How to install Grafana Loki on Debian 13

Grafana Loki is a powerful log aggregation system designed to be efficient and scalable. This guide will walk you through installing Loki and Promtail on Debian 13 in a simple and clear way so you can centralize your system logs quickly.

Step 1: Update Your System

Keeping your Debian 13 system updated ensures stability and prevents errors during the installation of Grafana Loki.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2: Install Required Dependencies

Install essential tools like wget and tar to download and extract Loki and Promtail without issues.

sudo apt install wget tar -y

Step 3: Download Grafana Loki

Download the latest Loki and Promtail binaries from the official Grafana repository to ensure you are using the most stable and up-to-date versions.

wget https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/latest/download/loki-linux-amd64.zip
wget https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/latest/download/promtail-linux-amd64.zip

Step 4: Extract Loki and Promtail

Unzip the downloaded packages so that the binaries are ready for installation and configuration.

unzip loki-linux-amd64.zip
unzip promtail-linux-amd64.zip

Step 5: Make Loki Promtail Executable

Move the Loki and Promtail binaries to a system path and set executable permissions to run them properly.

sudo mv loki-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/loki
sudo mv promtail-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/promtail
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/loki /usr/local/bin/promtail

Step 6: Configure Loki

Create a basic configuration file for Loki to define how logs are stored and managed.

sudo nano /etc/loki-config.yml

Add:

auth_enabled: false
server:
  http_listen_port: 3100
ingester:
  wal:
    enabled: true
  lifecycler:
    ring:
      kvstore:
        store: inmemory
schema_config:
  configs:
    - from: 2022-01-01
      store: boltdb-shipper
      object_store: filesystem
      schema: v11
      index:
        prefix: index_
        period: 24h
storage_config:
  filesystem:
    directory: /var/lib/loki
limits_config:
  ingestion_rate_mb: 10
  ingestion_burst_size_mb: 20

Step 7: Create a Systemd Service for Loki

Creating a systemd service ensures Loki starts automatically on boot and runs reliably in the background.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/loki.service

Add:

[Unit]
Description=Loki Log Aggregation System
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/loki -config.file=/etc/loki-config.yml
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Step 8: Create Promtail Configuration File

Promtail collects system logs and sends them to Loki, allowing centralized log management and easy monitoring of your server activities.

sudo nano /etc/promtail-config.yml

Add:

server:
  http_listen_port: 9080

clients:
  - url: http://localhost:3100/loki/api/v1/push

positions:
  filename: /var/log/positions.yaml

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: system
    static_configs:
      - targets:
          - localhost
        labels:
          job: system
          __path__: /var/log/*log