD: ${RANDOM_PG_PASSWORD}
      GF_DATABASE_PORT: "5432"
      GF_DATABASE_SSL_MODE: disable
      GF_DATABASE_TYPE: postgres
      GF_DATABASE_USER: app
      GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD: admin
      GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER: admin
      GF_SERVER_HTTP_PORT: "3000"
      GF_SERVER_ROOT_URL: http://localhost
      GF_USERS_ALLOW_SIGN_UP: "false"
      GF_USERS_AUTO_ASSIGN_ORG: "true"
      GF_USERS_AUTO_ASSIGN_ORG_ROLE: Admin
    volumes:
      - data:/var/lib/grafana
    healthcheck:
      test:
        - CMD
        - curl
        - -f
        - http://localhost:3000/
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
  postgres:
    image: postgres:18.3-alpine3.23
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: service:grafana
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${RANDOM_PG_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: app
volumes:
  data: null

Volumes

Grafana stores its data in named Docker volumes, so it survives container restarts and updates:

  • data mounted at /var/lib/grafana

2. Secret generation

Grafana needs a few randomly generated secrets — for example, database passwords or an internal session key — before it can start. These are referenced from docker-compose.ymlabove but don't live in it, so they need to end up in your .env file. Pick one of the two options below.

Generating secrets…

3. Start Grafana with Docker Compose

From the folder with docker-compose.yml and .env, run:

Terminal

Start Grafana and all its supporting services in the background.

docker compose up -d

The -d flag runs the stack in the background so it keeps running after you close the terminal. Docker will pull the images the first time, which can take a minute or two.

To check on it afterwards: docker compose ps shows whether containers are healthy, and docker compose logs -f follows their logs if something looks wrong. Once it's running, open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.