Infrastructure Setup: Grafana & Loki

Quick setup scripts for running Grafana and Loki containers using Docker Desktop or Podman Desktop.

Setup with Podman Desktop

# Cleanup existing containers
podman rm gdev-grafana -f
podman rm gdev-loki -f

# Create network for container communication
podman network create gdev-net

# Run Grafana and Loki containers
podman run --network gdev-net --name gdev-grafana -d -p 3000:3000 grafana/grafana
podman run --network gdev-net --name gdev-loki -d -p 3100:3100 grafana/loki 

# Note: Grafana default credentials are admin/admin

Save as setup-with-podman.ps1 and run in PowerShell.

Setup with Docker Desktop

# Cleanup existing containers
docker rm gdev-grafana -f
docker rm gdev-loki -f

# Run Grafana and Loki containers
docker run --name gdev-grafana -d -p 3000:3000 grafana/grafana
docker run --name gdev-loki -d -p 3100:3100 grafana/loki 

# Note: Grafana default credentials are admin/admin

Save as setup-with-docker.ps1 and run in PowerShell.

Setup Validation

Verify that both services are running correctly:

# Check Grafana health
curl -i http://localhost:3000/api/health

# Check Loki readiness
curl -i http://localhost:3100/ready

Wait until both endpoints return HTTP 200 status code.

Access URLs

• Grafana Dashboard: http://localhost:3000
• Loki API: http://localhost:3100

Default Credentials

• Username: admin
• Password: admin

Container Management

# Stop containers
docker stop gdev-grafana gdev-loki
# or
podman stop gdev-grafana gdev-loki

# Start containers
docker start gdev-grafana gdev-loki
# or
podman start gdev-grafana gdev-loki

# View logs
docker logs gdev-grafana
docker logs gdev-loki

Network Configuration

When using Podman, containers are connected via the gdev-net network, allowing them to communicate using container names. Docker containers can communicate via the default bridge network.

Use Cases

• Local development environment
• Testing log aggregation workflows
• Grafana dashboard development
• Loki query testing
• Observability stack prototyping