RPM-based Installation

Install Grafana on RHEL, Fedora, or CentOS using YUM/DNF repository or RPM packages

RPM-based Installation

This guide covers installing Grafana on RPM-based Linux distributions (RHEL, Fedora, CentOS) using the YUM/DNF repository or standalone RPM packages.

Installation Methods

You can install Grafana on RPM-based systems using:

• YUM/DNF repository (recommended): Automatic updates via dnf update
• RPM package: Manual installation from downloaded package
• Standalone binary: Manual installation from tarball

Install from RPM Repository

Installing from the RPM repository enables automatic updates when you run dnf update or yum update.

Available Repositories

Edition	Package	Repository
Grafana Enterprise	grafana-enterprise	https://rpm.grafana.com
Grafana Enterprise (Beta)	grafana-enterprise	https://rpm-beta.grafana.com
Grafana OSS	grafana	https://rpm.grafana.com
Grafana OSS (Beta)	grafana	https://rpm-beta.grafana.com

Grafana Enterprise is the recommended edition. It’s free and includes all OSS features, with the option to upgrade to the full Enterprise feature set.

1. Import the GPG key
2. wget -q -O gpg.key https://rpm.grafana.com/gpg.key
   sudo rpm --import gpg.key
   

3. Create the repository file
4. Create /etc/yum.repos.d/grafana.repo with the following content:
5. sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/grafana.repo <<EOF
   [grafana]
   name=grafana
   baseurl=https://rpm.grafana.com
   repo_gpgcheck=1
   enabled=1
   gpgcheck=1
   gpgkey=https://rpm.grafana.com/gpg.key
   sslverify=1
   sslcacert=/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
   EOF
   

6. For beta releases, change the baseurl to https://rpm-beta.grafana.com.
7. Install Grafana
8. For Grafana OSS:
9. sudo dnf install grafana
   

10. For Grafana Enterprise:
11. sudo dnf install grafana-enterprise
    

12. On older systems using YUM:
13. sudo yum install grafana-enterprise
    

Install from RPM Package

Manual installation using RPM packages requires you to manually update Grafana for each new version.

RPM files are signed and can be verified with the public GPG key.

1. Download and install
2. Visit the Grafana download page and:
4. Install using DNF:
5. sudo dnf install <rpm-package-url>
   

6. Example:
7. sudo dnf install https://dl.grafana.com/enterprise/release/grafana-enterprise-11.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm
   

8. On older systems using YUM:
9. sudo yum install -y <rpm-package-url>
   

Install as Standalone Binary

For manual installation with full control over file locations:

1. Download and extract
2. Download the tarball from the Grafana download page and extract it:
3. wget <tarball-url>
   tar -zxvf grafana-<version>.linux-amd64.tar.gz
   

4. Create Grafana user
5. sudo useradd -r -s /bin/false grafana
   

6. Move to installation directory
7. sudo mv grafana-<version> /usr/local/grafana
   

8. Set ownership
9. sudo chown -R grafana:users /usr/local/grafana
   

10. Create systemd service file
11. sudo touch /etc/systemd/system/grafana-server.service
    

12. Add the following content:
13. [Unit]
    Description=Grafana Server
    After=network.target
    
    [Service]
    Type=simple
    User=grafana
    Group=users
    ExecStart=/usr/local/grafana/bin/grafana server --config=/usr/local/grafana/conf/grafana.ini --homepath=/usr/local/grafana
    Restart=on-failure
    
    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target
    

14. Initialize data directory
15. Manually start Grafana once to create the data directory:
16. /usr/local/grafana/bin/grafana-server --homepath /usr/local/grafana
    

17. Press Ctrl+C to stop, then update ownership:
18. sudo chown -R grafana:users /usr/local/grafana
    

19. Enable and start service
20. sudo systemctl daemon-reload
    sudo systemctl enable grafana-server
    sudo systemctl start grafana-server
    

Start Grafana Server

Using systemd

Start the Grafana server:

sudo systemctl start grafana-server

Enable Grafana to start at boot:

sudo systemctl enable grafana-server

Check service status:

sudo systemctl status grafana-server

Using init.d

Start Grafana:

sudo service grafana-server start

Enable at boot:

sudo chkconfig grafana-server on

Configuration

After installation, Grafana uses these default paths:

Path	Description
/etc/grafana/grafana.ini	Configuration file
/var/lib/grafana	Data directory (SQLite database, plugins)
/var/log/grafana	Log files
/usr/share/grafana	Installation directory
/etc/grafana/provisioning	Provisioning directory
/etc/sysconfig/grafana-server	Environment variables

Environment Variables File

The systemd service reads environment variables from /etc/sysconfig/grafana-server:

CONF_FILE=/etc/grafana/grafana.ini
DATA_DIR=/var/lib/grafana
LOG_DIR=/var/log/grafana
PID_FILE_DIR=/run/grafana
PLUGINS_DIR=/var/lib/grafana/plugins
PROVISIONING_CFG_DIR=/etc/grafana/provisioning

Systemd Service Configuration

The Grafana systemd service (/usr/lib/systemd/system/grafana-server.service) includes:

• Runs as non-root grafana user
• Dependencies: PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL, InfluxDB (waits for them if present)
• Security hardening with restricted capabilities
• File open limit: 10,000
• Stop timeout: 20 seconds
• Automatic restart on failure

Service unit configuration:

[Unit]
Description=Grafana instance
Documentation=http://docs.grafana.org
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target
After=postgresql.service mariadb.service mysql.service influxdb.service

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=/etc/sysconfig/grafana-server
User=grafana
Group=grafana
Type=simple
Restart=on-failure
WorkingDirectory=/usr/share/grafana
RuntimeDirectory=grafana
RuntimeDirectoryMode=0750
ExecStart=/usr/share/grafana/bin/grafana server \
  --config=${CONF_FILE} \
  --pidfile=${PID_FILE_DIR}/grafana-server.pid \
  --packaging=rpm \
  cfg:default.paths.logs=${LOG_DIR} \
  cfg:default.paths.data=${DATA_DIR} \
  cfg:default.paths.plugins=${PLUGINS_DIR} \
  cfg:default.paths.provisioning=${PROVISIONING_CFG_DIR}

LimitNOFILE=10000
TimeoutStopSec=20

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Firewall Configuration

If you have firewalld enabled, allow traffic on port 3000:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=3000/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

SELinux Configuration

If SELinux is enforcing, you may need to configure it for Grafana:

sudo semanage port -a -t http_port_t -p tcp 3000

Or temporarily set SELinux to permissive mode:

sudo setenforce 0

Access Grafana

After starting the server, access Grafana:

1. Open your browser to http://localhost:3000
2. Sign in with default credentials:
   • Username: admin
   • Password: admin
3. Change the password when prompted

Uninstall Grafana

1. Stop the service
2. For systemd:
3. sudo systemctl stop grafana-server
   

4. For init.d:
5. sudo service grafana-server stop
   

6. Remove the package
7. For Grafana OSS:
8. sudo dnf remove grafana
   

9. For Grafana Enterprise:
10. sudo dnf remove grafana-enterprise
    

11. On older systems using YUM:
12. sudo yum remove grafana-enterprise
    

13. Remove the repository (optional)
14. sudo rm -i /etc/yum.repos.d/grafana.repo
    

15. Remove data (optional)
16. sudo rm -rf /var/lib/grafana
    sudo rm -rf /var/log/grafana
    sudo rm -rf /etc/grafana
    

Troubleshooting

View logs

sudo journalctl -u grafana-server -f

Or check log files:

sudo tail -f /var/log/grafana/grafana.log

Check service status

sudo systemctl status grafana-server

Verify installation

grafana-server -v

Port already in use

If port 3000 is already in use, edit /etc/grafana/grafana.ini:

[server]
http_port = 3001

Restart Grafana:

sudo systemctl restart grafana-server

Check firewall

sudo firewall-cmd --list-all

Check SELinux status

getenforce
sudo ausearch -m avc -ts recent

Next Steps

• Configure data sources
• Set up authentication (LDAP, OAuth, SAML)
• Configure SMTP for email notifications
• Set up provisioning for dashboards and data sources
• Configure an external database (MySQL or PostgreSQL)