feat: add blog contents

content/posts/2023-07-25-grafana-raspberry-pi-4-kiosk.md

@@ -0,0 +1,170 @@
+---
+type: "blog-post"
+title: "Running Grafana Kiosk on a Raspberry pi"
+description: "The motivation behind setting up a raspberry pi for kiosk mode, and sacrificing a tv, is that at work we've got kind of this control center factor, where at a glance, we can quickly get an overview of a problem. If an alert goes, it is super easy to just look up and there you go, you can see the spike in CPU, requests you name it. "
+draft: false
+date: "2023-07-26"
+updates:
+- time: "2023-07-26"
+  description: "first iteration"
+tags:
+- '#blog'
+---
+
+# Introduction
+
+The motivation behind setting up a raspberry pi for kiosk mode, and sacrificing
+a tv, is that at work we've got kind of this control center factor, where at a
+glance, we can quickly get an overview of a problem. If an alert goes, it is
+super easy to just look up and there you go, you can see the spike in CPU,
+requests you name it.
+
+And it looks super cool :D
+
+![grafana-dash](assets/2023-07-26-grafana-dash.jpg)
+
+# Prerequisites
+
+You are gonna need a raspberry pi (ofc) or another small mini pc. It doesn't
+technically have to be a raspberry pi, but the official docs, and this guide is
+certainly geared towards it.
+
+I am using a:
+
+- Raspberry pi 4
+- A monitor / TV. I am usually using the tv.
+- A grafana server somewhere reachable by the raspberry pi
+
+# Installation
+
+I won't go too deep into the installation, I've used the raspberry pi imager, to
+setup an sd-card, with raspberryp os 64 bit, You may have to choose the 32 bit
+version if you're running on an older pi. I am choosing the default, not the
+lite version, you want the desktop to be setup.
+
+You can change the name of the user if you want, you will just have to swap out
+the pi username later.
+
+Simply hook it up to a display, get a keyboard and mouse (or ssh connection), I
+did everything through an ssh connection personally.
+
+## Grafana-kiosk
+
+Grafana actually publishes an app for running a kiosk mode grafana dashboard, it
+is just a single binary and can be fetched from their github page:
+https://github.com/grafana/grafana-kiosk
+
+Simply download the binary that you need:
+
+```bash
+lscpu | grep Arch
+```
+
+First figure out which architecture you're on. Raspberry pi 4 returns aarch64,
+which maps to linux-arm64. Older raspberry pi editions, map to an armv7 or below
+(I believe)
+
+Next grab the release (make sure to look for an updated version)
+
+```bash
+export VERSION="v1.0.6" # as of 2023-07-26
+export KIOSK_ARCH="linux.arm64"
+
+wget "https://github.com/grafana/grafana-kiosk/releases/download/$VERSION/grafana-kiosk.$KIOSK_ARCH"
+
+chmod +x "grafana-kiosk.$KIOSK_ARCH"
+```
+
+Now you should have got the executable in the home directory, you are free to
+move it to a more appropriate place, but make sure to update the paths later.
+
+Now give it a whirl using the default settings, this will show stats from a
+template grafana dashboard provided by grafana themselves.
+
+```bash
+./grafana-kiosk.$KIOSK_ARCH
+```
+
+After a few seconds the built in chromium browser will open and you should see
+the grafana page loading. To turn it off simply `Ctrl+C` the process.
+
+Now we have a few choices for auto-setup. The official docs mention a few
+different ways you can do it:
+https://github.com/grafana/grafana-kiosk/blob/main/README.md#automatic-startup
+
+I will personally use systemd, as it is a fairly convenient and homogenous way
+of doing it. I am also not running LXDE on my workstation, so I'd rather choose
+something I am slightly more familiar with.
+
+## Setup Systemd
+
+First we need to create a systemd service. I am personally using neovim, but you
+are free to choose regular vim or nano, if you prefer.
+
+First grab yourself a super user session
+
+```bash
+sudo su
+<enter password>
+```
+
+And create the file
+
+```bash
+nvim /etc/systemd/system/grafana-kiosk.service
+```
+
+Now enter the contents:
+
+```bash
+[Unit]
+Description=Grafana Kiosk
+Documentation=https://github.com/grafana/grafana-kiosk
+Documentation=https://grafana.com/blog/2019/05/02/grafana-tutorial-how-to-create-kiosks-to-display-dashboards-on-a-tv
+After=network.target
+
+[Service]
+User=nefarious
+Environment="DISPLAY=:0"
+Environment="XAUTHORITY=/home/nefarious/.Xauthority"
+
+ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 30
+ExecStartPre=xset s off
+ExecStartPre=xset -dpms
+ExecStartPre=xset s noblank
+
+ExecStart=/home/pi/grafana-kiosk.linux.arm64 -URL <your-playlist-url> -login-method local -username <your-user> -password <your-password> -playlists true -lxde-home /home/pi/ -lxde true
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=graphical.target
+```
+
+This is specifically setup to use playlists, if you want to do the same, simply
+create or view a playlist in grafana, and copy the shareable link or url to it.
+Simple as that. I am also just using a user here, but checkout the options for
+using api tokens or an oauth setup if this is used professionally.
+
+Now we need to instruct systemd to reload all unit files
+
+```bash
+systemctl daemon-reload
+```
+
+And enable our service
+
+```bash
+systemctl enable --now grafana-kiosk
+```
+
+This will both enable and start the grafana-kiosk service. Not that this will
+take atleast 30 seconds to take effect because of the 30 seconds sleep. You can
+reduce or remove that at your own risk.
+
+If it succeeds you should after a while see the same as before when you executed
+the grafana-kiosk binary. Now it should display your dashboards instead tho.
+
+If nothing happens or you get an error message, simply check with
+`systemctl status grafana-kiosk` or using `journalctl -u grafana-kiosk`.
+
+That should be it, you should now have a live dashboard view, which will be
+automatically updated, when you update your grafana setup