---
title: "Run Grafana Alloy as a standalone binary | Grafana Alloy documentation"
description: "Learn how to run Grafana Alloy as a standalone binary"
---

# Run Grafana Alloy as a standalone binary

If you [downloaded](../../install/binary/) the standalone binary, you must run Alloy from a terminal or command window.

Refer to the [run](../../../reference/cli/run/) documentation for more information about the command line flags you can use when you run Alloy.

## Start Alloy

To start Alloy, run the following command in a terminal or command window:

shell ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```shell
<BINARY_PATH> run <CONFIG_PATH>
```

Replace the following:

- *`<BINARY_PATH>`* : The path to the Alloy binary file.
- *`<CONFIG_PATH>`* : The path to the Alloy configuration file.

## Set up Alloy as a Linux systemd service

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

> Note
> 
> These steps assume you have a default systemd and Alloy configuration.

1. To create a user called `alloy` run the following command in a terminal window:
   
   shell ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   ```shell
   sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /bin/false alloy
   ```
2. Create a service file in `/etc/systemd/system` called `alloy.service` with the following contents:
   
   systemd ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   ```systemd
   [Unit]
   Description=Vendor-neutral programmable observability pipelines.
   Documentation=https://grafana.com/docs/alloy/
   Wants=network-online.target
   After=network-online.target
   
   [Service]
   Restart=always
   User=alloy
   Environment=HOSTNAME=%H
   EnvironmentFile=/etc/default/alloy
   WorkingDirectory=<WORKING_DIRECTORY>
   ExecStart=<BINARY_PATH> run $CUSTOM_ARGS --storage.path=<WORKING_DIRECTORY> $CONFIG_FILE
   ExecReload=/usr/bin/env kill -HUP $MAINPID
   TimeoutStopSec=20s
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   ```
   
   Replace the following:
   
   - *`<BINARY_PATH>`* : The path to the Alloy binary file.
   - *`<WORKING_DIRECTORY>`* : The path to a working directory, for example `/var/lib/alloy`.
3. Create an environment file in `/etc/default/` called `alloy` with the following contents:
   
   shell ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   ```shell
   ## Path:
   ## Description: Grafana Alloy settings
   ## Type:        string
   ## Default:     ""
   ## ServiceRestart: alloy
   #
   # Command line options for alloy
   #
   # The configuration file holding the Grafana Alloy configuration.
   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 Alloy configuration file.
4. To reload the service files, run the following command in a terminal window:
   
   shell ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy
   
   ```shell
   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   ```
5. Use the [Linux](../linux/) systemd commands to manage your standalone Linux installation of Alloy.

## View Alloy logs

By default, Alloy writes the output to `stdout` and errors to `stderr`.

To write the output and error logs to a file, you can use the redirection operator for your operating system. For example, the following command combines the standard output and standard errors into a single text file:

linux macos windows

![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

linux ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```linux
<BINARY_PATH> run <CONFIG_PATH> &> <OUTPUT_FILE>
```

macos ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```macos
<BINARY_PATH> run <CONFIG_PATH> &> <OUTPUT_FILE>
```

windows ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```windows
<BINARY_PATH> run <CONFIG_PATH> 1> <OUTPUT_FILE> 2>&1
```

Replace the following:

- *`<BINARY_PATH>`* : The path to the Alloy binary file.
- *`<CONFIG_PATH>`* : The path to the Alloy configuration file.
- *`<OUTPUT_FILE>`* : The output filename.