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Jonny Sollid avatar image
Jonny Sollid asked

Detail instructions for installing Grafana and Docker.

Hi.

I need help to make open source Grafana work on my Mac mini. https://github.com/victronenergy/venus-docker-grafana

The problem is that I struggle to install this correctly. Unfortunately I am not so good at command lines, so hope somebody could give me some tips to get this up and going?

I have cerbo-gx and this is connected with ve.can to nmea2000 cable and mqtt is activated so it should be correct. I have mac os catalina and installed Grafana and docker as described in the venus-docker-grafana project and so far I think this is ok.

-Step 2 with download of docker compose file I only get one page of text and here is my problem with command lines..

-The same goes for step 3, no idea how to place the file..

-Step 4 I do not get access to (http: // localhost: 8088 /) but docker is installed and works fine when I open the app.

-Step 5 and access to Grafane works fine.

Am I far off target or are there minor details missing? Very grateful if somebody can help solve this.

grafana
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9 Answers
Peter Buijs - NL avatar image
Peter Buijs - NL answered ·

My laptop is an old Dell E6500 with SSD which is not capable of running HyperV but still running W10-64bits and VirtualBox latest version.

In VirtualBox I have a Debian 10 image running with docker installed.

I run the docker Venus-Grafana containers in this configuration and it works fine for me.


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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) answered ·

Have you already tried watching some youtube videos on how to get docker going on macOS?

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=docker+on+mac


Just installing the docker framerwork/app on your mac is not enough, you must get it to download and install the Victron-applications, aka venus-docker-grafana, aka docker containers.


I've never done that myself on mac. But I can image it can even be done without resorting to the commandline. Perhaps someone else around here can help, and for sure I recommend to go watch youtube videos around the topic.

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kimmo-paukku avatar image kimmo-paukku commented ·

Hello Sirs,

I would also need a help with this. By the way, does this work with CCGX and VRM ?

Im using windows 10 and I managed to install Grafana and download venus-docker-grafana-master file... but then, what I should do next...database etc... ?

Steps 1 and 2 are OK now...

Is there maybe any step by step instructions how to get this running ?

Thank you very much.

Br, Kimmo

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ kimmo-paukku commented ·

Yes CCGX and VRM is sufficient.

the database will be created on your computer automatically: inside one of the docker images that will be downloaded and started up automatically once you managed to do what you need to with that docker compose file.

I would expect there is someone here on community that can help?

Or read & study a lot. There must be plenty docker youtube videos and such.

Personally I dont have too much experience with docker sorry.

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kimmo-paukku avatar image kimmo-paukku mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Hi Sir,

Thanks for your comment !!

Yeah..... for sure, its better to wait help...….. Im not an expert with this... :) :)

Br, Kimmo


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Jonny Sollid avatar image Jonny Sollid commented ·

Hi and thanks for the tips. Have watched a lot of videos and read a lot, making progress.

I downloaded the file with thermal command "docker pull victronenergy / venus-docker-grafana" but when I try to run command "docker-compose up --detach --project-name victron_grafana" as described, this does not produce any results, no conterines running in Docker. When I use the command "docker run victronenergy/venus-docker-grafana" the conteiner (jovial_mayervictronenergy / venus-docker-grafana) runs in Docker and everything looks ok but can't access the admin interface @ http: // localhost: 8088.

So my question is if I have installed image correctly?

My second question is how should I get access to the admin interface (@ http: // localhost: 8088) and what is this interface related to?

To be precise, I stuck to points 3 and 4 https://github.com/victronenergy/venus-docker-grafana

Very grateful for help that can get me one step further.

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ Jonny Sollid commented ·

Hi, I tried it the other day on W10: dowloaded the compose file, and then ran the docker compose command.


note: no pulling by me!

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Jonny Sollid avatar image Jonny Sollid mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

When I click on link to file in point 2, I only get text, no file. Should this text be used in comand lines?


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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) answered ·

Hi @jonnys and others. We made a small video showing how to install venus docker grafana


Part 1 - Getting started - https://youtube.com/watch?v=IkNuadRbANA

Part 2 - How to use & configure your graphs once up & running - https://youtu.be/B-sGH0etieM


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wkirby avatar image wkirby ♦♦ commented ·

Wonderful, thanks Matthijs.
I followed your video, working perfectly in Ubuntu 18.04 server.

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

And now there is a part two video, on how to use & configure your graphs once up & running;

https://youtu.be/B-sGH0etieM

All the best, Matthijs

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Jonny Sollid avatar image Jonny Sollid mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·
Thank you very much for the video! Just what I needed to get this set up correctly. Are there more pre-configured dashboards available for download?

@mvalder Saw a pic of your dashboard in another thread and it contains exactly the same products I have installed and was very nicely set up. If you want to share this, it would have saved me some programming. Thank you so much for developing this great data display tool.

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Mark avatar image Mark ♦♦ Jonny Sollid commented ·

FYI the readme file has also been updated with more information about how to setup a dashboard.

https://github.com/victronenergy/venus-docker-grafana/blob/master/README.md

Which existing dashboard are you referring to exactly?

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Jonny Sollid avatar image Jonny Sollid Mark ♦♦ commented ·

Great, thanks for the link. Dashboards I look for are shown by @mvader in this page: https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/29630/can-victron-connect-run-in-background-and-keep-scr.html

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Mark avatar image Mark ♦♦ Jonny Sollid commented ·

Those images are actually from the dashboard that I made up and was using a little while ago. It's actually changed/evolved a bit since then and I have some more stuff on it now that's particular to my setup - to be honest it's probably a bit cluttered now.

I will try to setup something similar to what I had sometime next week and share it.

But at the same time - if you know what you want the dashboard to look like/what parameters you want to include then you could probably recreate whatever you want in under 30 minutes. If you haven't already, just start playing around.

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Rob Mitchell avatar image Rob Mitchell commented ·

Raspberry PI 4B

I've installed docker on the RIP however I have no clue what the commands are to install the docker-compose.yaml file on the command line. I'm new to this.

I've also installed Grafana for Raspberry PI following some other instructions online and I can log into it using localhost:3000 no problem. I just don't know how to install the Venus docker grafana on Raspberry Pi.

Any help / instruction would be appreciated.


Thanks

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ Rob Mitchell commented ·

Hi Rob, I recommend to watch the windows video to understand what to do with the compose yml file.


it will be slightly different on the pi, but still involves dowloading that file, storing it somewhere on the pi, and then from the commandline (aka Terminal or Shell) run the command as per r


and note that you don’t have to install grafana yourself. It will be installed automatically, as part of those docker containers.


enjoy!

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dunnp avatar image dunnp Rob Mitchell commented ·

Hi Rob

I'm stuck at about the same place trying to get Docker installed on a RPi3B. I was able to pull the venus image files to the Pi and get the docker-compose yaml to run - but it doesn't seem to understand the commands within the file (see screenshot). I don't know if 'bash' is the correct way to execute the yaml file, but it's the only way I've got any response other than 'command not found'. I'm not great with Linux.

The process is certainly different to Windows - no Docker Desktop that I can find; everything loops back to command line Docker installs.

Like you, I have Grafana working fine and Docker seems to be running - but getting the Victron containers into Docker has me stumped. Some step(s) missing obviously.

Any guidance from this community greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Phil

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Scott Bender avatar image Scott Bender dunnp commented ·

Please see the instructions for the correct docker-compose command to run.

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dunnp avatar image dunnp Scott Bender commented ·

Hi Scott

You’ve lost me! Where do I find these ‘correct instructions’? Can you send me a link please?

To be clear, I have this working fine on Windows after following the instructions provided.

Like Rob Mitchell above, what I’m looking for help with here is to achieve the same thing on a Raspberry Pi (ie Linux). The steps in github for installing Docker Desktop and the docker-compose behave differently in Linux. More precisely, they don’t work (on my Pi at least).

Phil

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Scott Bender avatar image Scott Bender dunnp commented ·

The instructions say to run `docker-compose up --detach`, but in the screenshot above, you ran `bash docker-compose.yaml up`, which is not correct.

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dunnp avatar image dunnp Scott Bender commented ·

Tried that - didn’t work at all. At least adding the .yaml suffix got some response; just no response from individual commands because they are meaningless to bash. Just like the docker-compose command is at the moment.

My next line of exploration is to try to install docker-compose. I’m suspicious it’s missing (not part of docker) & that’s why the yaml files does nothing. From what I’ve read, the yaml file is a list of instructions to docker-compose.

If only there was an equivalent to Docker Desktop for Linux.

Phil.

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homestorage-77 avatar image homestorage-77 dunnp commented ·

Did you ever figure out how to run the 'docker-compose' command on Raspberry Pi? I'm stuck with the same issue

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homestorage-77 avatar image homestorage-77 homestorage-77 commented ·

So, as the Victron file was called 'docker-compose.yaml' I didn't realise that 'docker-compose' was a separate package that needed installing.

Once installed docker-compose

sudo pip3 install docker-compose

then I ran

docker-compose up -d

while in the directory that docker-compose.yaml exists & hey presto - it installs the venus-docker image or whatever the terminology is

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dunnp avatar image dunnp homestorage-77 commented ·

After getting nowhere I gave up and just focussed on my Windows PC. Now you’ve given me a new lead I’ll fire up a Pi and have another go. Thanks.

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dunnp avatar image dunnp homestorage-77 commented ·

Update: No joy. I get an error when it tries to setup the graphing component (forget the actual message). I’ll try one more thing - start with a fresh clean RaspOS build in case there’s some oddball stuff on my existing SD card causing problems.

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dunnp avatar image dunnp dunnp commented ·

Further update: Success with a new OS image.

Rather than post the procedure here where it's a bit buried in the long thread, I will create a new article in Modifications.

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Rene Mullie avatar image Rene Mullie Scott Bender commented ·

I use this for a few Ppi's I use for various tasks in HomeAutomation, also a lot of Victron equipment. I installed the IOT stack with only docker install, then I used the YAML file of the victron-grafana-docker project to install the whole Victron grafana setup automatically: works in 15min!

https://github.com/gcgarner/IOTstack

I am only struggeling to configure the grafana.ini file for custom settings to bypass login screen. I want to use grafana graphs in OpenHab but only see login form in OH frame widget... :-(


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sureshskr avatar image sureshskr Rob Mitchell commented ·

Please look at my comment on the below link


https://community.victronenergy.com/articles/72317/docker-grafana-dashboards-on-raspberry-pi.html

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Gabriel Tanasescu avatar image
Gabriel Tanasescu answered ·

I ca not install ..I have W10 Home ....message ..Docker Desktop requires Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise (15063+) or Windows 10 Home (19018+).

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Hi, yes since I have that.


have you already used google to see if there is a solution for you?

(I’m sorry, but I can’t start using google for you.. I hope you understand. If I’d do that, there would be no time left to sleep in a day ;o). ).

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Ps after some reading, it looks like its possible to install docker on windows home.


two options

1) a work around by install virtual box first.

2) installing a test version of docker: https://www.docker.com/blog/docker-desktop-for-windows-home-is-here/

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dunnp avatar image dunnp mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Hi Matthijs

That workaround for W10 Home worked - eventually! It's a long tedious Windows upgrade with a few traps along the way. I use a Surface Pro with a only a 128GB SSD and the upgrade needs a lot of space - eg 10-15GB. Luckily it allows you to plug in an external drive to complete the upgrade. Mine took about 4hrs to complete!!

That Windows Insider Program appears to have done an upgrade to W10 Pro (from my limited knowledge).

After that the Docker/Grafana installation succeeded - eventually. I struggled with the documentation provided; it's a bit 'lightweight' and could be improved with some expansion on some of the steps listed in github.

My suggestions:

Step 1 should mention that W10 Home could be problematic because the Docker installation needs either Hyper-V or WSL2 and direct the reader to the workaround.

Running Docker is covered in the video but should be included in the written instructions. Something like:

1a Note that Docker Desktop runs in the background and nothing will appear on the screen, Click on Show hidden items, click on the Docker icon and then Dashboard.

1b Wait until Docker is running - the icon in the bottom left says 'running'

Step 4 is also covered in the video but should be described in text..

4a Open Powershell and navigate to the folder where you saved docker-compose.yaml in Step 3.

4b Execute docker-compose up --detach in Powershell

4c The installation process takes a quite a few minutes. Check it completes without errors.

Step 5 is the one that held me up for ages. It should mention the default username and password is admin and admin respectively as per step 7.

I know this all seems simple and obvious once you've done it, but for a first-timer like me it wasn't very clear.

It looks like a great tool and I am keen to explore it's capabilities. Thanks for your efforts to provide it.


Cheers

Phil

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ dunnp commented ·

Hi Phil,

Thats sounds like a crazy long process indeed!

I’ve integrated your comments to the documentation in the readme. Most of it. For the w10 home I’m staying a bit vague on purpose.

Thank you for the input. I can’t make such instructions perfect without input like yours

Best regards & enjoy (& share a pic of your dashboard!)

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dunnp avatar image dunnp mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Hi Matthijs

Re W10 Home, last night I tried to install Docker Desktop on another laptop running plain W10 Home and it refused, requiring W10 Pro or a recent(?) version of Home (build 190-something) as others have reported. So I think a caution on Home is warranted in the instructions. When I have a spare few hours (!) I'll run that Windows Insider upgrade and note the steps and traps.

Here is what I've done so far...

Still fiddling with the UI and learning the 'personality' of Docker and Grafana - and plenty more questions to ask!!

Thanks for your support.

Cheers

Phil

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dunnp avatar image dunnp mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Hi again Matthijs

I know you don't want to get too deep into the W10 Home bit - it's not really a Victron thing after all - but some extra detail may help people like me stumbling around trying to get Grafana working.

I have now done 4 Docker-Grafana installs and noted some traps that caught me out. My notes..

For Windows 10 Home the minimum requirement is Version 2004 Build 19041. Run winver from a command prompt to check. For earlier versions, join the Windows Insider Program (Settings>Update & Security>Windows Insider Program) which (eventually) update to v2004 build 19041. This takes several hours and quite a few restarts to complete!!

The Docker installation requires a virtual machine – either Hyper-V or WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux). For these to run, virtualisation must be enabled in BIOS. The Docker installation will prompt if this needs action. It may also prompt to upgrade from WSL to WSL2.

One other thing I'm watching is CPU load - I did a clean install on a low-spec Intel NUC running W10 Home and at a 5-sec refresh rate it runs at 100% CPU most of the time. At 10-sec refresh rate it fluctuates between 20 and 100%. Obviously this will vary with dashboard complexity, but something to be aware of if running on low end hardware.

Cheers

Phil

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Mark avatar image
Mark answered ·

@jonnys per your request, I just made up a generic but fairly decent dashboard that you can directly import to start off with, then modify as desired to suit your system and preferences.


The dashboard json file is attached below;

Marks Basic Dashboard-1590581387865.zip

(I had to zip it in order to upload as .json file extension was not accepted)


To Import:

Hover over the + symbol to expand the 'Create' list, then click on 'Import'.

In the Import screen click on 'Upload .json File' and locate the dashboard file you want to import.

Then you should get something like this;


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Jonny Sollid avatar image Jonny Sollid commented ·
Great! I set up instruments this weekend based on a dashboard image, but with this "json file" I also have the ability to see settings and many tips for setup and viewing which is of great use! Thanks for taking the time to share the dashboard!
I have installed node red and signal-k on my cerbo gx and the next step is to integrate all nmea 2000 data in grafana, exciting! :)


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kimmo-paukku avatar image
kimmo-paukku answered ·

Hello Sirs,

Is there any change to get/calculate Total PV Lifetime kWh ?

I have 3pcs MPPTs, those "purple boxes" and I would like to get total lifetime kWh as well.

Is it possible somehow ? …… Im not a specialist... :)

Thanks for advance.





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solarhack avatar image
solarhack answered ·

Hi @Kimmo Paukku I installed this a few weeks ago and have done awesome things. The answer to your question is it depends.

a) You can add totals across the full life or you data (30 days be default, you can change this), but it must sum metrics stored in the DB. You would have to do a InfluxDBQL. I suggest you duplicate on of the graphs and then edit it, once in edit click the pencil icon to get into the query builders source code. The table you should use is probably "solarcharger/Yield/Power"

The following links may be helpful: https://www.influxdata.com/blog/tldr-influxdb-tech-tips-january-26-2017/

https://www.influxdata.com/blog/tldr-influxdb-tech-tips-april-28-2016/


b) You cannot do complex computations or cross query aggregations In order to do these you would have to update to the new InfluxDB or add the Flux datasource. This isn't too hard to do if you are a familiar with the Grafana. I'm busy creating my own Docker file to do just that. I'll share it once I'm sure it works.


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kimmo-paukku avatar image kimmo-paukku commented ·

Hello Sir,

Thanks for your reply.

….but this goes way over my skills.... so Im good without it. :)

Im not a specialist with these things... ;)

Thanks

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solarhack avatar image
solarhack answered ·

Check the Docker network configuration, to see what ports is is using and allowing access to.

https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/port/

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edgard avatar image
edgard answered ·

hola, necesito ayuda para instalar Docker Desktop en mi PC , la cual tiene windows home 2019, ya habilite la opción Subsistema de Windows para Linux en mi pc y la reinicie, pero cuando intento instalar el Docker Desktop me dice que necesito poseer: Docker Desktop requires Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise (15063+) or Windows 10 Home (19018+).




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