Chapter 7: Managing Plugins

Plugins are pieces of software that allow adding different features to Grafana. From data sources to panels and applications, plugins offer a large variety of functionalities.

In the previous chapters, we have explored some of the plugins included in the core installation of Grafana. You have learned how to use data source plugins such as InfluxDB, Google Sheets, and a CSV plugin.

In the panel plugins, you have used Time series, Histogram, Geomap, Text, and many others.

In this chapter, you will learn how to manage the plugins in your instance of Grafana. This includes several methods of installation, types of plugins, signed and unsigned plugins, and user permissions for managing plugins.

In this chapter, we’ll cover the following topics:

• How to install and manage plugins
• All the flavors of plugins

Technical requirements

To get the most out of this chapter, I recommend you have any or all of the following resources:

• A Grafana Cloud instance.
• A Grafana instance running on your own server. In this chapter, all the examples refer to Ubuntu Server, but you can use any system or distribution.

Let’s start this chapter with plugin administration.

How to install and manage plugins

There are different methods for installing plugins. You learned how to install some plugins in Chapter 4, Data Sources for Grafana. In this chapter, you will learn the general procedures.

First, let’s see how to install a plugin on your own server.

Installing a Grafana plugin on your server

There are two methods for installing a plugin in a Grafana instance: the Grafana CLI and manual installation.

Installing a plugin with the Grafana CLI

The easiest method for installing a plugin is using the Grafana CLI. With this tool, you can install, upgrade, and remove plugins.

Let’s see all the available commands.

This command installs the latest version of a plugin:

$ grafana-cli plugins install <the-plugin-id>

This command specifies the version to install:

$ grafana-cli plugins install <the-plugin-id> <version>

This one lists the plugins available for installing:

$ grafana-cli plugins list...

All the flavors of plugins

You can see the complete list of available plugins in the following link:

https://grafana.com/grafana/plugins/.

The plugins are classified into several categories, depending on various factors. Let’s explore them.

Signed versus unsigned plugins

Grafana validates each plugin by means of a signature. Grafana uses this signature for verifying that a plugin is original and has not been modified.

When Grafana starts, it checks the signature of each of the plugins in the plugin directory. If a plugin is not signed, Grafana will not load it.

You can see the verification of the plugins by going to the Configuration | Plugins page.

There are several statuses for the signature of a plugin:

• Core: When the plugin is included in the Grafana code.
• Invalid signature: When the plugin doesn’t have a valid signature.
• Modified signature: When the plugin suffered modifications after its signature. This can be a security issue...

Summary

In this chapter, you have learned how to install, update, and remove plugins in different environments.

Also, you have learned about the signatures of the plugins, and why they are important in a production environment.

Finally, you have explored all the features and functionalities that the plugin ecosystem offers.

In the next chapter, you will learn how to organize and manage dashboards to offer a better experience to the final user.