How to Install Loki on NetBSD

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing Loki on NetBSD. Loki is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant log aggregation system inspired by Prometheus.

Requirements

Before starting the installation, ensure that your system meets the following requirements:

NetBSD 8.0 or later version
Root access
Minimum 2 GB of RAM
Internet connection

Step 1: Install and Configure Golang

Loki is written in Golang, so you must have it installed on your system to build and run it. We recommend installing Go 1.11 or later versions. Follow the below steps to install Go:

Download the latest version of Go from the official website:

$ cd /usr/local
$ ftp https://golang.org/dl/go1.16.7.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Extract the downloaded archive using the following command:
```
$ tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.16.7.linux-amd64.tar.gz
```
Add Go's binary directory to your PATH variable. To do this, edit the /etc/profile file by adding the following lines:
```
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin
export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
```
Save and close the file, and then reload it:
```
$ source /etc/profile
```

Step 2: Download and Build Loki

Now that you have installed and configured Golang on your system, you can proceed to download Loki's source code and build it. Follow the below steps to do so:

Clone Loki's repository from GitHub:

$ git clone https://github.com/grafana/loki.git

Navigate to the Loki directory:
```
$ cd loki
```
Build the Loki binary by running the following command:
```
$ make build
```

Step 3: Configure Loki

To configure Loki, create a configuration file named local-config.yaml in the Loki directory by running the following command:

$ touch local-config.yaml

Add the following content to this file:

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
  max_transfer_retries: 0
  rate_limiter:
    enable: false

schema_config:
  configs:
  - from: 2020-01-01
    store: boltdb
    object_store: filesystem
    schema: v11
    index:
      prefix: index_
      period: 168h

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

Step 4: Start the Loki Server

After configuring Loki, you can start the Loki server by running the following command:

$ ./loki --config.file=local-config.yaml

Loki will start on port 3100 by default, and you can access the web interface by opening a web browser and navigating to http://localhost:3100.

Conclusion

You have successfully installed Loki on NetBSD and started the Loki server. Now you can start shipping your logs to Loki and visualize them using Grafana. Happy logging!