Install Loki & Grafana On Ubuntu: A Quick Guide

Oct 23, 2025 by Jhon Lennon 48 views

Hey guys! So, you're looking to get Loki and Grafana up and running on your Ubuntu machine, huh? Awesome choice! This dynamic duo is a killer combo for log aggregation and visualization. If you're tired of sifting through endless log files manually, or if you just want a slicker way to monitor your systems, you've come to the right place. We're going to walk through the installation process step-by-step, making it super easy for you to get this powerful stack deployed.

Why Loki and Grafana, you ask? Well, Loki, developed by Grafana Labs, is designed to be a cost-effective and easy-to-operate log aggregation system. It's inspired by Prometheus and indexes labels, not the full text of logs, which makes it pretty efficient. Think of it like Prometheus, but for your logs. Grafana, on the other hand, is the de facto standard for dashboarding and visualization. It integrates seamlessly with Loki, allowing you to create beautiful, insightful dashboards from your log data. Together, they provide a robust solution for gaining visibility into your applications and infrastructure.

This guide is tailored for Ubuntu users, so we'll be using apt and other standard Ubuntu tools. We'll cover installing both Loki and Grafana, getting them configured to talk to each other, and even give you a little taste of how to query your logs. Ready to dive in? Let's get this party started!

Prerequisites: What You'll Need

Before we jump into the actual installation, let's make sure you've got the basics covered. Having these ready will make the whole process smoother, trust me. First things first, you'll need a running Ubuntu server. This could be a physical machine, a virtual machine, or even a cloud instance. We'll assume you have sudo privileges, as we'll be installing packages and modifying configuration files. It's also a good idea to have a basic understanding of the command line. If you're comfortable with commands like cd, ls, sudo apt update, and sudo apt install, you're golden.

We'll be using wget to download some files, so ensure that's installed on your system. You can check by typing wget --version. If it's not there, simply run sudo apt update && sudo apt install wget -y.

It's also highly recommended to update your package lists before installing anything new. This ensures you get the latest versions and avoid potential dependency issues. So, open up your terminal and run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y

This might take a few minutes, depending on how up-to-date your system is. While that's running, think about where you want to store your logs. Loki will need a place to store its data, and we'll set up a simple configuration for that. For this guide, we'll be using the default local storage, but in a production environment, you might want to consider external storage solutions.

Finally, having a reliable internet connection is crucial for downloading packages and any necessary components. That's pretty much it for the prerequisites, guys. Once you've got these sorted, we're ready to move on to the fun part: installing Loki!

Installing Loki: Your Log Aggregation Engine

Alright, let's get Loki installed on your Ubuntu server. This part is straightforward, and we'll be downloading the official binary directly from Grafana Labs. First, we need to find the latest stable release. You can usually find this on the Loki GitHub releases page. As of writing this, let's assume the latest version is v2.9.0, but always check for the newest version to get the latest features and security patches.

We'll download the compressed tarball for Linux. Open your terminal and run the following commands:

# Navigate to a directory where you want to download the file, e.g., /tmp
cd /tmp

# Download the latest Loki release (replace v2.9.0 with the actual latest version)
LOKI_VERSION="v2.9.0"
wget https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/download/${LOKI_VERSION}/loki-${LOKI_VERSION}.linux-amd64.zip

# Unzip the downloaded file
unzip loki-${LOKI_VERSION}.linux-amd64.zip

# Move the Loki binary to a common executable path
sudo mv loki-${LOKI_VERSION}.linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/loki

# Make the binary executable
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/loki

After running these commands, you should have the Loki binary installed and ready to go. To verify the installation, you can type:

loki --version

This should output the version of Loki you just installed. Now, let's create a basic configuration file for Loki. Loki needs a configuration file to know how to run. We'll create a simple loki-config.yaml file.

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/loki/local-config.yaml
auth_enabled: false

server:
  http_listen_port: 3100
  grpc_listen_port: 9095

common:
  instance_addr: 127.0.0.1
  path:
    inguém_dir: /loki/inguém
    log_dir: /loki/logs
  source: all

compactor:
  data_directory: /loki/inguém

# We are using the default file storage for this example.
# In a production environment, consider using S3 or GCS for scalability.
storage:
  chunks:
    local:
      directory: /loki/inguém
  index:
    prefix: index_
    period: 168h
  rules:
    local:
      directory: /loki/inguém

promtail:
  enabled: true
  position_sticky: true
  clients:
    - url: http://127.0.0.1:3100/loki/api/v1/push

EOF

Make sure to create the directories that Loki will use for storing data:

sudo mkdir -p /loki/inguém /loki/logs

And set the correct ownership:

sudo chown -R loki:loki /loki

We'll create a systemd service file to manage the Loki process. Create a file named /etc/systemd/system/loki.service with the following content:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/loki.service
[Unit]
Description=Loki log aggregation server
After=network.target

[Service]
Environment="GODEBUG=allocfreetrace=1"
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/loki -config.file /etc/loki/local-config.yaml
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5s
User=loki
Group=loki

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Now, let's enable and start the Loki service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable loki
sudo systemctl start loki

To check if Loki is running correctly, you can use:

sudo systemctl status loki

You should see output indicating that the service is active (running). You can also check the Loki logs themselves for any errors:

journalctl -u loki -f

Press Ctrl+C to exit the log view. If everything looks good, congratulations, you've successfully installed and started Loki! Now, let's move on to the visualizer: Grafana.

Installing Grafana: Your Visualization Dashboard

Now that Loki is humming along, it's time to get Grafana installed to visualize all those sweet logs. Grafana provides a fantastic user interface and allows you to build powerful dashboards. We'll install Grafana from its official APT repository, which makes updates a breeze.

First, let's add the Grafana GPG key and repository to your system. This ensures you're getting packages directly from Grafana Labs.

# Import the GPG key
wget -q -O - https://apt.grafana.com/gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -

# Add the Grafana repository
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grafana.list
deb https://apt.grafana.com stable main
EOF

# Update your package list again to include the new repository
sudo apt update

Now that the repository is added, we can install Grafana:

sudo apt install grafana -y

Once the installation is complete, Grafana needs to be started and enabled to run on boot. This is done using systemctl, just like we did for Loki.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable grafana-server
sudo systemctl start grafana-server

To check the status of the Grafana service:

sudo systemctl status grafana-server

It should show active (running). Grafana runs on port 3000 by default. You can access the Grafana web interface by opening your web browser and navigating to http://<your-server-ip>:3000.

When you first log in, the default username and password are admin and admin. You'll be prompted to change the password immediately, which is a good security practice.

So, you've got Loki spitting out logs and Grafana ready to display them. The final piece of the puzzle is connecting Grafana to Loki. Let's get that done!

Connecting Grafana to Loki: Making Them Talk

This is where the magic happens, guys! We're going to configure Grafana to use Loki as a data source. This allows you to query your logs directly from the Grafana UI and build awesome dashboards.

Once you're logged into your Grafana instance (http://<your-server-ip>:3000), navigate to Configuration (the gear icon on the left sidebar) and then click on Data Sources.

On the Data Sources page, click the Add data source button. Search for Loki and select it.

Now, you'll see a configuration form for the Loki data source. Here's what you need to fill in:

Name: You can name it anything you like, but Loki is a good default.
URL: This is the address where Loki is running. Since we installed Loki locally and it's listening on port 3100, the URL will be http://localhost:3100 or http://127.0.0.1:3100.

Scroll down to the Server or HTTP settings section. You typically don't need to change much here for a basic setup. Ensure that Basic auth is not enabled unless you've configured authentication for Loki (which we haven't in this basic setup).

Click the Save & Test button at the bottom. If everything is configured correctly, you should see a green message saying