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InfluxDB data source

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Grafana includes built-in support for InfluxDB. This topic explains options, variables, querying, and other features specific to the InfluxDB data source, which include its feature-rich code editor for queries and visual query builder.

For instructions on how to add a data source to Grafana, refer to the administration documentation. Only users with the organization administrator role can add data sources. Administrators can also configure the data source via YAML with Grafana’s provisioning system.

Once you’ve added the InfluxDB data source, you can configure it so that your Grafana instance’s users can create queries in its query editor when they build dashboards and use Explore.

Configure the data source

To configure basic settings for the data source, complete the following steps:

Click Connections in the left-side menu.
Under Your connections, click Data sources.
Enter InfluxDB in the search bar.
Select InfluxDB.

The Settings tab of the data source is displayed.
Set the data source’s basic configuration options carefully:

Name Description

Name	Description
Name	Sets the name you use to refer to the data source in panels and queries. We recommend something like `InfluxDB-InfluxQL`.
Default	Sets whether the data source is pre-selected for new panels.
URL	The HTTP protocol, IP address, and port of your InfluxDB API. InfluxDB’s default API port is 8086.
Min time interval	(Optional) Refer to Min time interval.
Max series	(Optional) Limits the number of series and tables that Grafana processes. Lower this number to prevent abuse, and increase it if you have many small time series and not all are shown. Defaults to 1,000.

Name

Sets the name you use to refer to the data source in panels and queries. We recommend something like InfluxDB-InfluxQL.

Default

Sets whether the data source is pre-selected for new panels.

URL

The HTTP protocol, IP address, and port of your InfluxDB API. InfluxDB’s default API port is 8086.

Min time interval

(Optional) Refer to Min time interval.

Max series

(Optional) Limits the number of series and tables that Grafana processes. Lower this number to prevent abuse, and increase it if you have many small time series and not all are shown. Defaults to 1,000.

You can also configure settings specific to the InfluxDB data source. These options are described in the sections below.

Min time interval

The Min time interval setting defines a lower limit for the auto group-by time interval.

This value must be formatted as a number followed by a valid time identifier:

Identifier Description

Identifier	Description
`y`	year
`M`	month
`w`	week
`d`	day
`h`	hour
`m`	minute
`s`	second
`ms`	millisecond

y

year

M

month

w

week

d

day

h

hour

m

minute

s

second

ms

millisecond

We recommend setting this value to match your InfluxDB write frequency. For example, use 1m if InfluxDB writes data every minute.

You can also override this setting in a dashboard panel under its data source options.

Select a query language

InfluxDB data source options differ depending on which query language you select:

InfluxQL, a SQL-like language for querying InfluxDB, with statements such as SELECT, FROM, WHERE, and GROUP BY that are familiar to SQL users. InfluxQL is available in InfluxDB 1.0 onwards.
SQL native SQL language with support FlightSQL.
Flux, which provides significantly broader functionality than InfluxQL. It supports not only queries but also built-in functions for data shaping, string manipulation, and joining to non-InfluxDB data sources, but also processing time-series data. It’s similar to JavaScript with a functional style.

To help choose the best language for your needs, refer to a comparison of Flux vs InfluxQL and why InfluxData created Flux.

NOTE: Though not required, we recommend that you append your query language choice to the data source’s Name setting: - InfluxDB-InfluxQL - InfluxDB-SQL - InfluxDB-Flux

Configure InfluxQL

Configure these options if you select the InfluxQL (classic InfluxDB) query language:

Name	Description
Allowed cookies	Defines which cookies are forwarded to the data source. All other cookies are deleted.
Database	Sets the ID of the bucket to query. Copy this from the Buckets page of the InfluxDB UI.
User	Sets the username to sign into InfluxDB.
Password	Defines the token you use to query the bucket defined in Database. Copy this from the Tokens page of the InfluxDB UI.
HTTP mode	Sets the HTTP method used to query your data source. The POST verb allows for larger queries that would return an error using the GET verb. Defaults to GET.

Name

Description

Allowed cookies

Defines which cookies are forwarded to the data source. All other cookies are deleted.

Database

Sets the ID of the bucket to query. Copy this from the Buckets page of the InfluxDB UI.

User

Sets the username to sign into InfluxDB.

Password

Defines the token you use to query the bucket defined in Database. Copy this from the Tokens page of the InfluxDB UI.

HTTP mode

Sets the HTTP method used to query your data source. The POST verb allows for larger queries that would return an error using the GET verb. Defaults to GET.

Configure SQL

Configure these options if you select the SQL query language:

Name	Description
Database	Sets the ID of the bucket to query. Copy this from the Buckets page of the InfluxDB UI.
Token	API token used for SQL queries. It can be generated on InfluxDB Cloud dashboard under Load Data > API Tokens menu.

Name

Description

Database

Sets the ID of the bucket to query. Copy this from the Buckets page of the InfluxDB UI.

Token

API token used for SQL queries. It can be generated on InfluxDB Cloud dashboard under Load Data > API Tokens menu.

Configure Flux

Configure these options if you select the Flux query language:

Name Description

Name	Description
Organization	The Influx organization that will be used for Flux queries. This is also used to for the `v.organization` query macro.
Token	The authentication token used for Flux queries. With Influx 2.0, use the influx authentication token to function. Token must be set as `Authorization` header with the value `Token <geenrated-token>`. For influx 1.8, the token is `username:password`.
Default bucket	(Optional) The Influx bucket that will be used for the `v.defaultBucket` macro in Flux queries.

Organization

The Influx organization that will be used for Flux queries. This is also used to for the v.organization query macro.

Token

The authentication token used for Flux queries. With Influx 2.0, use the influx authentication token to function. Token must be set as Authorization header with the value Token <geenrated-token>. For influx 1.8, the token is username:password.

Default bucket

(Optional) The Influx bucket that will be used for the v.defaultBucket macro in Flux queries.

Provision the data source

You can define and configure the data source in YAML files as part of Grafana’s provisioning system. For more information about provisioning, and for available configuration options, refer to Provisioning Grafana.

NOTE: database field is deprecated. We suggest to use dbName field in jsonData. Please see the examples below. No need to change existing provisioning settings.

Provisioning examples

InfluxDB 1.x example:

apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: InfluxDB_v1
    type: influxdb
    access: proxy
    user: grafana
    url: http://localhost:8086
    jsonData:
      dbName: site
      httpMode: GET
    secureJsonData:
      password: grafana

InfluxDB 2.x for Flux example:

apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: InfluxDB_v2_Flux
    type: influxdb
    access: proxy
    url: http://localhost:8086
    jsonData:
      version: Flux
      organization: organization
      defaultBucket: bucket
      tlsSkipVerify: true
    secureJsonData:
      token: token

InfluxDB 2.x for InfluxQL example:

apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: InfluxDB_v2_InfluxQL
    type: influxdb
    access: proxy
    url: http://localhost:8086
    jsonData:
      version: SQL
      metadata:
        - database: <bucket-name>
    secureJsonData:
      httpHeaderValue1: 'Token <token>'

InfluxDB 3.x for SQL example:

apiVersion: 1

datasources:
  - name: InfluxDB_v2_InfluxQL
    type: influxdb
    access: proxy
    url: http://localhost:8086
    jsonData:
      dbName: site
      httpMode: POST
    secureJsonData:
      token: '<api-token>'

Query the data source

The InfluxDB data source’s query editor has two modes, InfluxQL and Flux, depending on your choice of query language in the data source configuration:

For details, refer to the query editor documentation.

Use template variables

Instead of hard-coding details such as server, application, and sensor names in metric queries, you can use variables. Grafana lists these variables in dropdown select boxes at the top of the dashboard to help you change the data displayed in your dashboard. Grafana refers to such variables as template variables.

For details, see the template variables documentation.