This blog post walks you through setting up Grafana on an AWS EC2 instance to visualize real-time performance metrics and run stress tests, all while being secured by using Instance Connect to bypass the need for SSH.
Problem
Cloud infrastructure issues often go undetected until they cause downtime costing businesses thousands per minute and putting immense pressure on engineering teams.
Solution
This tutorial demonstrates how to implement proactive monitoring with Grafana on AWS EC2. You’ll learn to deploy an EC2 instance, attach the necessary IAM role, integrate CloudWatch, and configure Grafana to visualize performance metrics in real time.
Why This Matters
Mastering this setup enables you to:
- Configure IAM roles effectively.
- Deploy and secure EC2 instances using Instance Connect.
- Integrate AWS CloudWatch for comprehensive monitoring.
- Create dynamic Grafana dashboards for real-time performance visualization.
What You'll Learn
By following this guide, you will achieve a complete AWS monitoring setup that not only demonstrates your infrastructure deployment skills but also provides visual proof of your ability to monitor and manage real-time performance metrics effectively.
Tools Used
- AWS Console: For managing EC2 and IAM roles.
- Grafana: For visualization, dashboard creation, and alerting.
- Amazon Linux 2: As the operating system for the EC2 instance.
- CloudWatch: For monitoring EC2 metrics.
- Stress: Command-line tool to simulate load on the instance.
- Instance Connect: For connecting to the EC2 instance without SSH.
Step 1 Create your IAM role
In the AWS Console, navigate to Roles and click Create Role.
Select Trusted Entity: AWS service
Service Use Case: EC2
Click Next.
Attach the permission policy: AmazonGrafanaCloudWatchAccess.
Click Next.
Provide a unique name for your role.
Click Create Role.
Step 2 Launch your instance
Launch and install Grafana on an EC2 instance.
In the AWS Console, search for EC2 and click Launch Instance.
Configure your instance with these settings:
- Name: Choose a unique name
- AMI: Amazon Linux 2
- Instance type: t2.micro
- Key pair (login): Proceed without a key pair.
Network settings
- Firewall (security groups): Create a new security group.
-
Allow SSH traffic from:
com.amazonaws.us-east-1.ec2-instance-connect(replaceus-east-1with your region) - Allow HTTP traffic from the internet: Checked
replace us-east-1 with your region This will allow us to instance connect.
Advanced details
IAM instance profile: Attach the IAM role you created earlier. This is crucial for granting the EC2 instance the necessary permissions to access CloudWatch via Grafana.
User Data
Paste the following script to install and start Grafana:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Install Grafana
sudo yum install -y https://dl.grafana.com/enterprise/release/grafana-enterprise-11.5.2-1.x86_64.rpm
# Enable/Start Grafana
sudo systemctl enable grafana-server
sudo systemctl start grafana-server
Click Launch instance to create your EC2 instance.
Connect to your instance using Instance Connect (instead of SSH).
To verify the installation run:
sudo systemctl status grafana-server
You should see Grafana running, similar to the provided screenshot.
Step 3 Connect to Grafana UI
Gain Access to the security group of your EC2 instance.
Edit the inbound rules of your instance’s security group
Type: Custom TCP
Port range: 3000
Source: Custom
CIDR Block: 0.0.0.0/0
Access Grafana by copying your instance's public IP and appending port 3000 (e.g., 54.164.96.183:3000).
You should see a web page like this.
Log in using the default credentials:
email: admin
password: admin
You can skip the password change prompt if desired.
Step 4 Configure a data source
Grafana needs to be provided a data source to fetch and display data.
In Grafana, navigate to the Data Sources:
Select CloudWatch
Use these settings:
Authentication Provider: AWS SDK default
Default Region: us-east-1
Namespaces of Custom Metrics ec2-monitoring
Click Save & test. You should see a confirmation message indicating that the queries to the CloudWatch metrics and logs APIs were successful.
Build a Dashboard
On the success page, click Build a dashboard > Add visualization
Select your CloudWatch data source.
At the moment "No data" will be shown.
Delete the default query.
Add a new query with these parameters:
Namespace: AWS/EC2
Metric name: CPUUtilization
Statistic: Average
add dimension
Dimensions: InstanceId (select your Grafana instance's ID)
Click Run Queries to view your data.
Congratultions! You should now see your first queried Data from your EC2 instance.
Step 5 Stress test the EC2
We can stress test our EC2 to see check the results on Grafana.
Reconnect to your EC2 instance using Instance Connect if necessary.
Install the stress testing tool:
sudo amazon-linux-extras install epel -y
sudo yum install stress -y
Run the stress test:
stress --cpu 4 --timeout 120s
After the test completes, check your Grafana dashboard to see the updated metrics.
Conclusion
By following these steps, you've successfully deployed Grafana on an EC2 instance, attached the necessary IAM role, and set up monitoring for CPU utilization using CloudWatch. This guide demonstrates a straightforward approach to achieving real-time monitoring with AWS and Grafana, providing essential insights for system performance analysis and stress testing.
Happy monitoring!
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