How to Install Loki on Linux Mint

Loki is a log aggregation system inspired by Prometheus. It can be used to collect, store and query logs from various sources in a distributed environment. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the installation process of Loki on Linux Mint.

Pre-requisites

Before we begin, please make sure that your system has the following requirements:

  • Linux Mint latest version.
  • Sudo privileges.

Step 1: Install Docker

Docker is a containerization platform that allows you to run applications in isolated and portable environments. To install Docker on Linux Mint, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T key combination.

  2. Run the following command to update your system’s package index:

sudo apt update
  1. Install the docker.io package using the following command:
sudo apt install docker.io
  1. Check the Docker version using the following command:
docker --version

You should now see the Docker version installed on your system.

Step 2: Install Loki

Now that we have Docker installed on our system, we can proceed to install Loki.

  1. Open the Terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T key combination.

  2. Create a new directory for the Loki configuration file and change the directory to the newly created directory:

mkdir -p ~/loki/config && cd ~/loki/config
  1. Create a new file named loki-config.yaml using the following command:
nano loki-config.yaml
  1. Paste the following content into the configuration file and save it:
auth_enabled: false

server:
  http_listen_port: 3100

ingester:
  lifecycler:
    address: 127.0.0.1
    ring:
      kvstore:
        store: inmemory
      replication_factor: 1
    final_sleep: 0s

  chunk_idle_period: 5m

  chunk_retain_period: 30s

schema_config:
  configs:
  - from: 2021-06-01
    store: boltdb
    object_store: filesystem
    schema: v11
    index:
      prefix: index_
      period: 24h

storage_config:
  boltdb:
    directory: /tmp/loki/index

  filesystem:
    directory: /tmp/loki/chunks

limits_config:
  enforce_metric_name: false
  reject_old_samples: true
  reject_old_samples_max_age: 168h

chunk_store_config:
  max_look_back_period: 0s

table_manager:
  chunk_tables_provisioning:
    inactive_read_throughput: 0
    inactive_write_throughput: 0
    provisioned_read_throughput: 0
    provisioned_write_throughput: 0
    provisioned_write_capacity_auto_scaling: true
  retention_deletes_enabled: false
  retention_period: 0s
  1. Create the Loki Docker container using the following command:
sudo docker run -d --name loki -p 3100:3100 -v ~/loki/config:/etc/loki --restart always grafana/loki:latest -config.file=/etc/loki/loki-config.yaml

In the above command:

  • -d flag runs the container in the background (detached mode).
  • --name option sets the name of the container.
  • -p option maps the container port to the host port.
  • -v option mounts the host directory to the container's directory.
  • --restart option restarts the container automatically.
  • grafana/loki:latest is the name of the Docker image.
  • -config.file option points to the location of the configuration file.
  1. To check the status of the Loki container, run the following command:
sudo docker ps

You should now see the Loki container running in the list of active containers.

Step 3: Verify the installation

Now that we have installed Loki, we can verify that it is working by accessing the Loki Web UI.

  1. Open a web browser.

  2. Visit http://localhost:3100/ and you should see the Loki user interface.

  3. Click on the "Explore" button in the top-left corner of the screen.

  4. You can now query logs from any of the available targets.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Loki on your Linux Mint system.