Configure Grafana Agent Flow on Grafana Labs

Configure Grafana Agent Flow on Kubernetes

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 17:43:35 +0000

Configure Grafana Agent Flow on Kubernetes

This page describes how to apply a new configuration to Grafana Agent Flow when running on Kubernetes with the Helm chart. It assumes that:

You have installed Grafana Agent Flow on Kubernetes using the Helm chart.
You already have a new Grafana Agent Flow configuration that you want to apply to your Helm chart installation.

If instead you’re looking for help in configuring Grafana Agent Flow to perform a specific task, consult the following guides instead:

Collect and forward Prometheus metrics,
Collect OpenTelemetry data,
or the tasks section for all the remaining configuration guides.

Configure the Helm chart

To modify Grafana Agent Flow’s Helm chart configuration, perform the following steps:

Create a local values.yaml file with a new Helm chart configuration.
1. You can use your own copy of the values file or download a copy of the default values.yaml.
2. Make changes to your values.yaml to customize settings for the Helm chart.
  
  Refer to the inline documentation in the default values.yaml for more information about each option.
Run the following command in a terminal to upgrade your Grafana Agent Flow installation:
shell
```
helm upgrade --namespace <NAMESPACE> <RELEASE_NAME> grafana/grafana-agent -f <VALUES_PATH>
```
Replace the following:
- <NAMESPACE>: The namespace you used for your Grafana Agent Flow installation.
- <RELEASE_NAME>: The name you used for your Grafana Agent Flow installation.
- <VALUES_PATH>: The path to your copy of values.yaml to use.

Kustomize considerations

If you are using Kustomize to inflate and install the Helm chart, be careful when using a configMapGenerator to generate the ConfigMap containing the configuration. By default, the generator appends a hash to the name and patches the resource mentioning it, triggering a rolling update.

This behavior is undesirable for Grafana Agent Flow because the startup time can be significant, for example, when your deployment has a large metrics Write-Ahead Log. You can use the Helm chart sidecar container to watch the ConfigMap and trigger a dynamic reload.

The following is an example snippet of a kustomization that disables this behavior:

configMapGenerator:
  - name: grafana-agent
    files:
      - config.river
    options:
      disableNameSuffixHash: true

Configure the Grafana Agent Flow

This section describes how to modify the Grafana Agent Flow configuration, which is stored in a ConfigMap in the Kubernetes cluster. There are two methods to perform this task.

Method 1: Modify the configuration in the values.yaml file

Use this method if you prefer to embed your Grafana Agent Flow configuration in the Helm chart’s values.yaml file.

Modify the configuration file contents directly in the values.yaml file:

agent:
  mode: "flow"
  configMap:
    content: |-
      // Write your Agent config here:
      logging {
        level = "info"
        format = "logfmt"
      }

Run the following command in a terminal to upgrade your Grafana Agent Flow installation:
shell
```
helm upgrade --namespace <NAMESPACE> <RELEASE_NAME> grafana/grafana-agent -f <VALUES_PATH>
```
Replace the following:
- <NAMESPACE>: The namespace you used for your Grafana Agent Flow installation.
- <RELEASE_NAME>: The name you used for your Grafana Agent Flow installation.
- <VALUES_PATH>: The path to your copy of values.yaml to use.

Method 2: Create a separate ConfigMap from a file

Use this method if you prefer to write your Grafana Agent Flow configuration in a separate file.

Write your configuration to a file, for example, config.river.

// Write your Agent config here:
logging {
  level = "info"
  format = "logfmt"
}

Create a ConfigMap called agent-config from the above file:
shell
```
kubectl create configmap --namespace <NAMESPACE> agent-config "--from-file=config.river=./config.river"
```
Replace the following:
- <NAMESPACE>: The namespace you used for your Grafana Agent Flow installation.

Modify Helm Chart’s configuration in your values.yaml to use the existing ConfigMap:

agent:
  mode: "flow"
  configMap:
    create: false
    name: agent-config
    key: config.river

Run the following command in a terminal to upgrade your Grafana Agent Flow installation:
shell
```
helm upgrade --namespace <NAMESPACE> <RELEASE_NAME> grafana/grafana-agent -f <VALUES_PATH>
```
Replace the following:
- <NAMESPACE>: The namespace you used for your Grafana Agent Flow installation.
- <RELEASE_NAME>: The name you used for your Grafana Agent Flow installation.
- <VALUES_PATH>: The path to your copy of values.yaml to use.

Configure Grafana Agent Flow on Linux

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 17:43:35 +0000

Configure Grafana Agent Flow on Linux

To configure Grafana Agent Flow on Linux, perform the following steps:

Edit the default configuration file at /etc/grafana-agent-flow.river.
Run the following command in a terminal to reload the configuration file:
shell
```
sudo systemctl reload grafana-agent-flow
```

To change the configuration file used by the service, perform the following steps:

Edit the environment file for the service:
- Debian or Ubuntu: edit /etc/default/grafana-agent-flow
- RHEL/Fedora or SUSE/openSUSE: edit /etc/sysconfig/grafana-agent-flow
Change the contents of the CONFIG_FILE environment variable to point to the new configuration file to use.
Restart the Grafana Agent Flow service:
shell
```
sudo systemctl restart grafana-agent-flow
```

Pass additional command-line flags

By default, the Grafana Agent Flow service launches with the run command, passing the following flags:

--storage.path=/var/lib/grafana-agent-flow

To pass additional command-line flags to the Grafana Agent Flow binary, perform the following steps:

Edit the environment file for the service:
- Debian-based systems: edit /etc/default/grafana-agent-flow
- RedHat or SUSE-based systems: edit /etc/sysconfig/grafana-agent-flow
Change the contents of the CUSTOM_ARGS environment variable to specify command-line flags to pass.
Restart the Grafana Agent Flow service:
shell
```
sudo systemctl restart grafana-agent-flow
```

To see the list of valid command-line flags that can be passed to the service, refer to the documentation for the run command.

Expose the UI to other machines

By default, Grafana Agent Flow listens on the local network for its HTTP server. This prevents other machines on the network from being able to access the UI for debugging.

To expose the UI to other machines, complete the following steps:

Follow Pass additional command-line flags to edit command line flags passed to Grafana Agent Flow, including the following customizations:
1. Add the following command line argument to CUSTOM_ARGS:
  shell
```
--server.http.listen-addr=LISTEN_ADDR:12345
```
  Replace LISTEN_ADDR with an address which other machines on the network have access to, like the network IP address of the machine Grafana Agent Flow is running on.
  
  To listen on all interfaces, replace LISTEN_ADDR with 0.0.0.0.

Configure Grafana Agent Flow on macOS

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 17:43:35 +0000

Configure Grafana Agent Flow on macOS

To configure Grafana Agent Flow on macOS, perform the following steps:

Edit the default configuration file at $(brew --prefix)/etc/grafana-agent-flow/config.river.
Run the following command in a terminal to restart the Grafana Agent Flow service:
shell
```
brew services restart grafana-agent-flow
```

Configure the Grafana Agent Flow service

Note
Due to limitations in Homebrew, customizing the service used by Grafana Agent Flow on macOS requires changing the Homebrew formula and reinstalling Grafana Agent Flow.

To customize the Grafana Agent Flow service on macOS, perform the following steps:

Run the following command in a terminal:
shell
```
brew edit grafana-agent-flow
```
This will open the Grafana Agent Flow Homebrew Formula in an editor.
Modify the service section as desired to change things such as:
- The River configuration file used by Grafana Agent Flow.
- Flags passed to the Grafana Agent Flow binary.
- Location of log files.
When you are done, save the file.
Reinstall the Grafana Agent Flow Formula by running the following command in a terminal:
shell
```
brew reinstall grafana-agent-flow
```
Restart the Grafana Agent Flow service by running the command in a terminal:
shell
```
brew services restart grafana-agent-flow
```

Expose the UI to other machines

By default, Grafana Agent Flow listens on the local network for its HTTP server. This prevents other machines on the network from being able to access the UI for debugging.

To expose the UI to other machines, complete the following steps:

Follow Configure the Grafana Agent Flow service to edit command line flags passed to Grafana Agent Flow, including the following customizations:
1. Modify the line inside the service block containing --server.http.listen-addr=127.0.0.1:12345, replacing 127.0.0.1 with the address which other machines on the network have access to, like the network IP address of the machine Grafana Agent Flow is running on.
  
  To listen on all interfaces, replace 127.0.0.1 with 0.0.0.0.

Configure Grafana Agent Flow on Windows

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 17:43:35 +0000

Configure Grafana Agent Flow on Windows

To configure Grafana Agent Flow on Windows, perform the following steps:

Edit the default configuration file at C:\Program Files\Grafana Agent Flow\config.river.
Restart the Grafana Agent Flow 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. Right click on the service called Grafana Agent Flow.
3. Click on All Tasks > Restart.

Change command-line arguments

By default, the Grafana Agent Flow service will launch and pass the following arguments to the Grafana Agent Flow binary:

run
C:\Program Files\Grafana Agent Flow\config.river
--storage.path=C:\ProgramData\Grafana Agent Flow\data

To change the set of command-line arguments passed to the Grafana Agent binary, perform the following steps:

Open the Registry Editor:
1. Right click on the Start Menu and select Run.
2. Type regedit and click OK.
Navigate to the key at the path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Grafana\Grafana Agent Flow.
Double-click on the value called Arguments*.
In the dialog box, enter the new set of arguments to pass to the Grafana Agent binary.
Restart the Grafana Agent Flow 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. Right click on the service called Grafana Agent Flow.
3. Click on All Tasks > Restart.

Expose the UI to other machines

By default, Grafana Agent Flow listens on the local network for its HTTP server. This prevents other machines on the network from being able to access the UI for debugging.

To expose the UI to other machines, complete the following steps:

Follow Change command-line arguments to edit command line flags passed to Grafana Agent Flow, including the following customizations:
1. Add the following command line argument:
  shell
```
--server.http.listen-addr=LISTEN_ADDR:12345
```
  Replace LISTEN_ADDR with an address which other machines on the network have access to, like the network IP address of the machine Grafana Agent Flow is running on.
  
  To listen on all interfaces, replace LISTEN_ADDR with 0.0.0.0.