--- title: "Deploy the Loki Helm chart on Azure | Grafana Loki documentation" description: "Installing the Loki Helm chart on Azure." --- # Deploy the Loki Helm chart on Azure This guide shows how to deploy a minimally viable Loki in **microservice** mode on Azure using the Helm chart. In order to successfully complete this guide, you must have the necessary tools and permissions to deploy resources on Azure, such as: - Full access to AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service) - Full access to Azure Blob Storage - Sufficient permissions to create federated credentials and roles in Azure AD (Active Directory) There are four primary ways to authenticate Loki with Azure: - Hard coding a connection string - this is the simplest method but is not recommended for production environments. - Service principal - Managed identity - Federated token In this guide, we will use the federated token method to deploy Loki on Azure. This method is more secure than hard coding a connection string and is more suitable for production environments. ## Considerations > Caution > > This guide was accurate at the time it was last updated on **6th of February, 2026**. As cloud providers frequently update their services and offerings, as a best practice, you should refer to the [Azure documentation](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/) before creating your storage account and assigning roles. - **AD Role:** In this tutorial we will create a role in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to allow Loki to read and write from Azure Blob Storage. This role will be assigned to the Loki service account. You may want to adjust the permissions based on your requirements. - **Authentication:** Grafana Loki comes with a basic authentication layer. The Loki gateway (NGINX) is exposed to the internet using basic authentication in this example. NGINX can also be replaced with other open-source reverse proxies. Refer to [Authentication](/docs/loki/latest/operations/authentication/) for more information. - **Retention:** The retention period is set to 28 days in the `values.yaml` file. You may wish to adjust this based on your requirements. - **Costs:** Running Loki on Azure will incur costs. Make sure to monitor your usage and costs to avoid any unexpected bills. In this guide we have used a simple AKS cluster with 3 nodes and `Standard_E2ds_v5` instances. You may wish to adjust the instance types and number of nodes based on your workload. ## Prerequisites - Helm 3 or above. Refer to [Installing Helm](https://helm.sh/docs/intro/install/). This should be installed on your local machine. - Kubectl installed on your local machine. Refer to [Install and Set Up kubectl](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/install-kubectl/). - Azure CLI installed on your local machine. Refer to [Installing the Azure CLI](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/install-azure-cli). This is a requirement for following this guide as all resources will be created using the Azure CLI. ### AKS minimum requirements Before creating an AKS cluster in Azure you need to create a resource group. You can create a resource group using the Azure CLI: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az group create --name -location ``` > Caution > > These AKS requirements are the minimum specification needed to deploy Loki using this guide. You may wish to adjust the instance types based on your Azure environment and workload. **If you choose to do so, we cannot guarantee that this sample configuration will still meet your needs.** > > In this guide, we deploy Loki using `Standard_E2ds_v5` instances. This is to make sure we remain within the free tier limits for Azure. Which allows us to deploy up to 10 vCPUs within a region. We recommend for large production workloads to scale these nodes up to `Standard_D4_v5`. The minimum requirements for deploying Loki on AKS are: - Kubernetes version `1.30` or above. - `3` nodes for the AKS cluster. - Instance type depends on your workload. A good starting point for a production cluster in the free tier is `Standard_E2ds_v5` instances and for large production workloads `Standard_D4_v5` instances. Here is how to create an AKS cluster with the minimum requirements: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az aks create \ --resource-group \ --name \ --node-count 3 \ --node-vm-size Standard_E2ds_v5 \ --generate-ssh-keys \ --enable-workload-identity \ --enable-oidc-issuer ``` Note in the above command we have enabled workload identity and OIDC issuer. This is required for the Loki service account to authenticate with Azure AD. If you have already created an AKS cluster, you can enable these features using the following command: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az aks update \ --resource-group \ --name \ --enable-workload-identity \ --enable-oidc-issuer ``` The Azure CLI also lets you bind the AKS cluster to kubectl. You can do this by running the following command: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az aks get-credentials --resource-group --name ``` ## Configuring Azure Blob Storage > Tip > > Consider using unique bucket names rather than: `chunk`, `ruler`, and `admin`. Although Azure Blog Storage is not directly affected by this [security update](/blog/2024/06/27/grafana-security-update-grafana-loki-and-unintended-data-write-attempts-to-amazon-s3-buckets/) it is a best practice to use unique container names for buckets. Before deploying Loki, you need to create two Azure storage containers; one to store logs (chunks), the second to store alert rules. You can create the containers using the Azure CLI. Containers must exist inside a storage account. > Note > > GEL customers will require a third container to store the admin data. This container is not required for OSS users. 1. Create a storage account: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az storage account create \ --name \ --location \ --sku Standard_ZRS \ --encryption-services blob \ --resource-group ``` Replace the placeholders with your desired values. 2. Create the containers for chunks and ruler: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az storage container create --account-name --name --auth-mode login && \ az storage container create --account-name --name --auth-mode login ``` Make sure `--account-name` matches the account you just created With the storage account and containers created, you can now proceed to creating the Azure AD role and federated credentials. ## Creating the Azure AD role and federated credentials The recommended way to authenticate Loki with Azure Blob Storage is to use federated credentials. This method is more secure than hard coding a connection string directly into the Loki configuration. In this next section, we will create an Azure AD role and federated credentials for Loki to allow it to read and write from Azure Blob Storage: 1. Locate the OpenID Connect (OIDC) issuer URL: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az aks show \ --resource-group \ --name \ --query "oidcIssuerProfile.issuerUrl" \ -o tsv ``` This command will return the OIDC issuer URL. You will need this URL to create the federated credentials. 2. Generate a `credentials.json` file with the following content: JSON ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```json { "name": "LokiFederatedIdentity", "issuer": "", "subject": "system:serviceaccount:loki:loki", "description": "Federated identity for Loki accessing Azure resources", "audiences": [ "api://AzureADTokenExchange" ] } ``` Replace `` with the OIDC issuer URL you found in the previous step. 3. Make sure you to save the `credentials.json` file before continuing. 4. Next generate an Azure directory `app`. We will use this to assign our federated credentials to: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az ad app create \ --display-name loki \ --query appId \ -o tsv ``` This will return the app ID. Save this for later use. If you need to find the app ID later you can run the following command: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az ad app list --display-name loki --query "[].appId" -o tsv ``` 5. The app requires a service principal to authenticate with Azure AD. Create a service principal for the app: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az ad sp create --id ``` Replace `` with the app ID you generated in the previous step. 6. Next assign the federated credentials to the app: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az ad app federated-credential create \ --id \ --parameters credentials.json ``` Replace `` with the app ID you generated in the previous step. 7. Lastly add a role assignment to the app: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az role assignment create \ --role "Storage Blob Data Contributor" \ --assignee \ --scope /subscriptions//resourceGroups//providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/ ``` Replace the placeholders with your actual values. Now that you have created the Azure AD role and federated credentials, you can proceed to deploying Loki using the Helm chart. ## Deploying the Helm chart The following steps require the use of `helm` and `kubectl`. Make sure you have run the `az` command to bind your AKS cluster to `kubectl`: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash az aks get-credentials --resource-group --name ``` Before we can deploy the Loki Helm chart, we need to add the Grafana Community chart repository to Helm. This repository contains the Loki Helm chart. 1. Add the Grafana Community chart repository to Helm: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash helm repo add grafana-community https://grafana-community.github.io/helm-charts ``` 2. Update the chart repository: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash helm repo update ``` 3. Create a new namespace for Loki: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash kubectl create namespace loki ``` ### Loki basic authentication Loki by default does not come with any authentication. Since we will be deploying Loki to Azure and exposing the gateway to the internet, we recommend adding at least basic authentication. In this guide we will give Loki a username and password: 1. To start we will need create a `.htpasswd` file with the username and password. You can use the `htpasswd` command to create the file: > Tip > > If you don’t have the `htpasswd` command installed, you can install it using `brew` or `apt-get` or `yum` depending on your OS. Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash htpasswd -c .htpasswd ``` This will create a file called `auth` with the username `loki`. You will be prompted to enter a password. 2. Create a Kubernetes secret with the `.htpasswd` file: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash kubectl create secret generic loki-basic-auth --from-file=.htpasswd -n loki ``` This will create a secret called `loki-basic-auth` in the `loki` namespace. We will reference this secret in the Loki Helm chart configuration. 3. Create a `canary-basic-auth` secret for the canary: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash kubectl create secret generic canary-basic-auth \ --from-literal=username= \ --from-literal=password= \ -n loki ``` We create a literal secret with the username and password for Loki canary to authenticate with the Loki gateway. Make sure to replace the placeholders with your desired username and password. ### Loki Helm chart configuration Create a `values.yaml` file choosing the configuration options that best suit your requirements. Below there is an example of `values.yaml` files for the Loki Helm chart in [microservices](/docs/loki/latest/get-started/deployment-modes/#microservices-mode) mode. YAML ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```yaml loki: podLabels: "azure.workload.identity/use": "true" # Add this label to the Loki pods to enable workload identity schemaConfig: configs: - from: "2024-04-01" store: tsdb object_store: azure schema: v13 index: prefix: loki_index_ period: 24h storage: type: azure bucketNames: chunks: "" # Your actual Azure Blob Storage container name (loki-azure-dev-chunks) ruler: "" # Your actual Azure Blob Storage container name (loki-azure-dev-ruler) # admin: "admin-loki-devrel" # Your actual Azure Blob Storage container name (loki-azure-dev-admin) azure: accountName: useFederatedToken: true # Use federated token for authentication ingester: chunk_encoding: snappy pattern_ingester: enabled: true limits_config: allow_structured_metadata: true volume_enabled: true retention_period: 672h # 28 days retention compactor: retention_enabled: true delete_request_store: azure ruler: enable_api: true alertmanager_url: http://prom:9093 # The URL of the Alertmanager to send alerts (Prometheus, Mimir, etc.) querier: max_concurrent: 4 # Define the Azure workload identity serviceAccount: name: loki annotations: "azure.workload.identity/client-id": "" # The app ID of the Azure AD app deploymentMode: Distributed ingester: replicas: 3 zoneAwareReplication: enabled: false querier: replicas: 3 maxUnavailable: 2 queryFrontend: replicas: 2 maxUnavailable: 1 queryScheduler: replicas: 2 distributor: replicas: 3 maxUnavailable: 2 compactor: replicas: 1 indexGateway: replicas: 2 maxUnavailable: 1 ruler: replicas: 1 maxUnavailable: 1 # This exposes the Loki gateway so it can be written to and queried externaly gateway: service: type: LoadBalancer basicAuth: enabled: true existingSecret: loki-basic-auth # Since we are using basic auth, we need to pass the username and password to the canary lokiCanary: extraArgs: - -pass=$(LOKI_PASS) - -user=$(LOKI_USER) extraEnv: - name: LOKI_PASS valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: canary-basic-auth key: password - name: LOKI_USER valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: canary-basic-auth key: username # Enable minio for storage minio: enabled: false backend: replicas: 0 read: replicas: 0 write: replicas: 0 singleBinary: replicas: 0 ``` > Caution > > Make sure to replace the placeholders with your actual values. It is critical to define a valid `values.yaml` file for the Loki deployment. To remove the risk of misconfiguration, let’s break down the configuration options to keep in mind when deploying to Azure: - **Loki Config vs. Values Config:** - The `values.yaml` file contains a section called `loki`, which contains a direct representation of the Loki configuration file. - This section defines the Loki configuration, including the schema, storage, and querier configuration. - The key configuration to focus on for chunks is the `storage` section, where you define the Azure container name and storage account. This tells Loki where to store the chunks. - The `ruler` section defines the configuration for the ruler, including the Azure container name and storage account. This tells Loki where to store the alert and recording rules. - For the full Loki configuration, refer to the [Loki Configuration](/docs/loki/latest/configure/) documentation. - **Storage:** - Defines where the Helm chart stores data. - Set the type to `azure` since we are using Azure Blob Storage. - Configure the container names for the chunks and ruler to match the containers created earlier. - The `azure` section specifies the storage account name and also sets `useFederatedToken` to `true`. This tells Loki to use federated credentials for authentication. - **Service Account:** - The `serviceAccount` section is used to define the federated workload identity Loki will use to authenticate with Azure AD. - We set the `azure.workload.identity/client-id` annotation to the app ID of the Azure AD app. - **Zone-Aware Replication:** - The Helm chart enables zone-aware ingester replication by default, which creates three ingester StatefulSets (zone-a, zone-b, zone-c) for faster rollouts. - In this guide, zone-aware replication is explicitly disabled (`ingester.zoneAwareReplication.enabled: false`) for simplicity. For production deployments, consider enabling it to improve rollout resilience. - **Gateway:** - Defines how the Loki gateway will be exposed. - We are using a `LoadBalancer` service type in this configuration. ### Deploy Loki Now that you have created the `values.yaml` file, you can deploy Loki using the Helm chart. 1. Deploy using the newly created `values.yaml` file: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash helm install --values values.yaml loki grafana-community/loki -n loki --create-namespace ``` It is important to create a namespace called `loki` as our federated credentials were generated with the value `system:serviceaccount:loki:loki`. This translates to the `loki` service account in the `loki` namespace. This is configurable but make sure to update the federated credentials file first. 2. Verify the deployment: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash kubectl get pods -n loki ``` You should see the Loki pods running. console ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```console NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE loki-canary-crqpg 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-canary-hm26p 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-canary-v9wv9 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-chunks-cache-0 2/2 Running 0 10m loki-compactor-0 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-distributor-78ccdcc9b4-9wlhl 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-distributor-78ccdcc9b4-km6j2 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-distributor-78ccdcc9b4-ptwrb 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-gateway-5f97f78755-hm6mx 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-index-gateway-0 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-index-gateway-1 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-ingester-zone-a-0 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-ingester-zone-b-0 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-ingester-zone-c-0 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-querier-89d4ff448-4vr9b 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-querier-89d4ff448-7nvrf 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-querier-89d4ff448-q89kh 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-query-frontend-678899db5-n5wc4 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-query-frontend-678899db5-tf69b 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-query-scheduler-7d666bf759-9xqb5 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-query-scheduler-7d666bf759-kpb5q 1/1 Running 0 10m loki-results-cache-0 2/2 Running 0 10m loki-ruler-0 1/1 Running 0 10m ``` ### Find the Loki gateway service The Loki gateway service is a load balancer service that exposes the Loki gateway to the internet. This is where you will write logs to and query logs from. By default NGINX is used as the gateway. > Caution > > The Loki gateway service is exposed to the internet. We provide basic authentication using a username and password in this tutorial. Refer to the [Authentication](/docs/loki/latest/operations/authentication/) documentation for more information. To find the Loki gateway service, run the following command: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash kubectl get svc -n loki ``` You should see the Loki gateway service with an external IP address. This is the address you will use to write to and query Loki. console ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```console NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE loki-gateway LoadBalancer 10.100.201.74 134.236.21.145 80:30707/TCP 46m ``` Congratulations! You have successfully deployed Loki on Azure using the Helm chart. Before we finish, let’s test the deployment. ## Testing Your Loki Deployment k6 is one of the fastest ways to test your Loki deployment. This will allow you to both write and query logs to Loki. To get started with k6, follow the steps below: 1. Install k6 with the Loki extension on your local machine. Refer to [Installing k6 and the xk6-loki extension](/docs/loki/latest/send-data/k6/). 2. Create a `azure-test.js` file with the following content: JavaScript ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```javascript import {sleep, check} from 'k6'; import loki from 'k6/x/loki'; /** * URL used for push and query requests * Path is automatically appended by the client * @constant {string} */ const username = ''; const password = ''; const external_ip = ''; const credentials = `${username}:${password}`; const BASE_URL = `http://${credentials}@${external_ip}`; /** * Helper constant for byte values * @constant {number} */ const KB = 1024; /** * Helper constant for byte values * @constant {number} */ const MB = KB * KB; /** * Instantiate config and Loki client */ const conf = new loki.Config(BASE_URL); const client = new loki.Client(conf); /** * Define test scenario */ export const options = { vus: 10, iterations: 10, }; export default () => { // Push request with 10 streams and uncompressed logs between 800KB and 2MB var res = client.pushParameterized(10, 800 * KB, 2 * MB); // Check for successful write check(res, { 'successful write': (res) => res.status == 204 }); // Pick a random log format from label pool let format = randomChoice(conf.labels["format"]); // Execute instant query with limit 1 res = client.instantQuery(`count_over_time({format="${format}"}[1m])`, 1) // Check for successful read check(res, { 'successful instant query': (res) => res.status == 200 }); // Execute range query over last 5m and limit 1000 res = client.rangeQuery(`{format="${format}"}`, "5m", 1000) // Check for successful read check(res, { 'successful range query': (res) => res.status == 200 }); // Wait before next iteration sleep(1); } /** * Helper function to get random item from array */ function randomChoice(items) { return items[Math.floor(Math.random() * items.length)]; } ``` Replace `` with the external IP address of the Loki Gateway service. This script will write logs to Loki and query logs from Loki. It will write logs in a random format between 800KB and 2MB and query logs in a random format over the last 5 minutes. 3. Run the test: Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy ```bash ./k6 run azure-test.js ``` This will run the test and output the results. You should see the test writing logs to Loki and querying logs from Loki. Now that you have successfully deployed Loki in microservices mode on Microsoft Azure, you may wish to explore the following: - [Sending data to Loki](/docs/loki/latest/send-data/) - [Querying Loki](/docs/loki/latest/query/) - [Manage Loki](/docs/loki/latest/operations/)