---
title: "Tanka | Grafana Loki documentation"
description: "Install Loki using Tanka"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Tanka

> You can use Grafana Cloud to avoid installing, maintaining, and scaling your own instance of Grafana Loki. [Create a free account to get started](/auth/sign-up/create-user?pg=docs-loki-v2.9.x-setup-install-tanka), which includes free forever access to 10k metrics, 50GB logs, 50GB traces, 500VUh k6 testing & more.

[Tanka](https://tanka.dev) is a reimplementation of [Ksonnet](https://ksonnet.io) that Grafana Labs created after Ksonnet was deprecated. Tanka is used by Grafana Labs to run Grafana Loki in production.

The Tanka installation runs the Loki cluster in microservices mode.

## Prerequisites

Install the latest version of Tanka (version v0.17.1 or a more recent version) for the `tk env` commands. Prebuilt binaries for Tanka can be found at the [Tanka releases URL](https://github.com/grafana/tanka/releases).

In your config repo, if you don’t have a Tanka application, create a folder and call `tk init` inside of it. Then create an environment for Loki and provide the URL for the Kubernetes API server to deploy to (e.g., `https://localhost:6443`):

![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```none
mkdir <application name>
cd <application name>
tk init
tk env add environments/loki --namespace=loki --server=<Kubernetes API server>
```

Install `jsonnet-bundler` (`jb`), find instructions for your platform in Tanka’s [installation docs](https://tanka.dev/install#jsonnet-bundler).

## Deploying

Download and install the Loki and Promtail module using `jb` (version v0.4.0 or a more recent version):

Bash ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```bash
jb init  # not required if you already ran `tk init`
jb install github.com/grafana/loki/production/ksonnet/loki@main
jb install github.com/grafana/loki/production/ksonnet/promtail@main
```

Revise the YAML contents of `environments/loki/main.jsonnet`, updating these variables:

- Update the `username`, `password`, and the relevant `htpasswd` variable values.
- Update the S3 or GCS variable values, depending on your object storage type. See [storage\_config](/docs/loki/latest/configuration/#storage_config) for more configuration details.
- Remove from the configuration the S3 or GCS object storage variables that are not part of your setup.
- Update the value of `boltdb_shipper_shared_store` or `tsdb_shipper_shared_store` to the type of object storage you are using. Options are `gcs`, `s3`, `azure`, `cos` or `filesystem`. Update the `object_store` variable under the `schema_config` section to the same value.
- Update the Promtail configuration `container_root_path` variable’s value to reflect your root path for the Docker daemon. Run `docker info | grep "Root Dir"` to acquire your root path.
- Update the `from` value in the Loki `schema_config` section to no more than 14 days prior to the current date. The `from` date represents the first day for which the `schema_config` section is valid. For example, if today is `2021-01-15`, set `from` to `2021-01-01`. This recommendation is based on Loki’s default acceptance of log lines up to 14 days in the past. The `reject_old_samples_max_age` configuration variable controls the acceptance range.

jsonnet ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```jsonnet
local gateway = import 'loki/gateway.libsonnet';
local loki = import 'loki/loki.libsonnet';
local promtail = import 'promtail/promtail.libsonnet';

loki + promtail + gateway {
  _config+:: {
    namespace: 'loki',
    htpasswd_contents: 'loki:$apr1$H4yGiGNg$ssl5/NymaGFRUvxIV1Nyr.',

    // S3 variables -- Remove if not using s3
    storage_backend: 's3,dynamodb',
    s3_access_key: 'key',
    s3_secret_access_key: 'secret access key',
    s3_address: 'url',
    s3_bucket_name: 'loki-test',
    dynamodb_region: 'region',

    // GCS variables -- Remove if not using gcs
    storage_backend: 'bigtable,gcs',
    bigtable_instance: 'instance',
    bigtable_project: 'project',
    gcs_bucket_name: 'bucket',

    //Set this variable based on the type of object storage you're using.
    boltdb_shipper_shared_store: 'my-object-storage-backend-type',

    //Update the object_store and from fields
    loki+: {
      schema_config: {
        configs: [{
          from: 'YYYY-MM-DD',
          store: 'boltdb-shipper',
          object_store: 'my-object-storage-backend-type',
          schema: 'v11',
          index: {
            prefix: '%s_index_' % $._config.table_prefix,
            period: '%dh' % $._config.index_period_hours,
          },
        }],
      },
    },

    //Update the container_root_path if necessary
    promtail_config+: {
      clients: [{
        scheme:: 'http',
        hostname:: 'gateway.%(namespace)s.svc' % $._config,
        username:: 'loki',
        password:: 'password',
        container_root_path:: '/var/lib/docker',
      }],
    },

    replication_factor: 3,
    consul_replicas: 1,
  },
}
```

Run `tk show environments/loki` to see the manifests that will be deployed to the cluster. Run `tk apply environments/loki` to deploy the manifests. To delete the environment from cluster, run `tk delete environments/loki`.