Register a collector with Grafana Fleet Management

In this milestone, you’ll register a collector in Fleet Management by adding the remotecfg code block to the Grafana Alloy configuration file.

You can set attributes for a collector in both the remotecfg block of the configuration file and in the Fleet Management user interface. Attributes typically describe the collector’s purpose or environment, such as role, environment, cluster, or team. These attributes help you filter the collector inventory and assign specific configurations to collectors based on their characteristics.

To register a collector with Grafana Cloud Fleet Management, complete the following steps:

1. Navigate to Connections > Collector > Fleet Management.

2. Click the API tab.

3. Make note of the following information:

   • In the first Base URL field, make note of the Fleet Management service URL.

     The Fleet Management service URL follows the convention https://fleet-management-<CLUSTER_NAME>.grafana.net/

   • In the API Authentication section, make note of the Instance ID.

4. Open the Grafana Alloy configuration file.

   The default configuration file location for Alloy is:

   • Linux: /etc/alloy/config.alloy
   • macOS: $(brew --prefix)/etc/alloy/config.alloy
   • Windows: %ProgramFiles%\GrafanaLabs\Alloy\config.alloy

5. Copy the following code block and paste it at the end of the config.alloy file.

   alloy Copy

   remotecfg {
          url = "<SERVICE_URL>"
          basic_auth {
              username      = "<USERNAME>"
              password      = "<PASSWORD>"
          }
      
          id             = constants.hostname
          attributes     = {"cluster" = "dev", "namespace" = "otlp-dev"}
          poll_frequency = "5m"
      }

6. Update the following fields of the code block:

   Code block field	Enter
   url	The Fleet Management service URL
   username	The instance ID
   password	The access token you created in the previous milestone

7. If you installed Grafana Alloy on a Kubernetes platform and didn’t use the Kubernetes Monitoring Helm chart v2.1 or later, then enter:

   Copy

   attributes = {"cluster" = "dev", "namespace" = "otlp-dev", "platform" = "kubernetes"}

8. Save your changes to the Alloy configuration file..

9. Add the following environment variables to the Grafana Alloy service environment variables file:

   Copy

   GCLOUD_RW_API_KEY = "<Enter-access-policy-token>"

   For macOS only:

   Copy

   GCLOUD_FM_LOG_PATH = $PWD/alloy.log 

   Refer to Configure Grafana Alloy on Kubernetes, Configure Grafana Alloy on macOS, or Configure Grafana Alloy on Windows, for more information on how to set environment variables on your operating system.

10. Save your changes to the environment variables file.

11. Restart the Grafana Alloy service.

12. Navigate to Connections > Collector > Fleet Management.

    The collector you just registered should be listed.

In the next milestone, you’ll learn how to view the health status of a collector.