stable/prometheus-operator - adding persistent grafana dashboards - grafana

Question

I am trying to add a new dashboard to the below helm chart
https://github.com/helm/charts/tree/master/stable/prometheus-operator
The documentation is not very clear.
I have added a config map to the name space like the below -
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: sample-grafana-dashboard
namespace: monitoring
labels:
grafana_dashboard: "1"
data:
etcd-dashboard.json: |-
{JSON}
According to the documentation, this should just be "picked" up and added, but its not.
https://github.com/helm/charts/tree/master/stable/grafana#configuration
The sidecar option in my values.yaml looks like -
grafana:
enabled: true
## Deploy default dashboards.
##
defaultDashboardsEnabled: true
adminPassword: password
ingress:
## If true, Grafana Ingress will be created
##
enabled: false
## Annotations for Grafana Ingress
##
annotations: {}
# kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx
# kubernetes.io/tls-acme: "true"
## Labels to be added to the Ingress
##
labels: {}
## Hostnames.
## Must be provided if Ingress is enable.
##
# hosts:
# - grafana.domain.com
hosts: []
## Path for grafana ingress
path: /
## TLS configuration for grafana Ingress
## Secret must be manually created in the namespace
##
tls: []
# - secretName: grafana-general-tls
# hosts:
# - grafana.example.com
#dashboardsConfigMaps:
#sidecarProvider: sample-grafana-dashboard
sidecar:
dashboards:
enabled: true
label: grafana_dashboard
I have also tried adding this to the value.yml
dashboardsConfigMaps:
- sample-grafana-dashboard
Which, doesn't work.
Does anyone have any experience with adding your own dashboards to this helm chart as I really am at my wits end.

Answer 1

To sum up:
For sidecar you need only one option set to true - grafana.sidecar.dashboards.enabled
Install prometheus-operator witch sidecard enabled:
helm install stable/prometheus-operator --name prometheus-operator --set grafana.sidecar.dashboards.enabled=true --namespace monitoring
Add new dashboard, for example
MongoDB_Overview:
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/percona/grafana-dashboards/master/dashboards/MongoDB_Overview.json
kubectl -n monitoring create cm grafana-mongodb-overview --from-file=MongoDB_Overview.json
Now the tricky part, you have to set a correct label for your
configmap, by default grafana.sidecar.dashboards.label is set
tografana_dashboard, so:
kubectl -n monitoring label cm grafana-mongodb-overview grafana_dashboard=mongodb-overview
Now you should find your newly added dashboard in grafana, moreover every confimap with label grafana_dashboard will be processed as dashboard.
The dashboard is persisted and safe, stored in configmap.
UPDATE:
January 2021:
Prometheus operator chart was migrated from stable repo to Prometheus Community Kubernetes Helm Charts and helm v3 was released so:
Create namespace:
kubectl create namespace monitoring
Install prometheus-operator from helm chart:
helm install prometheus-operator prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack --namespace monitoring
Add Mongodb dashboard as an example
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/percona/grafana-dashboards/master/dashboards/MongoDB_Overview.json
kubectl -n monitoring create cm grafana-mongodb-overview --from-file=MongoDB_Overview.json
Lastly, label the dashboard:
kubectl -n monitoring label cm grafana-mongodb-overview grafana_dashboard=mongodb-overview

Answer 2

You have to:
define you dashboard json as a configmap (as you have done, but see below for an easier way)
define a provider: to tell where to load the dashboard
map the two together
from values.yml:
dashboardsConfigMaps:
application: application
dashboardProviders:
dashboardproviders.yaml:
apiVersion: 1
providers:
- name: application
orgId: 1
folder: "Application Metrics"
type: file
disableDeletion: true
editable: false
options:
path: /var/lib/grafana/dashboards/application
Now the application config map should create files in this directory in the pod, and as has been discussed the sidecar should load them into an Application Metrics folder, seen in the GUI.
That probably answers your issue as written, but as long as your dashboards aren't too big using kustonmise mean you can have the json on disk without needing to include the json in another file thus:
apiVersion: kustomize.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: Kustomization
# May choose to enable this if need to refer to configmaps outside of kustomize
generatorOptions:
disableNameSuffixHash: true
namespace: monitoring
configMapGenerator:
- name: application
files:
- grafana-dashboards/application/api01.json
- grafana-dashboards/application/api02.json
For completeness sake you can also load dashboards from url or from the Grafana site, although I don't believe mixing method in the same folder works.
So:
dashboards:
kafka:
kafka01:
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kudobuilder/operators/master/repository/kafka/docs/latest/resources/grafana-dashboard.json
folder: "KUDO Kafka"
datasource: Prometheus
nginx:
nginx1:
gnetId: 9614
datasource: Prometheus
dashboardProviders:
dashboardproviders.yaml:
apiVersion: 1
providers:
- name: kafka
orgId: 1
folder: "KUDO Kafka"
type: file
disableDeletion: true
editable: false
options:
path: /var/lib/grafana/dashboards/kafka
- name: nginx
orgId: 1
folder: Nginx
type: file
disableDeletion: true
editable: false
options:
path: /var/lib/grafana/dashboards/nginx
Creates two new folders containing a dashboard each, from external sources, or maybe you point this at your git repo you de-couple your dashboard commits from your deployment.

Answer 3

If you do not change the settings in the helm chart. The default user/password for grafana is:
user: admin
password: prom-operator