tencent cloud

Overview

CLS can be connected to Grafana to export the raw log data and SQL aggregate analysis results for display in Grafana. To display the results in Grafana, you only need to install the Tencent Cloud Monitor Grafana App and enter search and analysis statements in Grafana.

This document describes how to install and configure Grafana on CentOS.

Directions

Installing Grafana

1. For more information on how to install Grafana 8.0 or later, see Install Grafana.
   If your Grafana version is earlier than 8.0, configuration backup and upgrade are required. For details, see Upgrade Grafana.
   The following example shows how to install Grafana 8.4.3 (click here to get the latest version address) on CentOS:

   sudo yum install initscripts urw-fonts wget
   wget https://dl.grafana.com/oss/release/grafana-8.4.3-1.x86_64.rpm
   sudo yum install grafana-8.4.3-1.x86_64.rpm
   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   sudo systemctl start grafana-server
   sudo systemctl status grafana-server
   sudo systemctl enable grafana-server
   

To install more visual panels (such as pie and graph panels), please install Grafana panel plugins by running the corresponding commands.
For example, if you want to install the pie panel, you can run the following command:

grafana-cli plugins install grafana-piechart-panel
service grafana-server restart

For information on more plugins, please see Grafana Plugins.

Installing Tencent Cloud Monitor Grafana App

1. Install Tencent Cloud Monitor Grafana App.

   grafana-cli plugins install tencentcloud-monitor-app
   # If the plugin cannot be found after the installation, it may be because that the plugin directory is not set to the default directory. In this case, go to the plugin installation directory and run the following command.
   # If your CVM instance is not on CentOS, confirm the location of the Grafana plugin directory first and go to the directory for installation.
   grafana-cli --pluginsDir ./  plugins install tencentcloud-monitor-app
   # If you want to install an unofficial latest version of the plugin or install a beta version, run the following command:
   grafana-cli --pluginUrl https://github.com/TencentCloud/tencentcloud-monitor-grafana-app/archive/refs/tags/${VERSION}.zip plugins install tencentcloud-monitor-app
   

2. Run the following command to restart the Grafana service:

   service grafana-server restart
   

Configuring log data source

1. Enter http://${Grafana IP address}:3000 (3000 is the default port number) in your browser to log in to Grafana.
2. On the left sidebar, select the Settings icon to go to the Plugins page. Select Tencent Cloud Monitor and click Enable on the Config page to enable the plugin.
3. On the Data Sources page, click Add data source.
4. Select Tencent Cloud Monitor, enter the data source name and Tencent Cloud access key as instructed, select Cloud Log Service (cls), and click Save.

Trying out the CLB-DEMO preset dashboard

To quickly try out Tencent Cloud Monitor Grafana App, you are advised to use the demo log feature.

After creating a log topic, you can go to the preset CLB Demo Access Log dashboard to view preset content.

Manually configuring dashboard

1. On the left sidebar, click Create Dashboards.
2. On the dashboard page, click Add new panel.
3. Select a data source, a region, and a log topic, and enter the corresponding search and analysis statement.
4. Click the time in the upper-right corner and refresh. Then you can view the requested data on the dashboard.

Using log analysis to enter SQL statements for chart drawing and display

For the native charts on Grafana, data visualization is driven by data type. You can determine if and how a chart can be drawn based on the field type.

1. Draw a table.
   Tables have no special requirements for data formats, and any content returned for the SQL statement can be displayed.

2. Draw a sequence diagram. The content returned for the SQL statement contains two fields, analytic_time of the time type and log_count of the numeric type, which can be used to complete the drawing.

   * | select histogram( cast(__TIMESTAMP__ as timestamp),interval 1 minute) as analytic_time, count(*) as log_count group by analytic_time order by analytic_time limit 1000
   

3. Draw pie charts (Pie, Gauge, BarGauge, or Stat) (note that the Value Options - show chart configuration item on the right must be set to All values).

   * | select try_cast(status as varchar) as status, count(*) as log_count group by status
   

The content returned for the SQL statement contains two fields: status of the character type and log_count of the numeric type. Grafana automatically selects the character type as the tag for drawing.

Note：

• If try_cast is not used for type conversion, the chart drawing effect will be affected.
• If the content field types returned for the SQL statement do not meet your chart drawing requirements, in addition to using the type conversion function in SQL, you can use the Convert field type feature on the Transform tab page of Grafana for visual display.

Viewing raw logs

For search scenarios, you are advised to use the Logs plugin to display data.

If you are using Grafana v8.3 or later, you can also use the Extract fields feature on the Transform tab page of Grafana to extract fields from the content returned for the search and view data in Table.

Other Usage Guidelines for the Plugin

• Git repository for Tencent Cloud Monitor Grafana App
• CLS documentation
• CM data source template variables