Log Entry Deletion

Grafana Loki supports the deletion of log entries from a specified stream. Log entries that fall within a specified time window and match an optional line filter are those that will be deleted.

Log entry deletion is supported only when the BoltDB Shipper is configured for the index store.

The compactor component exposes REST endpoints that process delete requests. Hitting the endpoint specifies the streams and the time window. The deletion of the log entries takes place after a configurable cancellation time period expires.

Log entry deletion relies on configuration of the custom logs retention workflow as defined for the compactor. The compactor looks at unprocessed requests which are past their cancellation period to decide whether a chunk is to be deleted or not.

Configuration

Enable log entry deletion by setting retention_enabled to true and deletion_mode to filter-only or filter-and-delete in the compactor’s configuration.

With filter-only, log lines matching the query in the delete request are filtered out when querying Loki. They are not removed from storage. With filter-and-delete, log lines matching the query in the delete request are filtered out when querying Loki, and they are also removed from storage.

A delete request may be canceled within a configurable cancellation period. Set the delete_request_cancel_period in the compactor’s YAML configuration or on the command line when invoking Loki. Its default value is 24h.

Access to the deletion API can be enabled per tenant via the allow_deletes setting.