---
layout: post
title: "InfluxDB and Grafana"
date: 2015-12-07 15:15:13 +0100
description: "A step by step guide to start recording data from Home Assistant in InfluxDB and visualizing it using Grafana."
comments: true
date_formatted: "December 07, 2015"
author: Fabian Affolter
comments: true
categories: How-To
og_image: /images/blog/2015-12-influxdb/grafana-graph.png
---

<img src='/images/supported_brands/influxdb.png' style='clear: right; border:none; box-shadow: none; float: right; margin-bottom: 12px;' width='200' /><img src='/images/supported_brands/grafana.png' style='clear: right; border:none; box-shadow: none; float: right; margin-bottom: 12px;' width='200' />
The [InfluxDB](https://influxdb.com/) database is a so-called time series database primarly designed to store sensor data and real-time analytics. 

The `influxdb` component makes it possible to transfer all state changes from Home Assistant to an external [InfluxDB](https://influxdb.com/) database. 

<!--more-->

The first step is to install the InfluxDB packages. If you are not running Fedora, check the [installation](https://influxdb.com/docs/v0.9/introduction/installation.html) section for further details.

```bash
$ sudo dnf -y install http://influxdb.s3.amazonaws.com/influxdb-0.9.5.1-1.x86_64.rpm
```

Launch the InfluxDB service.

```bash
$ sudo systemctl start influxdb
```

If everything went well, then the web interface of the database should be accessible at [http://localhost:8083/](http://localhost:8083/). Create a database `home_assistant` to use with Home Assistant either with the web interface or the commandline tool `influx`.

<p class='img'>
  <img src='/images/blog/2015-12-influxdb/influxdb-frontend.png' />
  InfluxDB web frontend
</p>

```bash
$ influx
Visit https://enterprise.influxdata.com to register for updates, InfluxDB server management, and monitoring.
Connected to http://localhost:8086 version 0.9.5.1
InfluxDB shell 0.9.5.1
> CREATE DATABASE home_assistant
```

An optional step is to create a user. Keep in mind to adjust the configuration (add `username` and `password`) in the next step if you prefer to go this way.

```bash
> CREATE USER "home-assistant" WITH PASSWORD 'password'
```

To use the `influxdb` component in your installation, add the following to your `configuration.yaml` file:

```yaml
influxdb:
  host: 127.0.0.1
```

After you restart Home Assistant you should see that the InfluxDB database gets filled. The [language](https://influxdb.com/docs/v0.9/query_language/index.html) to query the database is similar to SQL.

```bash
$ influx
[...]
> USE home_assistant
Using database home_assistant
> SELECT * FROM binary_sensor
name: binary_sensor
-------------------
time			domain		entity_id	value
1449496577000000000	binary_sensor	bathroom_door	0
1449496577000000000	binary_sensor	bathroom_window	0
1449496577000000000	binary_sensor	basement_door	0
1449496577000000000	binary_sensor	basement_window	0
1449496684000000000	binary_sensor	bathroom_window	1
[...]
```

[Grafana](http://grafana.org/) is a dashboard that can create graphs from different sources including InfluxDB. The installation is simple, and there are detailed steps for many different configurations on the [Grafana installation](http://docs.grafana.org/installation/) page. For a recent system that is running Fedora:

```bash
$ sudo dnf -y install https://grafanarel.s3.amazonaws.com/builds/grafana-2.5.0-1.x86_64.rpm
```

Start the grafana server.

```bash
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl start grafana-server
$ sudo systemctl status grafana-server
```

Login with the username `admin` and the password `admin` at [http://localhost:3000/login](http://localhost:3000/login). Now follow the [InfluxDB setup instructions](http://docs.grafana.org/datasources/influxdb/).

Now you can start to create dashboards and graphs. You have various options to get the data from the graph. The next image just shows a screenshot of the setting for a temperature sensor.

<p class='img'>
  <img src='/images/blog/2015-12-influxdb/grafana-settings.png' />
  Grafana settings
</p>

If the graph is not showing up in the dashboard you need to adjust the time range in the right upper corner. The graph is created for all state changes recorded by Home Assistant.

<p class='img'>
  <img src='/images/blog/2015-12-influxdb/grafana-graph.png' />
  Grafana Temperature graph
</p>