Grafana Admin key terms

A top-level tenant inside one Grafana instance that owns its own dashboards, folders, data sources, users, and alert rules. Users can belong to several organizations and switch between them.

A saved collection of panels arranged in a grid, each panel running one or more queries against data sources. Dashboards are the primary visualization artifact users build and share.

A single visualization unit inside a dashboard, such as a time series graph, stat, table, or gauge. Each panel binds a query to a visualization type and display options.

A configured connection from Grafana to a backend such as Prometheus, Loki, or a SQL database. It stores the URL, authentication, and query settings used by panels.

The request a panel sends to a data source to retrieve data, written in that source's query language. Grafana normalizes the returned frames for visualization.

Grafana's internal tabular data structure of typed fields and rows, produced by data source queries and consumed by panels. Understanding frames helps debug unexpected visualizations.

Loading dashboards, data sources, alert rules, and other configuration from files or an API at startup, so they are reproducible and version-controlled rather than edited by hand.

The main Grafana settings file, commonly grafana.ini or a custom.ini, controlling server ports, database, authentication, logging, and feature toggles. It can be overridden by environment variables.

A convention where a setting in the configuration file is overridden by an environment variable using a prefixed, uppercased, underscored key. Useful for containers and secret injection.

Grafana's permission model assigning roles such as Viewer, Editor, and Admin at organization, folder, or dashboard scope. Fine-grained roles extend the basic three-tier model.

A group of users within an organization used to grant shared permissions on folders and dashboards. Teams simplify access management compared with per-user grants.

A container that groups dashboards and carries its own permissions. Nested folders allow hierarchical organization and inheritance of access rules.

A non-human identity with a token used for API access and automation, replacing legacy API keys. Tokens can be scoped to a role and revoked independently.

A credential presented in an HTTP header to authenticate requests to the Grafana HTTP API. Modern deployments issue tokens through service accounts rather than legacy keys.

Grafana's REST interface for managing dashboards, folders, data sources, users, and alerting resources programmatically. It is the backbone of automation and provisioning workflows.

A definition that evaluates a query on a schedule and fires when a condition is met. Rules are grouped, routed to contact points, and can be managed in Grafana or compatible backends.

A destination for alert notifications, such as email, Slack, webhook, or PagerDuty. Contact points are referenced by notification policies to route firing alerts.

A routing tree that decides which contact point receives an alert based on matching labels. It also controls grouping, timing, and repeat behavior for notifications.

A temporary suppression of notifications for alerts matching given label matchers, with a start and end time. Silences are useful during maintenance windows.

The component that deduplicates, groups, and routes alerts to contact points. Grafana can run its own Alertmanager or delegate to an external Prometheus-compatible one.

Grafana's alerting subsystem that evaluates rules centrally and supports multiple data sources, replacing legacy per-dashboard alerting. It exposes a Prometheus-compatible alerting API.

A frozen, shareable copy of a dashboard's rendered data at a point in time. Snapshots do not update and are useful for incident reports or external sharing.

A dashboard shared outside the organization through an unauthenticated link, exposing only selected panels and time ranges. It is disabled by default for security.

A configuration mode allowing unauthenticated users to view dashboards, typically restricted to an organization and viewer role. It is disabled by default and should be scoped carefully.

An external identity source such as OAuth, SAML, LDAP, or a generic proxy that Grafana uses to verify users and map them to organizations and roles.

Configuration that authenticates users against a directory server and maps directory groups to Grafana organizations and roles. It supports search filters and group synchronization.

Delegating authentication to an identity provider such as Google, GitHub, or a generic OIDC service. Grafana maps returned claims to user attributes and roles.

The relational store holding Grafana's state, typically SQLite by default or MySQL/PostgreSQL for production. Choosing a robust backend is essential for high availability.

Running multiple Grafana instances behind a load balancer with a shared database and shared session storage, so the loss of one instance does not interrupt service.

An installable extension adding data sources, panels, or apps to Grafana. Plugins may be signed, unsigned, or private and are governed by plugin signature verification settings.

A security setting controlling whether Grafana loads unsigned or invalidly signed plugins. Administrators can allow specific unsigned plugins by identifier.

An auxiliary service that produces images of panels and dashboards for alerts, reports, and sharing. It is required for image-based alert notifications.

Telemetry and analytics about dashboard usage, such as views and query counts, used to identify popular or unused content. Availability depends on edition and configuration.

A record of administrative and user actions, such as logins and permission changes, useful for compliance and incident investigation. It can be written to a file or database.

The practice of exporting the Grafana database and provisioning files so an instance can be rebuilt. Dashboards can also be exported as JSON for portability.

The supported sequence of version upgrades, including database migrations and configuration changes, that keeps a Grafana instance healthy. Skipping major versions may be unsupported.

A configuration flag enabling experimental or optional functionality. Toggles can change between releases and should be reviewed before and after upgrades.