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Version 1.2 release notes

The Grafana Enterprise Logs (GEL) team is excited to announce the release of GEL 1.2.

GEL 1.2 is built off of Loki 2.4, so it inherits all the features, enhancements, and bug fixes of the upstream project. Refer to the Loki v2.4 release notes.

Features and enhancements

  • GEL 1.2, like the upstream Loki 2.4, introduces a new deployment mode called a simple scalable deployment. In this mode, Loki is deployed as a collection of read nodes and write nodes. Read and write paths can be scaled and debugged separately, and without the complexity of a microservices deployment. Multiple replicas of the read and write nodes provide high availability for your logging service. An advantage will be no downtime when you upgrade.

    • GEL 1.2’s simple scalable deployment mode mirrors that of Loki, except that the GEL-specific services, namely the admin API, are also included in the read and write targets.
    • GEL 1.2 adds a common configuration section. It allows the reuse of configuration across different components.
  • GEL 1.2 eliminates the use of the word “instance,” which had been used as a synonym for “tenant”. Switching to “tenant” allows GEL to more closely align with terminology used in Loki and avoids confusion caused by the fact that “instance” can have multiple meanings besides “tenant.”

    • All references to “instance” in the GEL documentation and GEL Grafana plug-in have been replaced with the word “tenant.”
    • We’ve added new API endpoints which specify tenant in the request and response bodies. We have deprecated and will eventually remove the original endpoints that use the word instance. See the admin-api docs for more information.
  • We now have a GEL Helm chart for those interested in deploying on Kubernetes.

Upgrade considerations

  • When you upgrade to GEL 1.2, please upgrade your Grafana GEL administrative plug-in to version 2.3.0.

  • As part of the simple scalable deployment implementation, we updated the default values for configuration parameters. Those defaults are more in line with Grafana Labs’ recommendations for running the software. It also saves users from needing to update their deployed values, thereby shrinking their configuration size.

    • For a full list of GEL v1.2 changes, see GEL releases.
    • We do not anticipate any breaking changes due to the updated default values.
    • If the path_prefix flag is set in the common_config section, GEL will look for the license file in the path_prefix directory. Users who already define the path to their license with the path flag in the license_config configuration section will see no change in behavior. This flag, when set, takes precedence.
  • Metrics related to chunk storage and the runtime configuration have changed their prefixes from cortex_ to loki_. If you have any dashboards or downstream logic built on these metrics, you need to update them.

Bug fixes

1.2.0 bug fixes

  • Fixed a bug that broke leader election for the admin API. By default, leader election is on.

  • We corrected the URL of the ring endpoint for the GEL gateway. This fixes the ring page on the GEL Grafana plug-in.