InfluxDB Grafana templates: Can't select all fields in "Add Query" - templates

Question

I believe I've done everything right when creating my graphite DB. Grafana can see the data but won't let me select all the fields when I try to "Add Query".
Output from my server shows that the DB is working:
show measurements
name: measurements
name
PORT
select * from "PORT"
name: PORT
time CardNo Counter Nodename PortNo value
---- ------ ------- -------- ------ -----
1511214407000000000 18 bcast_inpackets ALPRGAGQPN2 1 500
However, when I try to "Add Query" in Grafana, I can see PORT in "FROM" (which is what I want), but in the "WHERE" section, when I try to narrow my selection using CardNo, Counter, etc., it appears to behave randomly. If I select CardNo first, it will let me select 18 (see picture below), but then clicking "+" to add another criteria doesn't display the option for say "PortNo" (all I get is an empty dialog box). I can enter the field value manually (eg PortNo) but other users will be plotting graphs and won't necessarily know the underlying schema. Also, if I select Nodename first, then I can select CardNo (weird). I'd like it so the end user can specify ALL the fields (in this case CardNo, Counter, Nodename and PortNo).
My graphite template is this:
"[[graphite]]
# Determines whether the graphite endpoint is enabled.
enabled = true
database = "graphite"
# retention-policy = ""
bind-address = ":2003"
protocol = "tcp"
# consistency-level = "one"
templates = [ "ASR.PORT.* .measurement.Nodename.CardNo.PortNo.Counter"
]
and the data I feed to InfluxDB to test my setup is:
echo "ASR.PORT.ALPRGAGQPN2.18.1.bcast_inpackets 500 `date +%s`" | nc localhost 2003

Answer 1

Firstly, template is better written as:
"ASR.PORT.* .measurement.Nodename.CardNo.PortNo.field"
Which makes bcast_inpackets and any other value after PortNo into a field containing data. This reduces cardinality of series, which improves performance and scalability, by combining all counters into multiple fields on the same series as opposed to separate series with unique tags with their own value fields.
Grafana's influx query builder will filter tag values for the value of the already selected tags. In other words, if you select PortNo=1 and try to select another tag, only tag keys where PortNo=1 will be shown.
If you look at queries Grafana runs in browser, you will see something like show tag keys from PORT where PortNo='1' if PortNo=1 is already selected and different queries for other tags.
This is why you may not see other tags and why which tags you see depends on the tags already selected. This is by design so if you want something different you will need to adjust the schema by, for example, making PortNo and CardNo into fields instead of tags.
You might also be interested in InfluxGraph which can query InfluxDB via Graphite API and also supports same template configuration as InfluxDB.