> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://notes.kodekloud.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Promtail installation > This guide covers the installation and configuration of Promtail to forward logs to a Loki server. In this guide, we assume your Loki server is already running. Now it’s time to set up Promtail—the dedicated log collection agent—to forward logs from your nodes (node one and node two) to your Loki instance. Begin by exploring the documentation under the Clients section. Here, you will discover several supported clients such as Promtail, Fluent Bit, Fluentd, and Logstash. For this lesson, our focus is on Promtail. ![The image shows a webpage from Grafana Labs documentation, specifically about Grafana Loki clients for sending logs, with a navigation menu on the left and a Grafana Cloud advertisement on the right.](https://kodekloud.com/kk-media/image/upload/v1752877760/notes-assets/images/Grafana-Loki-Promtail-installation/grafana-loki-clients-documentation.jpg) The documentation offers various example configurations (Docker, Helm on Kubernetes, etc.). However, we are interested in downloading a precompiled binary that corresponds to your system architecture (e.g., Promtail Linux AMD64). ![The image shows a GitHub releases page for Grafana Loki, listing various downloadable files with their sizes and release dates.](https://kodekloud.com/kk-media/image/upload/v1752877762/notes-assets/images/Grafana-Loki-Promtail-installation/github-releases-grafana-loki.jpg) ## Downloading and Unpacking Promtail Follow these steps on each node to download and extract the Promtail binary: ### On Node One 1. **Download the Promtail zip file using `wget`:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-1:~$ wget https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/download/v2.8.2/promtail-linux-amd64.zip ``` 2. **List the directory to verify the download:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-1:~$ ls LICENSE README.md app flog flog_0.4.3_linux_amd64.tar.gz generated.log log.gz promtail-linux-amd64.zip ``` 3. **Unzip the downloaded file:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-1:~$ unzip promtail-linux-amd64.zip Archive: promtail-linux-amd64.zip inflating: promtail-linux-amd64 ``` 4. **Verify the extraction:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-1:~$ ls LICENSE app flog_0.4.3_linux_amd64.tar.gz log.gz promtail-linux-amd64.zip promtail-linux-amd64 generated.log ``` ### On Node Two Repeat the download and extraction process: 1. **Download the Promtail zip file:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-2:~$ wget https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/download/v2.8.2/promtail-linux-amd64.zip ``` 2. **Verify the download with a directory listing:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-2:~$ ls LICENSE README.md app flog flog_0.4.3_linux_amd64.tar.gz generated.log log.gz promtail-linux-amd64.zip ``` 3. **Extract the archive:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-2:~$ unzip promtail-linux-amd64.zip Archive: promtail-linux-amd64.zip inflating: promtail-linux-amd64 ``` 4. **Confirm the extraction:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-2:~$ ls app promtail-linux-amd64 promtail-linux-amd64.zip ``` If you encounter an error on node two regarding the absence of the `unzip` command, install it using: ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-2:~$ sudo apt install unzip ``` Then, rerun the unzip command. ## Obtaining the Promtail Configuration File Promtail requires a configuration file to determine how logs are collected and where to send them. Follow these steps on your node: 1. **Download the example configuration file from GitHub:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-2:~$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grafana/loki/main/clients/cmd/promtail/promtail-local-config.yaml ``` 2. **Open the configuration file for review:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-2:~$ vi promtail-local-config.yaml ``` A typical configuration looks like this: ```yaml theme={null} server: http_listen_port: 9080 grpc_listen_port: 0 positions: filename: /tmp/positions.yaml clients: - url: http://localhost:3100/loki/api/v1/push scrape_configs: - job_name: system static_configs: - targets: - localhost labels: job: varlogs __path__: /var/log/*log ``` ### Customizing the Configuration Review the key sections of the configuration: * **Server:** Sets Promtail’s HTTP listening port. * **Positions:** Specifies the file to store the last read positions of logs. * **Clients:** Defines the Loki server endpoint. Change `localhost` to the actual IP address or hostname of your Loki server. * **Scrape Configs:** Determines which log files are monitored. In the example, all files in `/var/log` ending with `"log"` are collected. For example, after updating with your Loki server's IP address, your configuration might be: ```yaml theme={null} server: http_listen_port: 9080 grpc_listen_port: 0 positions: filename: /tmp/positions.yaml clients: - url: http://:3100/loki/api/v1/push scrape_configs: - job_name: system static_configs: - targets: - localhost labels: job: varlogs __path__: /var/log/*log ``` You can add more scrape jobs as needed to monitor and label additional log files. ## Running Promtail To start Promtail using your configuration file, execute the following command on each node. Make sure you are in the directory containing both the Promtail binary and the configuration file. 1. **Run Promtail:** ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-2:~$ ./promtail-linux-amd64 -config.file=promtail-local-config.yaml ``` You should see output indicating that Promtail has started, similar to this: ```bash theme={null} level=info ts=2023-07-18T06:07:02.851962462Z caller=promtail.go:133 msg="Reloading configuration file" md5sum=533f93bcf05063... level=info ts=2023-07-18T06:07:02.852876099Z caller=main.go:174 msg="Starting Promtail" version="(version=2.8.2, branch=HEAD, revision=9f809eda7)" level=warn ts=2023-07-18T06:07:02.852991175Z caller=promtail.go:265 msg="enable watchConfig" ``` If Promtail fails to access certain log files due to permission issues (common for system logs), run Promtail with `sudo`: ```bash theme={null} vagrant@node-1:~$ sudo ./promtail-linux-amd64 -config.file=promtail-local-config.yaml ``` Here’s an example snippet of Promtail output confirming that log files like `/var/log/kern.log` and `/var/log/syslog` are being tailed: ```bash theme={null} level=info ts=2023-07-18T06:07:58.460604359Z caller=tailer.go:143 component=tailer msg="tail routine: started" path=/var/log/kern.log ts=2023-07-18T06:07:58.460785504Z caller=log.go:168 level=info msg="Seeked /var/log/syslog - &{Offset:3449718 Whence:0}" ``` This output confirms that Promtail is correctly reading and forwarding logs to your Loki server. ## Conclusion Once Promtail is installed and configured on both nodes, your logs will be continuously collected and pushed to your Loki server for centralized monitoring and analysis. For additional configuration options and troubleshooting tips, refer to the [Grafana Loki Documentation](https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/).