Search-and-replace on Grafana dashboards by manipulating database

grafana_search_replace.md

It's possible to do search-and-replace on Grafana dashboard definitions by directly manipulating the SQLite database. The key steps after logging into the server are as follows:

cd /var/lib/grafana
# Make backup copy; preserve old backup copies
sudo cp --backup=numbered grafana.db grafana.db.bak

# Stop Grafana
sudo systemctl stop grafana-server

# Open database
sudo sqlite3 grafana.db

# Check how many definitions contain the string to be replaced.
# Note that using isntr() is superior to LIKE, since it's case sensitive and
# deals with multi-line strings correctly
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM dashboard WHERE instr(data, 'replaceme') > 0;

# Do search and replace on dashboard definition
UPDATE dashboard SET data = replace( data, 'replaceme', 'replaced' ) WHERE instr(data, 'replaceme') > 0;

# Can do count check again to ensure replacement has been successful
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM dashboard WHERE data LIKE '%replaceme%';

# Quit SQLite
.quit

# Start Grafana again
sudo systemctl start grafana-server

Some useful SQLite commands:

• .tables shows all tables
• .schema tablename shows schema of specific table
• .headers ON turns on table headers for output of SELECT statements