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Grafana Enterprise Logs Set up a GEL cluster Deploy on Kubernetes
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Deploy on Kubernetes

You can deploy a Grafana Enterprise Logs (GEL) cluster in an existing Kubernetes namespace using Minio as a storage backend.

To start, make sure that you have a working Kubernetes cluster and the ability to deploy to that cluster using the kubectl tool. If you do not currently have access to a Kubernetes cluster, refer to Deploy on Linux.

You will deploy three copies of GEL’s single binary version, rather than deploying each microservice separately.

Deploy Minio

The examples that follow use Minio as the object storage backend. Minio is a open source S3 compatible object storage service that is freely available and easy to run on Kubernetes. If you want to use a different object storage backend, refer to the Loki storage_config.

  1. Create a file titled minio.yaml, and copy the following configuration code into it:
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  # This name uniquely identifies the PVC. Will be used in deployment below.
  name: minio-pv-claim
  labels:
    app: minio-storage-claim
spec:
  # Read more about access modes here: http://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/persistent-volumes/#access-modes
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  storageClassName: local-path
  resources:
    # This is the request for storage. Should be available in the cluster.
    requests:
      storage: 50Gi
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: minio
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: minio
  strategy:
    type: Recreate
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        # Label is used as selector in the service.
        app: minio
    spec:
      # Refer to the PVC created earlier
      volumes:
        - name: storage
          persistentVolumeClaim:
            # Name of the PVC created earlier
            claimName: minio-pv-claim
      initContainers:
        - name: create-buckets
          image: busybox:1.28
          command:
            [
                "sh",
                "-c",
                "mkdir -p /storage/grafana-logs-data && mkdir -p /storage/grafana-logs-admin",
            ]
          volumeMounts:
            - name: storage # must match the volume name, above
              mountPath: "/storage"
      containers:
        - name: minio
          # Pulls the default Minio image from Docker Hub
          image: minio/minio:latest
          args:
            - server
            - /storage
          env:
            # Minio access key and secret key
            - name: MINIO_ACCESS_KEY
              value: "minio"
            - name: MINIO_SECRET_KEY
              value: "minio123"
          ports:
            - containerPort: 9000
          volumeMounts:
            - name: storage # must match the volume name, above
              mountPath: "/storage"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: minio
spec:
  type: ClusterIP
  ports:
    - port: 9000
      targetPort: 9000
      protocol: TCP
  selector:
    app: minio
  1. Run the following command:
kubectl create -f minio.yaml
  1. Verify that you have set up Minio correctly, by port-forwarding it and navigating to it in your browser:
kubectl port-forward service/minio 9000:9000
  1. Navigate to the minio admin console using your browser. The sign-in credentials are username minio and password minio123.

Create a license secret

  1. Run the following command to load your GEL license file (license.jwt) as a Kubernetes Secret.
kubectl create secret generic ge-logs-license --from-file license.jwt
  1. Verify you have successfully created the secret by running the following command:
kubectl get secret ge-logs-license -oyaml

The preceding command prints a Kubernetes Secret object with a license.jwt field that contains a long base64-encoded value string.

Create a GEL configuration map

To create a configuration file for your cluster and deploy it as a Kubernetes ConfigMap, copy the configuration that follows and save it to a config.yaml file. Edit the YAML file so that the cluster_name field is the name of the cluster associated with your license:

auth:
  type: enterprise

target: all

cluster_name: <insert_your_cluster_name>

license:
  path: /etc/ge-logs/license/license.jwt

ingester:
  lifecycler:
    num_tokens: 512
    ring:
      kvstore:
        store: memberlist
      replication_factor: 3

admin_client:
  storage:
    type: s3
    s3:
      endpoint: minio:9000
      bucket_name: grafana-logs-admin
      access_key_id: minio
      secret_access_key: minio123
      insecure: true

chunk_store_config:
  max_look_back_period: 0s

limits_config:
  reject_old_samples: true
  reject_old_samples_max_age: 168h

memberlist:
  abort_if_cluster_join_fails: false
  bind_port: 7946
  join_members:
    - ge-logs-discovery

storage_config:
  aws:
    s3: http://minio:minio123@minio.gem.svc.cluster.local:9000
    bucketnames: grafana-logs-data
    s3forcepathstyle: true
  boltdb_shipper:
    active_index_directory: /data/boltdb-shipper-active
    cache_location: /data/boltdb-shipper-cache
    cache_ttl: 24h # Can be increased for faster performance over longer query periods, uses more disk space
    shared_store: s3

schema_config:
  configs:
    - from: 2021-01-01
      store: boltdb-shipper
      object_store: aws
      schema: v11
      index:
        prefix: index_
        period: 24h

table_manager:
  retention_deletes_enabled: false
  retention_period: 0s

compactor:
  working_directory: /data/boltdb-shipper-compactor
  shared_store: s3

To create the ConfigMap, run the following command:

kubectl create configmap ge-logs-config --from-file=config.yaml

Create the services for GEL

Two Kubernetes services are required to run GEL as a StatefulSet. The first service supports GRPC requests between replicas. The second is a gossip service port to allow the replicas to join together and form a hash ring to coordinate work.

  1. Create a services.yaml file and copy the following content into it:
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    name: ge-logs-discovery
  name: ge-logs-discovery
spec:
  clusterIP: None
  ports:
    - name: ge-logs-grpc
      port: 9095
      targetPort: grpc
    - name: ge-logs-gossip
      port: 7946
      targetPort: gossip
  publishNotReadyAddresses: true
  selector:
    name: ge-logs
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  labels:
    name: ge-logs
  name: ge-logs
spec:
  ports:
    - name: ge-logs-http
      port: 8100
      targetPort: http
  selector:
    name: ge-logs
  sessionAffinity: None
  type: LoadBalancer
  1. Create the services by running the following command:
kubectl apply -f services.yaml

Deploy the GEL StatefulSet

The procedure that follows deploys three copies of the GEL binary as a StatefulSet.

  1. Copy the following content into the statefulset.yaml file:
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: StatefulSet
metadata:
  labels:
    name: ge-logs
  name: ge-logs
spec:
  replicas: 3
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      name: ge-logs
  serviceName: ge-logs
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        name: ge-logs
    spec:
      containers:
        - args:
            - -config.file=/etc/ge-logs/config.yaml
          image: grafana/enterprise-logs:v1.6.3
          imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
          name: enterprise-logs
          ports:
            - containerPort: 80
              name: http
            - containerPort: 9095
              name: grpc
            - containerPort: 7946
              name: gossip
          readinessProbe:
            httpGet:
              path: /ready
              port: 80
            initialDelaySeconds: 15
            timeoutSeconds: 1
          volumeMounts:
            - mountPath: /data
              name: data
            - mountPath: /etc/ge-logs
              name: ge-logs-config
            - mountPath: /etc/ge-logs/license
              name: ge-logs-license
      imagePullSecrets:
        - name: gcr
      securityContext:
        runAsUser: 0
      terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 300
      volumes:
        - name: ge-logs-config
          configMap:
            name: ge-logs-config
        - name: ge-logs-license
          secret:
            secretName: ge-logs-license
  updateStrategy:
    type: RollingUpdate
  volumeClaimTemplates:
    - metadata:
        name: data
      spec:
        accessModes:
          - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 50Gi
  1. Create the StatefulSet, by running the following command:
kubectl apply -f statefulset.yaml

Start the GEL compactor as a Kubernetes deployment

The single binary of GEL does not enable the compactor component by default. Therefore, you need to run the compactor separately as a Kubernetes Deployment.

  1. Copy the following content into the a compactor.yaml file:
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: compactor-data
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  storageClassName: local-path
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 10Gi
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  labels:
    app: compactor
  name: compactor
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: compactor
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: compactor
    spec:
      containers:
        - args:
            - -config.file=/etc/ge-logs/config.yaml
            - -target=compactor
          image: grafana/enterprise-logs:v1.6.3
          imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
          name: compactor
          ports:
            - containerPort: 80
              name: http
            - containerPort: 9095
              name: grpc
            - containerPort: 7946
              name: gossip
          readinessProbe:
            httpGet:
              path: /ready
              port: 80
            initialDelaySeconds: 15
            timeoutSeconds: 1
          volumeMounts:
            - mountPath: /data
              name: data
            - mountPath: /etc/ge-logs
              name: ge-logs-config
            - mountPath: /etc/ge-logs/license
              name: ge-logs-license
      imagePullSecrets:
        - name: gcr
      securityContext:
        runAsUser: 0
      terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 300
      volumes:
        - name: ge-logs-config
          configMap:
            name: ge-logs-config
        - name: ge-logs-license
          secret:
            secretName: ge-logs-license
        - name: data
          persistentVolumeClaim:
            claimName: compactor-data
  1. Create the compactor deployment:
kubectl apply -f compactor.yaml

Generate an admin token

To communicate with GEL’s admin API, you need a token to manage tenants and access policies. You can use a Kubernetes Job to perform token generation.

  1. Copy the following content it into a tokengen-job.yaml file:
apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: Job
metadata:
  name: ge-logs-tokengen
spec:
  template:
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: ge-logs-tokengen
          image: grafana/enterprise-logs:v1.6.3
          imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
          args:
            - --config.file=/etc/ge-logs/config.yaml
            - --target=tokengen
          volumeMounts:
            - mountPath: /etc/ge-logs
              name: ge-logs-config
            - mountPath: /etc/ge-logs/license
              name: ge-logs-license
      volumes:
        - name: ge-logs-config
          configMap:
            name: ge-logs-config
        - name: ge-logs-license
          secret:
            secretName: ge-logs-license
      restartPolicy: Never
      imagePullSecrets:
        - name: gcr
  1. Create the tokengen Kubernetes Job by running the following command:
$ kubectl apply -f tokengen-job.yaml
  1. Check the status of the Kubernetes Pod that is running the tokengen job, and once it’s completed, check the logs for that job for the new admin token:
kubectl logs job.batch/ge-logs-tokengen

The output of the preceding command contains a token as a string in the logs. The log line you are looking for looks as follows, although your token string will be different:

Token created:  Ym9vdHN0cmFwLXRva2VuOmA3PzkxOF0zfVx0MTlzMVteTTcjczNAPQ==
  1. Note down this token because it is required later when you set up your cluster.

Next steps

To integrate your logs cluster with Grafana and a UI to interact with the Admin API, refer to Set up the GEL plugin for Grafana.