grafana-loki Installation Guide Installation Guide

grafana-loki is a free and open-source horizontally-scalable log aggregation system. Developed by Grafana Labs, Loki provides efficient log aggregation inspired by Prometheus, serving as an alternative to Elasticsearch/ELK or Splunk

Hardware Requirements:

CPU: 2+ cores recommended

RAM: 1GB minimum (4GB+ recommended)

Storage: 10GB+ for logs

Network: HTTP/gRPC connectivity

Operating System:

Linux: Any modern distribution (RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, Arch, Alpine, openSUSE)

macOS: 10.14+ (Mojave or newer)

Windows: Windows Server 2016+ or Windows 10

FreeBSD: 11.0+

Network Requirements:

Port 3100 (default grafana-loki port)

Port 9095 for gRPC

Dependencies:

See official documentation for specific requirements

System Access: root or sudo privileges required

This guide supports installation on:

RHEL 8/9 and derivatives (CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux)

Debian 11/12

Ubuntu 20.04/22.04/24.04 LTS

Arch Linux (rolling release)

Alpine Linux 3.18+

openSUSE Leap 15.5+ / Tumbleweed

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15+

macOS 12+ (Monterey and later)

FreeBSD 13+

Windows 10/11/Server 2019+ (where applicable)

bash

# Install EPEL repository if needed
sudo dnf install -y epel-release

# Install grafana-loki
sudo dnf install -y loki

# Enable and start service
sudo systemctl enable --now loki

# Configure firewall
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=3100/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

# Verify installation
loki --version

bash

# Update package index
sudo apt update

# Install grafana-loki
sudo apt install -y loki

# Enable and start service
sudo systemctl enable --now loki

# Configure firewall
sudo ufw allow 3100

# Verify installation
loki --version

bash

# Install grafana-loki
sudo pacman -S loki

# Enable and start service
sudo systemctl enable --now loki

# Verify installation
loki --version

bash

# Install grafana-loki
apk add --no-cache loki

# Enable and start service
rc-update add loki default
rc-service loki start

# Verify installation
loki --version

bash

# Install grafana-loki
sudo zypper install -y loki

# Enable and start service
sudo systemctl enable --now loki

# Configure firewall
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=3100/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

# Verify installation
loki --version

bash

# Using Homebrew
brew install loki

# Start service
brew services start loki

# Verify installation
loki --version

bash

# Using pkg
pkg install loki

# Enable in rc.conf
echo 'loki_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf

# Start service
service loki start

# Verify installation
loki --version

bash

# Using Chocolatey
choco install loki

# Or using Scoop
scoop install loki

# Verify installation
loki --version

bash

# Create configuration directory
sudo mkdir -p /etc/loki

# Set up basic configuration
# See official documentation for detailed configuration options

# Test configuration
loki --version

bash

# Enable service
sudo systemctl enable loki

# Start service
sudo systemctl start loki

# Stop service
sudo systemctl stop loki

# Restart service
sudo systemctl restart loki

# Check status
sudo systemctl status loki

# View logs
sudo journalctl -u loki -f

bash

# Enable service
rc-update add loki default

# Start service
rc-service loki start

# Stop service
rc-service loki stop

# Restart service
rc-service loki restart

# Check status
rc-service loki status

bash

# Enable in /etc/rc.conf
echo 'loki_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf

# Start service
service loki start

# Stop service
service loki stop

# Restart service
service loki restart

# Check status
service loki status

bash

# Using Homebrew services
brew services start loki
brew services stop loki
brew services restart loki

# Check status
brew services list | grep loki

powershell

# Start service
net start loki

# Stop service
net stop loki

# Using PowerShell
Start-Service loki
Stop-Service loki
Restart-Service loki

# Check status
Get-Service loki

See the official documentation for advanced configuration options.

nginx

upstream loki_backend {
    server 127.0.0.1:3100;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name loki.example.com;
    return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name loki.example.com;

    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/loki.example.com.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/loki.example.com.key;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://loki_backend;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

apache

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName loki.example.com
    Redirect permanent / https://loki.example.com/
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName loki.example.com
    
    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/loki.example.com.crt
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/loki.example.com.key
    
    ProxyRequests Off
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    
    ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:3100/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:3100/
</VirtualHost>

haproxy

frontend loki_frontend
    bind *:80
    bind *:443 ssl crt /etc/ssl/certs/loki.pem
    redirect scheme https if !{ ssl_fc }
    default_backend loki_backend

backend loki_backend
    balance roundrobin
    server loki1 127.0.0.1:3100 check

bash

# Set appropriate permissions
sudo chown -R loki:loki /etc/loki
sudo chmod 750 /etc/loki

# Configure firewall
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=3100/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

# Enable SELinux policies (if applicable)
sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect on

See official documentation for database configuration requirements.

bash

# Basic system tuning
echo 'net.core.somaxconn = 65535' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
echo 'net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog = 65535' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo sysctl -p

bash

# Check service status
sudo systemctl status loki

# View logs
sudo journalctl -u loki -f

# Monitor resource usage
top -p $(pgrep loki)

bash

#!/bin/bash
# Basic backup script
BACKUP_DIR="/backup/loki"
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)

mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR"
tar -czf "$BACKUP_DIR/loki-backup-$DATE.tar.gz" /etc/loki /var/lib/loki

echo "Backup completed: $BACKUP_DIR/loki-backup-$DATE.tar.gz"

bash

# Stop service
sudo systemctl stop loki

# Restore from backup
tar -xzf /backup/loki/loki-backup-*.tar.gz -C /

# Start service
sudo systemctl start loki

1. Service won't start:

bash

# Check logs
sudo journalctl -u loki -n 100
sudo tail -f /var/log/loki/loki.log

# Check configuration
loki --version

# Check permissions
ls -la /etc/loki

2. Connection issues:

bash

# Check if service is listening
sudo ss -tlnp | grep 3100

# Test connectivity
telnet localhost 3100

# Check firewall
sudo firewall-cmd --list-all

3. Performance issues:

bash

# Check resource usage
top -p $(pgrep loki)

# Check disk I/O
iotop -p $(pgrep loki)

# Check connections
ss -an | grep 3100

yaml

version: '3.8'
services:
  loki:
    image: loki:latest
    ports:
      - "3100:3100"
    volumes:
      - ./config:/etc/loki
      - ./data:/var/lib/loki
    restart: unless-stopped

Maintenance

bash

# RHEL/CentOS/Rocky/AlmaLinux
sudo dnf update loki

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade loki

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -Syu loki

# Alpine Linux
apk update && apk upgrade loki

# openSUSE
sudo zypper update loki

# FreeBSD
pkg update && pkg upgrade loki

# Always backup before updates
tar -czf /backup/loki-pre-update-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz /etc/loki

# Restart after updates
sudo systemctl restart loki

Regular Maintenance

bash

# Log rotation
sudo logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.d/loki

# Clean old logs
find /var/log/loki -name "*.log" -mtime +30 -delete

# Check disk usage
du -sh /var/lib/loki

Official Documentation: https://docs.loki.org/

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/loki/loki

Community Forum: https://forum.loki.org/

Best Practices Guide: https://docs.loki.org/best-practices

---

Note: This guide is part of the HowToMgr collection. Always refer to official documentation for the most up-to-date information.

1. Prerequisites

2. Supported Operating Systems

3. Installation

RHEL/CentOS/Rocky Linux/AlmaLinux

Debian/Ubuntu

Arch Linux

Alpine Linux

openSUSE/SLES

macOS

FreeBSD

Windows

Initial Configuration

Basic Configuration

5. Service Management

systemd (RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, openSUSE)

OpenRC (Alpine Linux)

rc.d (FreeBSD)

launchd (macOS)

Windows Service Manager

Advanced Configuration

Reverse Proxy Setup

nginx Configuration

Apache Configuration

HAProxy Configuration

Security Configuration

Basic Security Setup

Database Setup

Performance Optimization

System Tuning

Monitoring

Basic Monitoring

9. Backup and Restore

Backup Script

Restore Procedure

6. Troubleshooting

Common Issues

Integration Examples

Docker Compose Example

Maintenance

Update Procedures

Regular Maintenance

Additional Resources