Containerised Microsoft SQL Server With Grafana

I recently set up Grafana with SQL Server at work and decided to document the process. This isn’t a very complex task, but there were a couple of edge cases I needed to lookup once or twice.

I created a repository plus a Docker Compose file for convenience. It is available here.

Provisioning Grafana #

Although I’ve used Grafana in a variety of contexts, this was the first time that I have used SQL Server with it (though I’ve used SQL Server itself more times than I can count).

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apiVersion: 1
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datasources:
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  - name: MSSQL
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    type: mssql
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    url: localhost:1433
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    user: sa
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    jsonData:
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      database: ${MSSQL_DB_NAME}
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      encrypt: 'false'
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    secureJsonData:
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      password: ${MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD}

Docker Compose #

This is the bulk of the configuration in the repository. It sets up containers, volumes, health checks, environment variables, and the exposed ports.

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version: '3.8'
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services:
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  sql-server:
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    image: mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest
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    environment:
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      ACCEPT_EULA: 'Y'
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      MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD: ${MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD}
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      MSSQL_PID: 'Express'
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    ports:
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      - "1433:1433"
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    volumes:
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      - sql_data:/var/opt/mssql
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    restart: always
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    healthcheck:
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      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "/opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd -S localhost -U sa -P ${MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD} -Q 'SELECT 1' || exit 1"]
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      interval: 10s
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      retries: 10
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      start_period: 10s
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      timeout: 3s
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  wait-for-sql-server:
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    image: ghcr.io/flcdrg/wait-for-mssql:2.0.35
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    depends_on:
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      - sql-server
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    command: --server sql-server --username sa --password ${MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD}
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    restart: "no"
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  grafana:
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    image: grafana/grafana:11.0.0
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    ports:
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      - "3000:3000"
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    environment:
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      GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER: ${GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER}
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      GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD: ${GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD}
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      GF_PLUGIN_GRAFANA_IMAGE_RENDERER_RENDERING_IGNORE_HTTPS_ERRORS: true
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      MSSQL_DB_NAME: ${MSSQL_DB_NAME}
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    depends_on:
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      - wait-for-sql-server
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    volumes:
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      - grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana
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      - grafana_logs:/var/log/grafana
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      - grafana_config:/etc/grafana
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      - ./grafana/provisioning/datasources:/etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources
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    restart: always
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volumes:
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  grafana_data:
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  grafana_logs:
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  grafana_config:
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  sql_data:

Environment Variables #

If you intend to clone and run this repository, as per the README, you’ll need to create a .env file and provide the following values. This is not a particularly elegant solution for a production system, but it works.

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GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_USER=placeholder
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GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD=placeholder
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MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=placeholder
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MSSQL_DB_NAME=placeholder

Containerised Microsoft SQL Server With Grafana

Provisioning Grafana #

Docker Compose #

Environment Variables #

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