Monitoring Raspberry Pi System using InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana

Want to monitor your Raspberry Pi System information like CPU Usage, RAM, swap memory, or disk usage? Follow this article, where we will show you how you can perform system monitoring for your Raspberry Pi device using InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana.

Monitoring Raspberry Pi System using InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana

To perform system monitoring, install the following tools:

InfluxDB (Database management)
Telegraf (Collecting information)
Grafana (User interface)

Install InfluxDB on Raspberry Pi

To install the InfluxDB database system from the Raspberry Pi repository, run the below-mentioned command:

$ sudo apt install influxdb

After the installation, check the InfluxDB status using the following command:

$ sudo systemctl status influxdb

The active (running) status confirms InfluxDB is running without any issue.

Install Telegraf on Raspberry Pi

Telegraf is a server agent used to collect metric information and it can be installed using the following steps:

Step 1: First, download the InfluxDB key from the following command:

$ wget -q https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key

Step 2: Add the InfluxDB key to Raspberry Pi using the following command:

$ echo '23a1c8836f0afc5ed24e0486339d7cc8f6790b83886c4c96995b88a061c5bb5d influxdb.key' | sha256sum -c && cat influxdb.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/influxdb.gpg > /dev/null

Step 3: Now, add the Telegraf repository to the Raspberry Pi source list using the following command:

$ echo 'deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/influxdb.gpg] https://repos.influxdata.com/debian stable main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdata.list

Step 4: To ensure the repository is successfully added, update the Raspberry Pi repository through the update command mentioned below:

$ sudo apt update

Step 5: After the update, install Telegraf on Raspberry Pi via the following command:

$ sudo apt install telegraf -y

To ensure Telegraf service is running, you must run the following command:

$ sudo systemctl status telegraf

Install Grafana on Raspberry Pi

The final installation tool is Grafana, which is a system monitoring tool that displays the result on the web interface. To install Grafana on Raspberry Pi, follow the below-given steps:

Step 1: Download Grafana’s latest version deb package for Raspberry Pi through the following command:

$ wget https://dl.grafana.com/enterprise/release/grafana-enterprise_9.2.5_armhf.deb

Visit the website here to download Grafana according to your system architecture.

Step 2: To install Grafana on Raspberry Pi through the deb package, use the following command:

$ sudo apt install ./grafana-enterprise_9.2.5_armhf.deb

After the installation, you have to start the Grafana service on Raspberry Pi from the following command:

$ sudo systemctl start grafana-server.service

Confirm the active running status of Grafana on Raspberry Pi through the following command:

$ sudo systemctl status grafana-server.service

Create a Database for Grafana

After installing all the tools, you must create a database using the InfluxDB database system, which is supported by Grafana. To create a database using InfluxDB, follow the below-mentioned steps:

Step 1: Open the InfluxDB database from the following command:

$ influx

Step 2: Create a database name “telegraf” using the following syntax:

create database telegraf

Step 3: Run the following syntax to use the Telegraf database.

use telegraf

Step 4: You must create a username and set a password for your database using the following syntax:

create user <username> with password 'database_password' with all privileges

Step 5: Now grant all privileges using the following syntax:

grant all privileges on telegraf to <database_username>

Step 6: Exit the database through the “exit” command to complete the database setup.

Configure Telegraf File

Before moving towards the Grafana dashboard, you must perform the following steps to configure the Telegraf file on Raspberry Pi.

$ sudo nano /etc/telegraf/telegraf.conf

Find the following lines inside the file and uncomment them accordingly. However, instead of searching for these lines inside the file, you can manually add them anywhere inside the file:

[[outputs.influxdb]]

urls = ["http://127.0.0.1:8086"]

database = "telegraf"

username = "database_user"

password = "database_password"

Make sure to replace the username and password then save the file using “CTRL+X”.

Reload the Telegraf service via the following command:

$ sudo systemctl reload telegraf.service

To check whether the changes you made are successfully applied, run the following command:

$ sudo systemctl status telegraf.service

Access Grafana Web Interface

Go to Chromium browser on Raspberry Pi and enter the address “localhost:3000” to open the Grafana dashboard.

You must change the password in the next onscreen window.

Go to the “Configuration Settings” option on the Grafana dashboard and click on the “Add data source” button.

Select InfluxDB as a data source.

Fill the http section with the “local address” and port number “8086”.

Scroll down and add your database information, which we created earlier and then click on the “Save & test” button to add the database to Grafana.

Now click the “arrow” icon right in front of the “Search” option:

Click on the “Import” option.

Add the ID “10578” and select the “Load” button.

Scroll down, select the “InfluxDB” option and then click on the “Import” button.

Reload the Grafana web page to see your Raspberry Pi system information.

At this point, you have successfully set up the Raspberry Pi system monitoring process using InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana.

Conclusion

Raspberry Pi system monitoring is handy since it allows users to check their system performance. With InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana, users can perform system monitoring tasks successfully. The guidelines mentioned above will surely help you set up your system monitoring process and you should do it on your system to get detailed system information like CPU usage, RAM and more.

Monitoring Raspberry Pi System using InfluxDB, Telegraf and Grafana