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Configure Grafana Alloy on Linux

To configure Alloy on Linux, perform the following steps:

  1. Edit the default configuration file at /etc/alloy/config.alloy.

  2. Run the following command in a terminal to reload the configuration file:

    shell 
    sudo systemctl reload alloy

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

  1. Edit the environment file for the service:

    • Debian or Ubuntu: edit /etc/default/alloy
    • RHEL/Fedora or SUSE/openSUSE: edit /etc/sysconfig/alloy

  2. Change the contents of the CONFIG_FILE environment variable to point at the new configuration file.

  3. Restart the Alloy service:

    shell 
    sudo systemctl restart alloy

Pass additional command-line flags

By default, the Alloy service launches with the run command, passing the following flags:

  • --storage.path=/var/lib/alloy/data

To pass additional command-line flags to the Alloy binary, perform the following steps:

  1. Edit the environment file for the service:

    • Debian-based systems: edit /etc/default/alloy
    • RedHat or SUSE-based systems: edit /etc/sysconfig/alloy

  2. Change the contents of the CUSTOM_ARGS environment variable to specify command-line flags to pass.

  3. Restart the Alloy service:

    shell 
    sudo systemctl restart alloy

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

Run the OTel Engine

The Alloy service runs the Default Engine unless you enable ALLOY_OTEL_MODE in the environment file. The CONFIG_FILE and CUSTOM_ARGS settings apply only to the Default Engine. The OTel Engine uses OTEL_CONFIG_FILE and OTEL_CUSTOM_ARGS instead.

Refer to Run the OTel Engine with service installations for the steps to switch engines.

Expose the UI to other machines

By default, Alloy 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:

  1. Follow Pass additional command-line flags to edit command line flags passed to Alloy

  2. Add the following command line argument to CUSTOM_ARGS:

    shell 
    --server.http.listen-addr=<LISTEN_ADDR>:12345

    Replace the following:

    • <LISTEN_ADDR>: An IP address which other machines on the network have access to. For example, the IP address of the machine Alloy is running on.

      To listen on all interfaces, replace <LISTEN_ADDR> with 0.0.0.0.