InfluxDB 2

InfluxDB is a purpose-built time series database optimised for storing and querying metrics, events, and real-time analytics. It is commonly paired with Grafana for infrastructure monitoring and IoT data pipelines.

Software included

Component	Version
InfluxDB	2.x
Ubuntu	24.04 LTS

Environment variables

You can optionally set these when deploying InfluxDB from the marketplace. Leave any field blank to have a secure random value generated automatically.

Variable	Description
`DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_USERNAME`	Initial admin username
`DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_PASSWORD`	Initial admin password
`DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_ORG`	Initial organisation name
`DOCKER_INFLUXDB_INIT_BUCKET`	Initial bucket name

Getting started

1. Connect to your VM

ssh ubuntu@<your-vm-ip>

2. Wait for first-boot configuration

On the first boot, a setup script runs automatically. It:

Starts InfluxDB and waits for it to become ready
Runs the initial setup with a randomly generated admin password and API token
Creates the default organisation (zsoftly) and bucket (default)
Saves all credentials to /etc/influxdb/credentials.txt

This takes under 60 seconds. Track progress:

journalctl -u influxdb-first-boot.service -f

3. Retrieve credentials

sudo cat /etc/influxdb/credentials.txt

This file contains the admin username, password, organisation, default bucket, and API token. It is only readable by root.

4. Access the InfluxDB UI

Open a browser and navigate to:

http://<your-vm-ip>:8086

5. Connect via the CLI

The influx CLI is pre-installed. Configure it with the credentials from the file:

TOKEN=$(sudo awk '/^Token:/{print $NF}' /etc/influxdb/credentials.txt)
influx config create \
  --config-name default \
  --host-url http://localhost:8086 \
  --org zsoftly \
  --token "$TOKEN" \
  --active

Verify the connection:

influx ping

Managing InfluxDB

# Check service status
systemctl status influxdb

# Restart
sudo systemctl restart influxdb

# View logs
sudo journalctl -u influxdb -f

Configuration file: /etc/influxdb/config.toml

Security

Port 8086 is accessible on the VM’s network interface. UFW is enabled and allows SSH (port 22) only by default.

To allow browser or API access from a specific IP:

sudo ufw allow from <trusted-ip> to any port 8086

To access the UI without opening the firewall, use an SSH tunnel:

# Run this on your local machine
ssh -L 8086:localhost:8086 ubuntu@<your-vm-ip>

# Then open in browser
http://localhost:8086