Add file based dashboards to the dashboard search and list.

[oprietop]

If I'm not mistaken it seems file based bashboards can only be reached using their direct URL on the browser. While i don't have any grudge to ES i think it should be neat to be able add the dashboards on app/dashboards to the dashboard lists. They could be treated as a diferent entity than the ES ones with a different color and it would allow to keep a searchable set of fixed/immutable dashboards plus the ES ones if wanted.

[edasque]

I was never clear on whether this is possible today or not. Either way It would be interesting for us especially if the path is configurable

[oprietop]

For example I've been playing around and thanks to templating and cohesive metrics paths i can deal with all my current working infraestructure with only 4 dashboards, no need of maintenance thanks to the nature of templating.
For my current purposes I don't really feel i need a backend at all so i'll just be manually keeping a text pane with the links for the file based dashboards on the default one.

[torkelo]

@oprietop if you have any idea for how to do this without a backend, please share :)

[oprietop]

Heh, that's my fault for not reading the current design choices or digging a bit into the code.

Maybe we could try to export/import all current dashboards at once and be able to use that file to feed the app. That process could also feed fill the dasboard list itself.

To be honest I don't know if it's actually worth it, as i stated anyone can do fine just maintaining a custom default dashboards with hyperlinks.

[Oded-B]

I think it would be possible by using an index file, the file will be maintained by a script or manually.
This will allow users to keep dashboard files in s version control system with this workflow:

1. Edit graph
2. Export json
3. Push to version control system
4. A hook deploys the dashboard to the server and updates the index file.

It will be the simplest way to achieve a truly safe multi user editing mechanism.

[edasque]

@Oded-B, we do the following. Through a webhook on our fork of Grafana, we check a specific directory for dashboard json files, we compare these with the ones available in ES and upload or delete as necessary.

What this method doesn't provide is for a way for us to test changes to local filesystem stored dashboard (found in that directory I mentioned above).

However it works well for us, adding source control, blame, history to our Grafana dashboards

[Oded-B]

@edasque and it doesn't remove the ES dependency :)
But its better than working directly on ES with no history/backup, I'l consider building something similar.

[edasque]

Let me know if you need some code to get you started, I might be able to contribute it

[torkelo]

[dashboards.json]
enabled = true
path = /var/lib/grafana/dashboards

The path will be scanned every minute and a index built, dashboards will be available and searchable in the dashboard search and dashboard list panel. They cannot be saved / updated from the UI, this feature is only for static dashboards that are automatically generated to edited outside Grafana.