VictoriaMetrics/docs/VictoriaLogs/data-ingestion/Promtail.md
Aliaksandr Valialkin 30098ac8bd
app/vlinsert/loki: follow-up after 09df5b66fd
- Parse protobuf if Content-Type isn't set to `application/json` - this behavior is documented at https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/api/#push-log-entries-to-loki

- Properly handle gzip'ped JSON requests. The `gzip` header must be read from `Content-Encoding` instead of `Content-Type` header

- Properly flush all the parsed logs with the explicit call to vlstorage.MustAddRows() at the end of query handler

- Check JSON field types more strictly.

- Allow parsing Loki timestamp as floating-point number. Such a timestamp can be generated by some clients,
  which store timestamps in float64 instead of int64.

- Optimize parsing of Loki labels in Prometheus text exposition format.

- Simplify tests.

- Remove lib/slicesutil, since there are no more users for it.

- Update docs with missing info and fix various typos. For example, it should be enough to have `instance` and `job` labels
  as stream fields in most Loki setups.

- Allow empty of missing timestamps in the ingested logs.
  The current timestamp at VictoriaLogs side is then used for the ingested logs.
  This simplifies debugging and testing of the provided HTTP-based data ingestion APIs.

The remaining MAJOR issue, which needs to be addressed: victoria-logs binary size increased from 13MB to 22MB
after adding support for Loki data ingestion protocol at https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/pull/4482 .
This is because of shitty protobuf dependencies. They must be replaced with another protobuf implementation
similar to the one used at lib/prompb or lib/prompbmarshal .
2023-07-20 21:52:11 -07:00

3.1 KiB

Promtail setup

Promtail is a default log shipper for Grafana Loki. Promtail can be configured to send the collected logs to VictoriaLogs according to the following docs.

Specify clients section in the configuration file for sending the collected logs to VictoriaLogs:

clients:
  - url: http://localhost:9428/insert/loki/api/v1/push?_stream_fields=instance,job,host,app,pid

Substitute localhost:9428 address inside clients with the real TCP address of VictoriaLogs.

See these docs for details on the used URL query parameter section. There is no need in specifying _msg_field and _time_field query args, since VictoriaLogs automatically extracts log message and timestamp from the ingested Loki data.

It is recommended verifying whether the initial setup generates the needed log fields and uses the correct stream fields. This can be done by specifying debug parameter and inspecting VictoriaLogs logs then:

clients:
  - url: http://localhost:9428/insert/loki/api/v1/push?_stream_fields=instance,job,host,app,pid&debug=1

If some log fields must be skipped during data ingestion, then they can be put into ignore_fields parameter. For example, the following config instructs VictoriaLogs to ignore filename and stream fields in the ingested logs:

clients:
  - url: http://localhost:9428/insert/loki/api/v1/push?_stream_fields=instance,job,host,app,pid&ignore_fields=filename,stream

By default the ingested logs are stored in the (AccountID=0, ProjectID=0) tenant. If you need storing logs in other tenant, then specify the needed tenant via tenant_id field in the Loki client configuration The tenant_id must have AccountID:ProjectID format, where AccountID and ProjectID are arbitrary uint32 numbers. For example, the following config instructs VictoriaLogs to store logs in the (AccountID=12, ProjectID=34) tenant:

clients:
  - url: http://localhost:9428/insert/loki/api/v1/push?_stream_fields=instance,job,host,app,pid&debug=1
    tenant_id: "12:34"

The ingested log entries can be queried according to these docs.

See also data ingestion troubleshooting docs.