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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.

Open source

Install Grafana Loki locally

To log events with Grafana Loki, download and install both Promtail and Loki.

  • Loki is the logging engine.
  • Promtail sends logs to Loki.

The configuration runs Loki as a single binary.

Install using APT or RPM package manager

  1. Add the Grafana Advanced Package Tool (APT) or RPM Package Manager (RPM) package repository following the linked instructions.
  2. Install Loki and Promtail
    1. Using dnf
      dnf update
      dnf install loki promtail
    2. Using apt-get
      apt-get update
      apt-get install loki promtail

Install manually

  1. Browse to the release page.

  2. Find the Assets section for the version that you want to install.

  3. Download the Loki and Promtail archive files that correspond to your system.

    Don’t download LogCLI or Loki Canary at this time. LogCLI allows you to run Loki queries in a command line interface. Loki Canary is a tool to audit Loki performance.

  4. Extract the package contents into the same directory. This is where the two programs will run.

  5. In the command line, change directory (cd on most systems) to the directory with Loki and Promtail.

    Copy and paste the following commands into your command line to download generic configuration files.

    Use the Git references that match your downloaded Loki version to get the correct configuration file. For example, if you are using Loki version 2.9.2, you need to use the https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grafana/loki/v2.9.2/cmd/loki/loki-local-config.yaml URL to download the configuration file.

    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grafana/loki/main/cmd/loki/loki-local-config.yaml
    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grafana/loki/main/clients/cmd/promtail/promtail-local-config.yaml
  6. Run the following command to start Loki:

    Windows

    .\loki-windows-amd64.exe --config.file=loki-local-config.yaml

    Linux

    ./loki-linux-amd64 -config.file=loki-local-config.yaml

Loki runs and displays Loki logs in your command line and on http://localhost:3100/metrics.

The next step is running an agent to send logs to Loki. To do so with Promtail, refer to the Promtail configuration.

Release binaries - openSUSE Linux only

Every release includes binaries for Loki. You can find them on the Releases page.

Community openSUSE Linux packages

The community provides packages of Loki for openSUSE Linux. To install them:

  1. Add the repository https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/security:/logging/ to your system. For example, if you are using Leap 15.1, run:

    sudo zypper ar https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/security:/logging/openSUSE_Leap_15.1/security:logging.repo
    sudo zypper ref
  2. Install the Loki package:

    zypper in loki
  3. Start and enable the Loki and Promtail services:

    systemd start loki
    systemd enable loki
    systemd start promtail
    systemd enable promtail
  4. Modify the /etc/loki/promtail.yaml and /etc/loki/loki.yaml configuration files as needed.