Documentation Grafana Loki Set up Install Install using Helm Install scalable Loki

Install the simple scalable Helm chart

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This Helm Chart deploys Grafana Loki in simple scalable mode within a Kubernetes cluster.

This chart configures Loki to run read, write, and backend targets in a scalable mode. Loki’s simple scalable deployment mode separates execution paths into read, write, and backend targets.

The default Helm chart deploys the following components:

• Read component (3 replicas)
• Write component (3 replicas)
• Backend component (3 replicas)
• Loki Canary (1 DaemonSet)
• Gateway (1 NGINX replica)
• Minio (optional, deprecated — see warning below)
• Chunks cache (1 replica)
• Results cache (1 replica)

Prerequisites

• Helm 3 or above. See Installing Helm.
• A running Kubernetes cluster (must have at least 3 nodes).

Deploying the Helm chart for development and testing

The following steps show how to deploy the Loki Helm chart in simple scalable mode using the included MinIO as the storage backend. Our recommendation is to start here for development and testing purposes. Then configure Loki with an object storage provider when moving to production.

1. Add the Grafana Community chart repository to Helm:

   Bash Copy

   helm repo add grafana-community https://grafana-community.github.io/helm-charts

2. Update the chart repository:

   Bash Copy

   helm repo update

3. Create the configuration file values.yaml. The example below illustrates how to deploy Loki in test mode using MinIO as storage:

   Warning

   The built-in MinIO subchart is deprecated and will be removed on 2026-10-31. The example below requires ignoreMinioDeprecation: true to render with chart v17+. For production, configure a dedicated external object storage backend.

   YAML Copy

     loki:
       schemaConfig:
         configs:
           - from: "2024-04-01"
             store: tsdb
             object_store: s3
             schema: v13
             index:
               prefix: loki_index_
               period: 24h
       ingester:
         chunk_encoding: snappy
       querier:
         # Default is 4, if you have enough memory and CPU you can increase, reduce if OOMing
         max_concurrent: 4
       pattern_ingester:
         enabled: true
       limits_config:
         allow_structured_metadata: true
         volume_enabled: true
   
     deploymentMode: SimpleScalable
   
     backend:
       replicas: 2
     read:
       replicas: 2
     write:
       replicas: 3 # To ensure data durability with replication
   
     ignoreMinioDeprecation: true  # Temporary workaround – MinIO will be removed 2026-10-31
     # Enable minio for storage
     minio:
       enabled: true
   
     gateway:
       service:
         type: LoadBalancer

4. Install or upgrade the Loki deployment.

• To install:

Bash Copy

helm install --values values.yaml loki grafana-community/loki

• To upgrade:

Bash Copy

helm upgrade --values values.yaml loki grafana-community/loki

Object Storage Configuration

After testing Loki with MinIO, we recommend configuring Loki with an object storage provider. The following examples shows how to configure Loki with different object storage providers:

S3

Azure

To configure other storage providers, refer to the Helm Chart Reference.

Gateway API

As an alternative to traditional Kubernetes Ingress, the Loki Helm chart supports Gateway API routes. There are two independent options depending on whether you want to keep the nginx gateway or bypass it entirely.

Option 1: Expose the nginx gateway via Gateway API

Use gateway.route to replace gateway.ingress with a Gateway API route that points to the nginx gateway. This keeps nginx as the proxy but exposes it through a Gateway API resource instead of a traditional Ingress.

YAML Copy

gateway:
  ingress:
    enabled: false  # disable traditional Ingress
  route:
    main:
      enabled: true
      kind: HTTPRoute
      parentRefs:
        - name: my-gateway
          namespace: gateway-namespace
      hostnames:
        - loki.example.com

Option 2: Bypass nginx and route directly to Loki services

Use the top-level route: key (mutually exclusive with the top-level ingress:) to route Gateway API traffic directly to Loki services, bypassing nginx. The chart auto-generates path-based rules that route write traffic to the write component and read traffic to the read component.

YAML Copy

route:
  main:
    enabled: true
    kind: HTTPRoute
    parentRefs:
      - name: my-gateway
        namespace: gateway-namespace
    hostnames:
      - loki.example.com

For both options, if apiVersion is not set, the chart auto-detects the latest available Gateway API version installed in the cluster. Supported route kinds include HTTPRoute, GRPCRoute, TCPRoute, TLSRoute, and UDPRoute.

Next Steps

• Configure an agent to send log data to Loki.
• Monitor the Loki deployment using the Meta Monitoring Helm chart