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Step 1: Setup Your Environment

Let's get your development environment ready!

📋 What You'll Learn

In this step, you'll:

  • Install Docker Desktop
  • Clone the repository
  • Configure environment variables
  • Start the observability stack

🛠️ Prerequisites Check

Before starting, verify you have these installed:

# Check Docker
docker --version
# Should show: Docker version 20.10+

# Check Docker Compose
docker compose version
# Should show: Docker Compose version 2.0+

# Check Git
git --version
# Should show: git version 2.0+

# Check Docker (in PowerShell or WSL)
docker --version

# Check Docker Compose
docker compose version

# Check Git
git --version

# Check Docker
docker --version

# Check Docker Compose
docker compose version

# Check Git
git --version
Don't have Docker?

Download and install Docker Desktop:

After installation, start Docker Desktop and wait for it to be ready.

📥 Clone the Repository

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/MdAshiqurRahmanZayed/django-observability.git

# Navigate to the project
cd django-observability

⚙️ Configure Environment

Step 1: Create Environment File

cp django_app/.env.example django_app/.env

Step 2: Understand the Configuration

Open django_app/.env and review the settings:

# ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
# │          DATABASE CONFIGURATION              │
# └──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
DB_NAME=todo_db          # Database name
DB_USER=postgres         # Database username
DB_PASSWORD=postgres     # Database password
DB_HOST=obs-postgres     # Docker internal hostname
DB_PORT=5432             # Database port

# ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
# │          GRAFANA CONFIGURATION               │
# └──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
GF_ADMIN_USER=admin      # Grafana admin username
GF_ADMIN_PASSWORD=admin  # Grafana admin password

# ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
# │          SLACK ALERTS (Optional)             │
# └──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
# SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL=See https://api.slack.com/apps to get your webhook URL
What each setting does
Setting Purpose Default
DB_NAME PostgreSQL database name todo_db
DB_USER Database login username postgres
DB_PASSWORD Database login password postgres
DB_HOST Database hostname (Docker internal) obs-postgres
DB_PORT Database port 5432
GF_ADMIN_USER Grafana admin username admin
GF_ADMIN_PASSWORD Grafana admin password admin
SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL Slack webhook for alerts (optional)

🚀 Start the Stack

Start All Services

docker compose -f django_app/docker-compose.yml up -d --build

This command:

  1. Pulls all required Docker images
  2. Creates Docker networks
  3. Starts all 10 containers
  4. Configures volumes for persistent data

Wait for Services

The first startup may take 1-2 minutes to download images.

# Watch the startup progress
docker compose -f django_app/docker-compose.yml logs -f

Press Ctrl+C to stop watching logs.

✅ Verify Installation

Check Container Status

docker compose -f django_app/docker-compose.yml ps

You should see all containers with Up status:

NAME                 STATUS          PORTS
obs-django           Up              0.0.0.0:9000->9000/tcp
obs-postgres         Up              0.0.0.0:5439->5432/tcp
obs-prometheus       Up              0.0.0.0:9090->9090/tcp
obs-grafana          Up              0.0.0.0:3000->3000/tcp
obs-loki             Up              0.0.0.0:3100->3100/tcp
obs-promtail         Up              -
obs-alertmanager     Up              0.0.0.0:9093->9093/tcp
obs-nginx            Up              0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp
obs-node-exporter    Up              0.0.0.0:9100->9100/tcp
obs-pgadmin          Up              0.0.0.0:5050->80/tcp

Quick Health Checks

# Test Django
curl -f http://localhost/ || echo "Django not ready"

# Test Prometheus
curl -f http://localhost:9090/-/healthy || echo "Prometheus not ready"

# Test Grafana
curl -f http://localhost:3000/api/health || echo "Grafana not ready"

🌐 Access Your Services

Open these URLs in your browser:

Service URL Credentials
🌐 Django App http://localhost -
📊 Grafana http://localhost:3000 admin / admin
📈 Prometheus http://localhost:9090 -
🔔 Alertmanager http://localhost:9093 -
🗄️ pgAdmin http://localhost:5050 admin@admin.com / admin

🎉 Setup Complete!

Your observability stack is now running!

What's Next?

In the next step, you'll learn how to:

  • View Django metrics in Prometheus
  • Create Grafana dashboards
  • Query logs in Loki

Ready for Step 2? 👇

Step 2: Metrics →