This is a complete guide on How to Install and Configure Graylog Server on Ubuntu 18.04 for Centralized Log management. Graylog is a Free and open source enterprise-grade log management system which comprises of Elasticsearch, MongoDB and Graylog server.
For CentOS 7 server, we have how to Install Graylog with Elasticsearch 6.x on CentOS 7.
Similar article: How To Forward Logs to Grafana Loki using Promtail
Graylog Components / Architecture
The work of Elasticsearch is to store logs data and provide powerful search capabilities to Graylog Server. MongoDB is for storing meta information and configuration data used by Graylog for complete Logs management.
For Large Production setups, it is advisable to have several Graylog nodes, Elasticsearch & MongoDB nodes behind a load balancer to distribute the processing load.
Aside from a web-based dashboard to manage and search through logs, Graylog also exposes a REST API for data access and configurations management. Below is a basic architectural overview of Graylog architecture.
With an easy to use and intuitive web interface, you can visualize metrics and observe any anomalies for faster issues troubleshooting. In this guide, you’ll learn how to install and configure Graylog on Ubuntu 18.04 Server.
Step 1: Update system
It is a rule of thumb to update your system before installing any packages. This is recommended to avoid any dependency issues:
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y upgrade
sudo rebootStep 2: Install Java / OpenJDK
One main component/dependency of Graylog is Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch requires Java 8 installed for it to run. You can install Oracle Java or its open source alternative – OpenJDK. Here we will install OpenJDK.
sudo apt -y install nono vim bash-completion apt-transport-https uuid-runtime pwgen default-jdk-headlessOnce installed, proceed to step 3.
Step 3: Install ElasticSearch 7.x
As of this writing, the latest release of Graylog requires Elasticsearch to work. Install ElasticSearch with the commands below.
Add ElasticSearch repository:
wget -qO - https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/oss-7.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-7.x.listInstall ElasticSearch OSS on Ubuntu 18.04:
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install elasticsearch-ossOnce the installation of Elasticsearch is complete, set cluster name for Graylog.
sudo vim /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.ymlSet on line 17
cluster.name: graylog
action.auto_create_index: falseRestart the elasticsearch service:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl restart elasticsearch.serviceConfirm status is running:
$ systemctl status elasticsearch.service
● elasticsearch.service - Elasticsearch
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/elasticsearch.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sat 2022-03-19 03:08:45 UTC; 9s ago
Docs: https://www.elastic.co
Main PID: 4269 (java)
Tasks: 51 (limit: 4915)
CGroup: /system.slice/elasticsearch.service
└─4269 /usr/share/elasticsearch/jdk/bin/java -Xshare:auto -Des.networkaddress.cache.ttl=60 -Des.networkaddress.cache.negative.ttl=10 -XX:+AlwaysPreTouch -Xss1m -Djava.awt.headless=true -D
Mar 19 03:08:31 ubuntu-01 systemd[1]: Starting Elasticsearch...
Mar 19 03:08:45 ubuntu-01 systemd[1]: Started Elasticsearch.Step 4: Install MongoDB NoSQL database
Use below guide to Install MongoDB on Ubuntu:
Validate status after the installation:
$ systemctl status mongod
● mongod.service - MongoDB Database Server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mongod.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sat 2022-03-19 03:13:16 UTC; 5s ago
Docs: https://docs.mongodb.org/manual
Main PID: 5599 (mongod)
CGroup: /system.slice/mongod.service
└─5599 /usr/bin/mongod --config /etc/mongod.conf
Mar 19 03:13:16 ubuntu-01 systemd[1]: Started MongoDB Database Server.Step 5: Install Graylog on Ubuntu 18.04
Now that we have installed MongoDB and Elasticsearch, the last piece is the installation of Graylog server. Add Graylog repository and install graylog-server package using apt.
Download graylog repository debian file:
wget https://packages.graylog2.org/repo/packages/graylog-4.2-repository_latest.debEnable the repository on your Ubuntu system.
$ sudo dpkg -i graylog-4.2-repository_latest.deb
Selecting previously unselected package graylog-4.2-repository.
(Reading database ... 92818 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack graylog-4.2-repository_latest.deb ...
Unpacking graylog-4.2-repository (1-4) ...
Setting up graylog-4.2-repository (1-4) ...Install Graylog on Ubuntu 18.04:
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install graylog-serverStep 6: Configure Graylog on Ubuntu 18.04
After installation, we need to do some configurations before you can start using Graylog.
Generate root password:
You need to generate a 256-bit hash for the for admin user password:
$ echo -n "Enter Password: " && head -1 </dev/stdin | tr -d '\n' | sha256sum | cut -d" " -f1
Enter Password: <INPUT-PASSWORD>
5e884898da28047151d0e56f8dc6292773603d0d6aabbdd62a11ef721d1542d8Add the given password to root_password_sha2= line under /etc/graylog/server/server.conf file.
$ sudo vim /etc/graylog/server/server.conf
root_password_sha2 = 7a96004f5149811c069f40146b08cf45f45087d4530d35f7d4d88d058db9612dNext is to generate and set password secret for securing stored user passwords.
$ sudo apt-get install pwgen
$ pwgen -N 1 -s 96
5JdTcmGgqBUNw2oip7YZEqbZxc4UV5X8461xukUHdq9PjBYiSu1wxSeiRCk0z73tVZc9FGluZ2k0c9YXdxg5Z0buzNx58tmY
$ sudo vim /etc/graylog/server/server.conf
password_secret = 5JdTcmGgqBUNw2oip7YZEqbZxc4UV5X8461xukUHdq9PjBYiSu1wxSeiRCk0z73tVZc9FGluZ2k0c9YXdxg5Z0buzNx58tmYPlease run the following commands if you want to start Graylog automatically on system boot:
sudo systemctl enable graylog-server.service
sudo systemctl start graylog-server.serviceBy default, REST API will listen on: http://127.0.0.1:9000/api/
Web interface URI will be on: http://127.0.0.1:9000/
You can change it to server’s IP Address if you want to access from a network device.
$ sudo vim /etc/graylog/server/server.conf
#Line 105
http_bind_address = 0.0.0.0:9000Restart graylog server after the change:
sudo systemctl restart graylog-server.serviceStep 7: Access Graylog 3 Web Interface on Ubuntu 18.04
Access Graylog web interface using its IP Address and port 9000 – http://serverip_or_hostname:9000
Login with username admin and password set on step 6.
Step 8: Configure Nginx Proxy for Graylog (Optional)
If you would like to access it using a domain, check the guide below to configure Nginx as a Graylog reverse proxy.
A simple nginx configuration without https section is given below
$ cat /etc/nginx/conf.d/graylog.conf
server
{
server_name graylog.computingpost.com;
location / {
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Graylog-Server-URL http://$server_name/api;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9000;
}
}Start nginx after making the change
sudo systemctl restart nginxAccess web UI on http://domain.com
Login with username admin and password set on step 6.
The next step is to ingest messages into your Graylog and extract the messages with extractors or use the Pipelines to work with the messages.
More guides on Graylog to follow.
