Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.

Documentation Grafana Agent Flow mode Set up flow mode Start flow mode

Start, restart, and stop Grafana Agent in flow mode

You can start, restart, and stop Grafana Agent after it is installed.

Linux

Grafana Agent is installed as a systemd service on Linux.

Start Grafana Agent

To start Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

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sudo systemctl start grafana-agent-flow

(Optional) To verify that the service is running, run the following command in a terminal window:

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sudo systemctl status grafana-agent-flow

Configure Grafana Agent to start at boot

To automatically run Grafana Agent when the system starts, run the following command in a terminal window:

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sudo systemctl enable grafana-agent-flow.service

Restart Grafana Agent

To restart Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

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sudo systemctl restart grafana-agent-flow

Stop Grafana Agent

To stop Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

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sudo systemctl stop grafana-agent-flow

View Grafana Agent logs on Linux

To view the Grafana Agent log files, run the following command in a terminal window:

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sudo journalctl -u grafana-agent-flow

macOS

Grafana Agent is installed as a launchd service on macOS.

Start Grafana Agent

To start Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

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brew services start grafana-agent-flow

Grafana Agent automatically runs when the system starts.

(Optional) To verify that the service is running, run the following command in a terminal window:

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brew services info grafana-agent-flow

Restart Grafana Agent

To restart Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

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brew services restart grafana-agent-flow

Stop Grafana Agent

To stop Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

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brew services stop grafana-agent-flow

View Grafana Agent logs on macOS

By default, logs are written to $(brew --prefix)/var/log/grafana-agent-flow.log and $(brew --prefix)/var/log/grafana-agent-flow.err.log.

If you followed Configure the Grafana Agent service and changed the path where logs are written, refer to your current copy of the Grafana Agent formula to locate your log files.

Windows

Grafana Agent is installed as a Windows Service. The service is configured to automatically run on startup.

To verify that Grafana Agent is running as a Windows Service:

1. Open the Windows Services manager (services.msc):

   1. Right click on the Start Menu and select Run.

   2. Type: services.msc and click OK.

2. Scroll down to find the Grafana Agent Flow service and verify that the Status is Running.

View Grafana Agent logs

When running on Windows, Grafana Agent writes its logs to Windows Event Logs with an event source name of Grafana Agent Flow.

To view the logs, perform the following steps:

1. Open the Event Viewer:

   1. Right click on the Start Menu and select Run.

   2. Type eventvwr and click OK.

2. In the Event Viewer, click on Windows Logs > Application.

3. Search for events with the source Grafana Agent Flow.

Standalone binary

If you downloaded the standalone binary, you must run the agent from a terminal or command window.

Start Grafana Agent on Linux, macOS, or FreeBSD

To start Grafana Agent on Linux, macOS, or FreeBSD, run the following command in a terminal window:

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AGENT_MODE=flow BINARY_PATH run CONFIG_PATH

Replace the following:

• BINARY_PATH: The path to the Grafana Agent binary file.
• CONFIG_PATH: The path to the Grafana Agent configuration file.

Start Grafana Agent on Windows

To start Grafana Agent on Windows, run the following commands in a command prompt:

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set AGENT_MODE=flow
BINARY_PATH run CONFIG_PATH

Replace the following:

• BINARY_PATH: The path to the Grafana Agent binary file.
• CONFIG_PATH: The path to the Grafana Agent configuration file.

Set up Grafana Agent as a Linux systemd service

You can set up and manage the standalone binary for Grafana Agent as a Linux systemd service.

1. To create a new user called grafana-agent-flow run the following command in a terminal window:

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   sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false grafana-agent-flow

2. Create a service file in /etc/systemd/system called grafana-agent-flow.service with the following contents:

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   [Unit]
   Description=Vendor-neutral programmable observability pipelines.
   Documentation=https://grafana.com/docs/agent/latest/flow/
   Wants=network-online.target
   After=network-online.target
   
   [Service]
   Restart=always
   User=grafana-agent-flow
   Environment=HOSTNAME=%H
   EnvironmentFile=/etc/default/grafana-agent-flow
   WorkingDirectory=WORKING_DIRECTORY
   ExecStart=BINARY_PATH run $CUSTOM_ARGS --storage.path=WORKING_PATH $CONFIG_FILE
   ExecReload=/usr/bin/env kill -HUP $MAINPID
   TimeoutStopSec=20s
   SendSIGKILL=no
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target

   Replace the following:

   • BINARY_PATH: The path to the Grafana Agent binary file.
   • WORKING_DIRECTORY: The path to a working directory, for example /var/lib/grafana-agent-flow.

3. Create an environment file in /etc/default/ called grafana-agent-flow with the following contents:

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   ## Path:
   ## Description: Grafana Agent Flow settings
   ## Type:        string
   ## Default:     ""
   ## ServiceRestart: grafana-agent-flow
   #
   # Command line options for grafana-agent
   #
   # The configuration file holding the agent config.
   CONFIG_FILE="CONFIG_PATH"
   
   # User-defined arguments to pass to the run command.
   CUSTOM_ARGS=""
   
   # Restart on system upgrade. Defaults to true.
   RESTART_ON_UPGRADE=true

   Replace the following:

   • CONFIG_PATH: The path to the Grafana Agent configuration file.

4. To reload the service files, run the following command in a terminal window:

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   sudo systemctl daemon-reload

5. Use the Linux systemd commands to manage your standalone Linux installation of Grafana Agent.