Logs and Traces with Grafana

In this tutorial, we will set up a Grafana Dashboard showing Quickwit traces using Docker Compose.

You only need a few minutes to get Grafana working with Quickwit and build meaningful dashboards.

Create a Docker Compose recipe

First, create a docker-compose.yml file. This file will define the services needed to run Quickwit with OpenTelemetry and Grafana with the Quickwit Datasource plugin.

Below is the complete Docker Compose configuration:

services:
  quickwit:
    image: quickwit/quickwit:0.9.0
    environment:
      QW_ENABLE_OPENTELEMETRY_OTLP_EXPORTER: "true"
      OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT: "http://localhost:7281"
    ports:
      - 7280:7280
    command: ["run"]

  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana-oss:13.0.2
    container_name: grafana
    ports:
      - "${MAP_HOST_GRAFANA:-127.0.0.1}:3000:3000"
    environment:
      GF_PLUGINS_PREINSTALL_SYNC: quickwit-quickwit-datasource@@https://github.com/quickwit-oss/quickwit-datasource/releases/download/v0.4.6/quickwit-quickwit-datasource-0.4.6.zip

The default Grafana port is 3000. If this port is already taken, you can modify the port mapping, for example, changing 3000:3000 to 3100:3000 or any other available port.

Save and run the recipe:

$ docker compose up

You should be able to access Quickwit's UI on http://localhost:7280/ and Grafana's UI on http://localhost:3000/.

:::caution

This local self-observability setup sends Quickwit's telemetry back into the same Quickwit instance and can generate data rapidly. Stop the services with docker compose down when you finish the tutorial.

:::

Setting up the datasource

In Grafana, sign in with the default credentials (admin / admin) and choose a new password. Then head to Data sources. If the plugin is installed correctly, you should be able to find Quickwit in the list.

We're going to set up a new Quickwit data source looking at Quickwit's own OpenTelemetry traces, let's configure the datasource with the following parameters:

• URL : http://quickwit:7280/api/v1 This uses the docker service name as the host
• Index ID : otel-traces-v0_9

Save and test, you should obtain a confirmation that the datasource is correctly set up.

You can also set up a new Quickwit data source looking at Quickwit's own OpenTelemetry logs (or your own logs index), let's configure the datasource with the following parameters:

• URL : http://quickwit:7280/api/v1 This uses the docker service name as the host
• Index ID : otel-logs-v0_9

Creating a dashboard

You can then create a new dashboard and add a visualization : you should be able to choose the traces quickwit datasource here.

Quickwit sends itself its own traces, so you should already have data to display. Let's configure some panels !

• a Table counting span_name values
  • Panel type : Table
  • Query: empty
  • Metric : Count
  • Group by : Terms : span_name : order by Count
• a Bar Chart showing the amount of tantivy searches per hour :
  • Panel type: Time Series
  • Query : "span_name:tantivy_search"
  • Metric: Count
  • Group by : Date Histogram : span_start_timestamp_nanos : Interval 1h
• a Bar Chart showing the amount of ERROR logs per hour for the last 6 hours :
  • Panel type: Bar Chart
  • Query: "service_name:quickwit AND severity_text:ERROR"
  • Metric: Count
  • Group by : Date Histogram : timestamp_nanos : Interval 1h
• another query on the same Bar Chart for WARN logs

The result

Here's what your first dashboard can look like :

Clean up

Stop and remove the tutorial containers:

docker compose down