How should Grafana dashboards handle interface alias changes when using InfluxDB?

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1

Hi,

I’m using LibreNMS with InfluxDB 2.7 and Grafana.

I noticed that ifAlias is stored as a tag in InfluxDB. When an interface alias changes, InfluxDB creates a new series, so Grafana starts showing duplicate legends for the same interface.

For example:

  • Old alias: HE-100M

  • New alias: HE-1G

After the change, Grafana shows four legends instead of two (old In/Out + new In/Out).

Is this the expected behavior?

If so, what is the recommended way to build Grafana dashboards while allowing interface selection by ifAlias without creating duplicate series after interface alias changes?

Thanks!

2

My suggestion is to go to ports.inc.php and comment out the line that adds ifAlias to the data that is sent to the InfluxDB. (Unfortunately)

I wish that data had not been added, but at this point we can’t remove it without potentially breaking someone else. If we do that, I’d like to combine it with a fix so things are in better shape going forward. Needless to say, that is not on the horizon.

3

I understand now. Thanks for the explanation!

I only recently started using Grafana with LibreNMS for traffic dashboards, and I happened to run into these two issues. They’ve made me a bit hesitant to change interface descriptions. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: