Grafana on Google Cloud Run

Grafana is the world's leading open-source observability and analytics platform, used by 10M+ users at organisations including NASA, CERN, and Goldman Sachs. It provides unified dashboards, alerting, and visualisation for metrics, logs, and traces from over 100 data sources. This module deploys Grafana on Cloud Run v2 on top of the App_CloudRun foundation, which provisions and manages the shared Google Cloud infrastructure.

This guide focuses on the cloud services Grafana uses and how to explore and operate them from the Google Cloud Console and the command line. For the mechanics common to every Cloud Run application — service identity, ingress and load balancing, scaling and concurrency, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC Service Controls, backups, and the deployment lifecycle — refer to the App_CloudRun foundation guide rather than repeating them here.

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1. Overview

Grafana runs as a Go container on Cloud Run v2. The deployment wires together a focused set of Google Cloud services:

Capability	Google Cloud service	Notes
Compute	Cloud Run v2	Go service, 1 vCPU / 2 GiB by default, request-based autoscaling
Database	Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15	Required — Grafana requires a relational DB; SQLite is unsafe for multi-instance deployments
Object storage	Cloud Storage	A grafana-data bucket provisioned automatically
Optional shared storage	Filestore (NFS)	Disabled by default; enable to share dashboards or plugins across instances
Optional cache	Redis	Disabled by default; can be enabled for session storage
Secrets	Secret Manager	Database password managed by the foundation; admin credentials injected via env var
Ingress	Cloud Run URL / Cloud Load Balancing	Default run.app URL, optional external HTTPS load balancer + custom domain

Sensible defaults worth knowing up front:

• PostgreSQL 15 is required. Grafana persists dashboards, users, alerts, and plugin state in a relational database. SQLite uses file locking that breaks under concurrent multi-instance writes; the module forces PostgreSQL.
• GF_DATABASE_TYPE=postgres is injected automatically. Without it Grafana falls back to SQLite even when all other GF_DATABASE_* variables are present.
• No database init job is needed. Grafana auto-migrates its schema on first startup when it connects to the provisioned PostgreSQL instance.
• The admin password is NOT auto-generated. Grafana ships with admin/admin defaults. You must inject a strong password via secret_environment_variables before the first deploy.
• NFS is disabled by default (enable_nfs = false). Enable it only when multiple instances need to share plugins or custom dashboard templates on a shared filesystem; requires execution_environment = "gen2".
• Redis is disabled by default (enable_redis = false). Not required for core Grafana function.

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2. Google Cloud Services & How to Explore Them

All commands assume PROJECT and REGION are set. Service and resource names are reported in the deployment Outputs.

A. Cloud Run — the Grafana service

Grafana runs as a Cloud Run v2 service that autoscales by request load between the minimum and maximum instance counts. Each deployment creates an immutable revision; traffic can be split across revisions for safe rollouts.

• Console: Cloud Run → select the service for revisions, traffic, logs, and metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run revisions list --service <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

See App_CloudRun for scaling, concurrency, execution environment, and traffic splitting.

B. Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15

Grafana stores all application data (dashboards, users, organisations, alert rules, plugin state) in a managed Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL 15 instance. The service connects privately through the Cloud SQL Auth Proxy over a Unix socket. Grafana auto-migrates its schema on startup — no separate init job is required.

• Console: SQL → select the instance for connections, backups, flags, metrics.
• CLI:

  gcloud sql instances list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql instances describe <instance-name> --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud sql connect <instance-name> --user=<db-user> --project "$PROJECT"

The instance name, database, user, and password secret are in the Outputs. See App_CloudRun for the connection model, backups, and password rotation.

C. Cloud Storage

A dedicated grafana-data Cloud Storage bucket is provisioned automatically by Grafana_Common. Additional GCS buckets can be declared via storage_buckets, and GCS Fuse volumes can be mounted into the service via gcs_volumes (requires Gen2 execution environment).

• Console: Cloud Storage → Buckets.
• CLI:

  gcloud storage buckets list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud storage ls gs://<grafana-data-bucket>/    # bucket name is in the Outputs

See App_CloudRun for GCS Fuse, CMEK, and lifecycle policies.

D. Filestore (NFS) — optional

When enable_nfs = true, a Filestore NFS share is provisioned and mounted into the service. This is useful when multiple instances need to share Grafana plugins or custom dashboard templates. NFS is disabled by default because Grafana's persistent state lives in PostgreSQL. Requires Gen2 execution environment.

• Console: Filestore → Instances.
• CLI:

  gcloud filestore instances list --project "$PROJECT"

E. Secret Manager

The database password is stored in Secret Manager and injected into the service at runtime. Grafana's admin password is not auto-generated — inject it via secret_environment_variables.

• Console: Security → Secret Manager.
• CLI:

  gcloud secrets list --project "$PROJECT"
  gcloud secrets versions access latest --secret=<secret-name> --project "$PROJECT"
  # Create the admin password secret:
  printf 'yourStrongPassword' | gcloud secrets versions add grafana-admin-password \
    --data-file=- --project "$PROJECT"

See App_CloudRun for injection and rotation details.

F. Networking & ingress

The service is reachable at its run.app URL by default. An external HTTPS load balancer with a custom domain, Cloud CDN, and Cloud Armor can be layered on. ingress_settings and vpc_egress_setting control which traffic sources reach the service and how outbound traffic is routed.

• Console: Cloud Run (service URL); Network services → Load balancing.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services describe <service-name> --region "$REGION" --format='value(status.url)'
  gcloud compute addresses list --project "$PROJECT"

See App_CloudRun.

G. Cloud Logging & Monitoring

Container logs flow to Cloud Logging; Cloud Run and Cloud SQL metrics flow to Cloud Monitoring. Grafana exposes /api/health as its health endpoint, targeted by both startup and liveness probes, and by an optional uptime check.

• Console: Logging → Logs Explorer; Monitoring → Dashboards / Alerting.
• CLI:

  gcloud run services logs read <service-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION" --limit 50

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3. Grafana Application Behaviour

• Schema migration on startup. Grafana connects to PostgreSQL and applies any pending schema migrations on first boot. No separate Cloud Run Job is required. The startup probe allows ~150 seconds total tolerance (initial_delay_seconds=30, failure_threshold=12, period_seconds=10).
• Admin credential. Grafana ships with default admin/admin credentials. You must inject a strong password before the first deploy:

  gcloud secrets create grafana-admin-password \
    --replication-policy="automatic" --project "$PROJECT"
  printf 'yourStrongPassword' | gcloud secrets versions add grafana-admin-password \
    --data-file=- --project "$PROJECT"
  # Then set: secret_environment_variables = { GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD = "grafana-admin-password" }

• GF_DATABASE_TYPE is injected automatically. The module forces GF_DATABASE_TYPE=postgres into the environment. Do not override this in environment_variables.
• Health endpoint. Both startup and liveness probes target /api/health, which returns HTTP 200 when Grafana and its database connection are healthy. An uptime check against this path is enabled by default.
• No scheduled jobs required. Grafana has no mandatory CronJobs. Optional Cloud Scheduler-triggered jobs (e.g. snapshot export, cleanup) can be added via cron_jobs.
• GCS Fuse data access. The grafana-data bucket is provisioned automatically; it can be mounted as a GCS Fuse volume for direct filesystem access via gcs_volumes. Inspect scheduled jobs:

  gcloud run jobs list --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"
  gcloud run jobs executions list --job <job-name> --project "$PROJECT" --region "$REGION"

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4. Configuration Variables

Variables are grouped exactly as they appear on the deployment platform. Only settings specific to or notable for Grafana are listed; every other input is inherited from App_CloudRun with its standard behaviour.

Group 1 — Project & Identity

Variable	Default	Description
project_id	(required)	Target Google Cloud project.
region	us-central1	Region for the service and regional resources.

Group 2 — Deployment Environment

Variable	Default	Description
tenant_deployment_id	demo	Short suffix that makes resource names unique per environment.
support_users	[]	Emails granted project access and monitoring alerts.
resource_labels	{}	Labels applied to all resources.

Group 3 — Application Identity

Variable	Default	Description
application_name	grafana	Base name for resources. Do not change after first deploy.
display_name	Grafana Dashboards	Friendly name shown in the Console.
description	Grafana - Open-source observability and analytics platform	Service description.
application_version	11.4.0	Grafana image version tag.

Group 4 — Runtime & Scaling

Variable	Default	Description
deploy_application	true	Set false to provision infrastructure only.
cpu_limit	1000m	CPU per instance.
memory_limit	2Gi	Memory per instance; Grafana loads dashboards into memory.
min_instance_count	0	Minimum instances. Scale-to-zero by default — Grafana's core is request/response, so it costs nothing when idle at the price of a cold start. Set to 1 (with cpu_always_allocated = true) if you enable in-process unified alerting, which must evaluate rules without an inbound request.
max_instance_count	5	Maximum instances.
container_port	3000	Grafana listens on port 3000.
execution_environment	gen2	Gen2 required for NFS mounts and GCS Fuse.
enable_cloudsql_volume	true	Cloud SQL Auth Proxy sidecar for socket connections.
enable_image_mirroring	true	Mirror the Grafana image into Artifact Registry before deploy.
cpu_always_allocated	false	Request-based billing by default. Set true only if in-process alert-rule evaluation is enabled, so it can run on schedule without an inbound request.
traffic_split	[]	Split traffic across revisions for staged rollouts.
max_revisions_to_retain	7	How many old revisions to keep.

Group 5 — Access & Ingress Control

Variable	Default	Description
ingress_settings	all	Which networks may reach the service (all / internal / internal-and-cloud-load-balancing).
vpc_egress_setting	PRIVATE_RANGES_ONLY	How outbound traffic is routed through the VPC connector.
enable_iap	false	Require Google sign-in via Identity-Aware Proxy. Strongly recommended for internal deployments.
iap_authorized_users / iap_authorized_groups	[]	Who may access through IAP.

Group 6 — Environment Variables & Secrets

Variable	Default	Description
environment_variables	{}	Extra non-secret GF_* settings. GF_DATABASE_TYPE=postgres is injected automatically — do not override.
secret_environment_variables	{}	Map of env var → Secret Manager secret name. Use to inject GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD.
secret_propagation_delay / secret_rotation_period	(set)	Replication wait / rotation cadence.

Group 7 — Backup & Restore

Variable	Default	Description
backup_schedule	0 2 * * *	Automated backup cron (UTC).
backup_retention_days	7	Retention; raise for production/compliance.
enable_backup_import / backup_source / backup_uri / backup_format	restore options	Restore from a backup on deploy.

Group 8 — CI/CD & Binary Authorization

Standard App_CloudRun Cloud Build / Cloud Deploy integration — see App_CloudRun. Key inputs: enable_cicd_trigger, github_repository_url, github_token, enable_cloud_deploy, enable_binary_authorization.

Group 9 — Custom SQL Scripts

enable_custom_sql_scripts, custom_sql_scripts_bucket, custom_sql_scripts_path, custom_sql_scripts_use_root — run SQL from a GCS bucket after provisioning. See App_CloudRun.

Group 10 — Domain, CDN, Cloud Armor & Image Retention

Variable	Default	Description
application_domains	[]	Custom hostnames for the external load balancer.
enable_cdn	false	Enable Cloud CDN on the LB backend.
enable_cloud_armor / admin_ip_ranges	off	Attach a WAF policy / restrict privileged access.
max_images_to_retain / delete_untagged_images / image_retention_days	(set)	Artifact Registry cleanup policy.

Group 11 — Storage & Filesystem

Variable	Default	Description
create_cloud_storage	true	Provision the GCS buckets declared in storage_buckets.
storage_buckets	[]	Additional buckets (the grafana-data bucket is always created).
enable_nfs	false	Shared Filestore volume — enable when instances need to share plugins or templates. Requires Gen2.
nfs_mount_path	/mnt/nfs	Mount path inside the container.
gcs_volumes	[]	GCS Fuse volume mounts (requires Gen2).
manage_storage_kms_iam / enable_artifact_registry_cmek	false	CMEK options.

Group 12 — Database Backend

Variable	Default	Description
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Fixed — do not change; PostgreSQL is required.
db_name	grafana	Database name. Immutable after first deploy.
db_user	grafana	Application user. Immutable after first deploy.
database_password_length	32	Generated password length (16–64).
enable_auto_password_rotation / rotation_propagation_delay_sec	off	DB password rotation.
db_host_env_var_name / db_name_env_var_name / db_user_env_var_name / db_port_env_var_name / service_url_env_var_name	""	Additional env var names under which connection details are exposed.

Group 13 — Jobs & Scheduled Tasks

Variable	Default	Description
initialization_jobs	[]	Leave empty — Grafana auto-migrates its schema on startup.
cron_jobs	[]	Optional recurring Cloud Run Jobs triggered by Cloud Scheduler.

Group 14 — Observability & Health

Variable	Default	Description
startup_probe	/api/health, HTTP, 30s delay, 12 failures	HTTP startup probe against Grafana's health endpoint.
liveness_probe	/api/health, HTTP, 60s delay, 3 failures	Liveness probe.
uptime_check_config	disabled, /api/health	Cloud Monitoring uptime check. Enable for production monitoring.
alert_policies	[]	Metric alert policies.

Group 21 — Redis Cache

Variable	Default	Description
enable_redis	false	Enable Redis for session storage. Disabled by default — not required for core function.
redis_host	""	Redis endpoint. Leave blank to use the NFS server IP when NFS is enabled.
redis_port	6379	Redis port.
redis_auth	""	Optional Redis auth password (sensitive).

Group 22 — VPC Service Controls & Audit Logging

Variable	Default	Description
enable_vpc_sc	false	Enforce a VPC-SC perimeter (requires organization_id).
vpc_cidr_ranges / vpc_sc_dry_run	(set)	Access level CIDRs / dry-run mode.
enable_audit_logging	false	Detailed Cloud Audit Logs.

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5. Outputs

Returned on a successful deployment — the quickest way to locate and explore the running resources.

Output	Description
service_name	Cloud Run service name.
service_url	Default run.app URL of the service.
service_location	Region the service runs in.
stage_services	Stage-specific service URLs (Cloud Deploy).
load_balancer_ip / load_balancer_url	External HTTPS load balancer IP / URL (when enabled).
database_instance_name	Cloud SQL instance name.
database_name / database_user	Application database name / user.
database_password_secret	Secret Manager secret holding the DB password.
database_host / database_port	DB endpoint / port.
storage_buckets	Created Cloud Storage buckets (includes the grafana-data bucket).
network_name / network_exists / regions	VPC network, presence, regions.
container_image / container_registry	Deployed image and Artifact Registry repo.
monitoring_enabled / monitoring_notification_channels / uptime_check_names	Monitoring status, channels, uptime checks.
initialization_jobs	Names of the setup jobs.
deployment_id / tenant_id / resource_prefix	Naming identifiers.
project_id / project_number	Project identifiers.
cicd_enabled / github_repository_url / github_repository_owner / github_repository_name / cicd_configuration	CI/CD status and details.
artifact_registry_repository / cloudbuild_trigger_name / cloudbuild_trigger_id	Registry and build trigger.
vpc_sc_enabled / vpc_sc_perimeter_name / vpc_sc_dry_run_mode	VPC-SC status.
audit_logging_enabled / artifact_registry_cmek_enabled	Audit logging and CMEK status.

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6. Configuration Pitfalls & Sensible Defaults

Risk: Critical (data loss / outage / security) — High (service degraded) — Medium (cost or partial degradation) — Low (minor).

Setting	Sensible value	Risk	Consequence if wrong
GF_SECURITY_ADMIN_PASSWORD (via secret_environment_variables)	strong secret	Critical	Grafana ships with admin/admin defaults. Deploying without setting a strong password exposes the admin interface.
GF_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_ENABLED (via environment_variables)	false (default)	Critical	Setting to "true" exposes all dashboards to unauthenticated users.
database_type	POSTGRES_15	Critical	PostgreSQL is required; overriding to SQLite causes data loss on every new revision — the SQLite file lives on ephemeral disk.
db_name / db_user	set once	Critical	Immutable after first deploy; renaming recreates the DB/user and destroys data.
enable_backup_import	false unless restoring	Critical	Enabling without a valid backup_uri fails the import job.
GF_SERVER_ROOT_URL (via environment_variables)	public URL	High	Without it OAuth redirects, email notification links, and iframes point to the wrong origin and break.
enable_iap	true for internal	High	Without IAP the Grafana login page is publicly reachable on the internet.
memory_limit	2Gi	High	Below 512Mi Grafana OOMs on startup with large dashboard sets.
min_instance_count	1	High	Scale-to-zero adds cold-start latency and risks missed alert evaluations during the startup window.
max_instance_count	1–3	Medium	Multiple instances share PostgreSQL but not in-memory alert state — alerts can fire duplicates.
enable_redis	false (default)	Low	Enabling without a valid redis_host raises a validation error at plan time.
backup_retention_days	7 (raise for prod)	Medium	Too short for compliance retention.
ingress_settings	internal-and-cloud-load-balancing for private	High	The default all allows traffic from any source; restrict for internal-only deployments.

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For the foundation behaviour referenced throughout — service identity, scaling and concurrency, ingress and load balancing, CI/CD, Cloud Armor, IAP, Binary Authorization, VPC-SC, backups, and image mirroring — see App_CloudRun. Grafana-specific application configuration shared with the GKE variant is described in Grafana_Common.