How to Install Loki on NixOS Latest

Loki is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant log aggregation system inspired by Prometheus.

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the installation process of Loki on NixOS Latest.

Prerequisites

Before we start, you should have:

• NixOS Latest Installed on your System
• Superuser Privileges on your System

Step 1: Install the Loki Package

The first step is to install the Loki package. Open up a terminal and run the following command:

sudo nix-env -i loki

This will install the latest version of Loki on your system.

Step 2: Configure and Run Loki

Next, we need to configure and run Loki. To do this, we need to create a configuration file for Loki.

Create a new configuration file /etc/loki/loki-promtail-config.yml using your favourite editor with the following content:

server:
  http_listen_port: 3100

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

schema_config:
  configs:
  - from: 2020-04-15
    store: boltdb
    object_store: filesystem
    schema: v11
    index:
      prefix: index_
      period: 24h

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

  filesystem:
    directory: /tmp/loki/chunks

limits_config:
  enforced:
    max_samples_per_query: 5000000
    max_series_per_metric: 100000

chunk_store_config:
  max_look_back_period: 0s

table_manager:
  retention_deletes_enabled: false
  retention_period: 0s

compactor:
  working_directory: /tmp/loki/boltdb
  shared_store: filesystem
  shared_store_directory: /tmp/loki/compactor
  compaction:
    working_directory: /tmp/loki/boltdb
    inertial_compaction:
      max_concurrent_compactions: 2
    compaction_window: 1h
    ignore_deletes: false
    retain_period: 0s

Once you have saved the configuration file, you can start the Loki service using the following command:

sudo systemctl start loki.service

You can also enable the service to start at boot time using the following command:

sudo systemctl enable loki.service

Step 3: Verify Loki

Loki should now be up and running. To verify that it is working correctly, you can access the web interface by opening your browser and visiting http://localhost:3100/loki.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Loki on NixOS Latest.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we covered the steps necessary to install and configure Loki on NixOS Latest. We hope that you found this tutorial helpful and that you are now able to use Loki to effectively aggregate and search logs on your system.

If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!

Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!