Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.
Install Promtail
Promtail is distributed as a binary, in a Docker container, or there is a Helm chart to install it in a Kubernetes cluster.
Binary
Every release includes binaries for Promtail which can be found on the Releases page.
Docker
# modify tag to most recent version
docker pull grafana/promtail:2.0.0
Helm
Make sure that Helm is installed. See Installing Helm. Then you can add Grafana’s chart repository to Helm:
helm repo add grafana https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts
And the chart repository can be updated by running:
helm repo update
Finally, Promtail can be deployed with:
$ helm upgrade --install promtail grafana/promtail --set "loki.serviceName=loki"
Kubernetes
DaemonSet (recommended)
A DaemonSet
will deploy Promtail on every node within a Kubernetes cluster.
The DaemonSet deployment works well at collecting the logs of all containers within a cluster. It’s the best solution for a single-tenant model.
---Daemonset.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: DaemonSet
metadata:
name: promtail-daemonset
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
name: promtail
template:
metadata:
labels:
name: promtail
spec:
serviceAccount: SERVICE_ACCOUNT
serviceAccountName: SERVICE_ACCOUNT
volumes:
- name: logs
hostPath:
path: HOST_PATH
- name: promtail-config
configMap:
name: promtail-configmap
containers:
- name: promtail-container
image: grafana/promtail
args:
- -config.file=/etc/promtail/promtail.yaml
env:
- name: 'HOSTNAME', # needed when using kubernetes_sd_configs
valueFrom:
fieldRef:
fieldPath: 'spec.nodeName'
volumeMounts:
- name: logs
mountPath: MOUNT_PATH
- name: promtail-config
mountPath: /etc/promtail
---configmap.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: promtail-config
data:
promtail.yaml: YOUR CONFIG
---Clusterrole.yaml
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRole
metadata:
name: promtail-clusterrole
rules:
- apiGroups: [""]
resources:
- nodes
- services
- pods
verbs:
- get
- watch
- list
---ServiceAccount.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
name: promtail-serviceaccount
---Rolebinding.yaml
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
metadata:
name: promtail-clusterrolebinding
subjects:
- kind: ServiceAccount
name: promtail-serviceaccount
namespace: default
roleRef:
kind: ClusterRole
name: promtail-clusterrole
apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
Sidecar
The Sidecar method deploys Promtail as a sidecar container for a specific pod. In a multi-tenant environment, this enables teams to aggregate logs for specific pods and deployments.
---Deployment.yaml
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: promtail-deployment
spec:
selector:
matchLabels:
name: promtail
template:
metadata:
labels:
name: promtail
spec:
serviceAccount: SERVICE_ACCOUNT
serviceAccountName: SERVICE_ACCOUNT
volumes:
- name: logs
hostPath:
path: HOST_PATH
- name: promtail-config
configMap:
name: promtail-configmap
containers:
- name: promtail-container
image: grafana/promtail
args:
- -config.file=/etc/promtail/promtail.yaml
volumeMounts:
- name: logs
mountPath: MOUNT_PATH
- name: promtail-config
mountPath: /etc/promtail