Install Promtail

Promtail is distributed as a binary, in a Docker container, or there is a Helm chart to install it in a Kubernetes cluster.

Binary

Every release includes binaries for Promtail which can be found on the Releases page.

Docker

# modify tag to most recent version
docker pull grafana/promtail:2.0.0

Helm

Make sure that Helm is installed. See Installing Helm. Then you can add Grafana’s chart repository to Helm:

helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts

And the chart repository can be updated by running:

helm repo update

Finally, Promtail can be deployed with:

$ helm upgrade --install promtail grafana/promtail --set "loki.serviceName=loki"

Kubernetes

DaemonSet (recommended)

A DaemonSet will deploy Promtail on every node within a Kubernetes cluster.

The DaemonSet deployment works well at collecting the logs of all containers within a cluster. It’s the best solution for a single-tenant model.

---Daemonset.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: DaemonSet
metadata:
  name: promtail-daemonset
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      name: promtail
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        name: promtail
    spec:
      serviceAccount: SERVICE_ACCOUNT
      serviceAccountName: SERVICE_ACCOUNT
      volumes:
      - name: logs
        hostPath:
          path: HOST_PATH
      - name: promtail-config
        configMap:
          name: promtail-configmap
      containers:
      - name: promtail-container
        image: grafana/promtail
        args:
        - -config.file=/etc/promtail/promtail.yaml
        env: 
        - name: 'HOSTNAME', # needed when using kubernetes_sd_configs
          valueFrom:
            fieldRef:
              fieldPath: 'spec.nodeName'
        volumeMounts:
        - name: logs
          mountPath: MOUNT_PATH
        - name: promtail-config
          mountPath: /etc/promtail

---configmap.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: promtail-config
data:
  promtail.yaml: YOUR CONFIG

---Clusterrole.yaml
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
  name: promtail-clusterrole
rules:
  - apiGroups: [""]
    resources:
    - nodes
    - services
    - pods
    verbs:
    - get
    - watch
    - list

---ServiceAccount.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: promtail-serviceaccount

---Rolebinding.yaml
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
  name: promtail-clusterrolebinding
subjects:
    - kind: ServiceAccount
      name: promtail-serviceaccount
      namespace: default
roleRef:
    kind: ClusterRole
    name: promtail-clusterrole
    apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

Sidecar

The Sidecar method deploys Promtail as a sidecar container for a specific pod. In a multi-tenant environment, this enables teams to aggregate logs for specific pods and deployments.

---Deployment.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: promtail-deployment
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      name: promtail
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        name: promtail
    spec:
      serviceAccount: SERVICE_ACCOUNT
      serviceAccountName: SERVICE_ACCOUNT
      volumes:
      - name: logs
        hostPath:
          path: HOST_PATH
      - name: promtail-config
        configMap:
          name: promtail-configmap
      containers:
      - name: promtail-container
        image: grafana/promtail
        args:
        - -config.file=/etc/promtail/promtail.yaml
        volumeMounts:
        - name: logs
          mountPath: MOUNT_PATH
        - name: promtail-config
          mountPath: /etc/promtail

Feedback