This guide describes the recommended way to install Graylog on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and 22.04. All links and packages are present at the time of writing.

Warning: This guide does not cover security settings! The server administrator must make sure the Graylog server is not publicly exposed and is following security best practices.

Prerequisites

Hint: This guide assumes that any firewall is disabled and traffic can flow across all necessary ports.

Graylog 5.0 requires the following to maintain compatibility with its software dependencies: 

  • OpenJDK 17 (This is embedded in Graylog 5.0 and does not need to be separately installed.)
  • OpenSearch 1.x, 2.x or Elasticsearch 7.10.2
  • MongoDB 5.x or 6.x

Warning: We caution you not to install or upgrade Elasticsearch to 7.11+ or OpenSearch 2.14+! It is not supported. If you do so, it will break your instance!

Server Timezone

To set a specific time zone on the Graylog server, you can use the following command. (For more information on setting a time zone, we recommend this blog post.)

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sudo timedatectl set-timezone UTC

MongoDB

Graylog 5.0 is compatible with MongoDB 5.x-6.x.

To install MongoDB on Ubuntu, the official MongoDB documentation provides a helpful tutorial.

1. First select your version of Ubuntu and begin the installation sequence: 

1. Install gnupg.

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sudo apt-get install gnupg curl

2. Import the key.

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curl -fsSL https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-6.0.asc | \
   sudo gpg -o /usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-server-6.0.gpg \
   --dearmor

3. Create a list file for MongoDB.

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echo "deb [ arch=amd64,arm64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-server-6.0.gpg ] https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu focal/mongodb-org/6.0 multiverse" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-6.0.list

4. Reload the local package database.

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sudo apt-get update

5. Install the latest stable version of MongoDB.

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sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org
Warning: MongoDB 5.x is not supported on Ubuntu 22.04!

1. Install gnupg.

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sudo apt-get install gnupg curl

2. Import the key.

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curl -fsSL https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-6.0.asc | \
   sudo gpg -o /usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-server-6.0.gpg \
   --dearmor

3. Create a list file for MongoDB.

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echo "deb [ arch=amd64,arm64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-server-6.0.gpg ] https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu jammy/mongodb-org/6.0 multiverse" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-6.0.list

4. Reload the local package database.

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sudo apt-get update

5. Install the latest stable version of MongoDB.

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sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org

2. You can use a keyserver approach via a widget if you wish to incorporate proxies and other non-free environments. For example:

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wget -qO- 'http://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xf5679a222c647c87527c2f8cb00a0bd1e2c63c11' | sudo apt-key add -

3. Enable MongoDB during the operating system’s start up and verify it is running:

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sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable mongod.service
sudo systemctl restart mongod.service
sudo systemctl --type=service --state=active | grep mongod

Hint: For the following sections on OpenSearch and Elasticsearch, select which data node you will be using for your Graylog instance and complete only the requisite section.

OpenSearch

If you are using OpenSearch as your data node, then follow the steps below to install OpenSearch.

The recommended method of installation is to follow the user documentation provided by the OpenSearch service. To set up the OpenSearch service with your Graylog instance, follow the steps below:

The following example installs OpenSearch using the DEB package.

1. Import the public GPG key. This key is used to verify that the APT repository is signed.

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curl -o- https://artifacts.opensearch.org/publickeys/opensearch.pgp | sudo gpg --dearmor --batch --yes -o /usr/share/keyrings/opensearch-keyring

2. Create an APT repository for OpenSearch:

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echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/opensearch-keyring] https://artifacts.opensearch.org/releases/bundle/opensearch/2.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opensearch-2.x.list

3. Verify that the repository was created successfully.

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sudo apt-get update

4. With the repository information added, list all available versions of OpenSearch:

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sudo apt list -a opensearch

5. Choose the version of OpenSearch you want to install. Unless otherwise indicated, the latest available version of OpenSearch is installed.

Hint: OpenSearch v2.12 and greater now requires setting the OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD environment variable when installing. The password must be a minimum of eight characters, at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number and one special character.

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sudo OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(tr -dc A-Z-a-z-0-9_@#%^-_=+ < /dev/urandom  | head -c${1:-32}) apt-get -y install opensearch

To install a specific version of OpenSearch, specify the version manually using opensearch=<version>.

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sudo OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(tr -dc A-Z-a-z-0-9_@#%^-_=+ < /dev/urandom  | head -c${1:-32}) apt-get -y install opensearch=2.12.0

Graylog Configuration for OpenSearch

1. Begin by opening the yml file:

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sudo nano /etc/opensearch/opensearch.yml

2. Update the following fields for a minimum unsecured running state (single node):

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cluster.name: graylog
node.name: ${HOSTNAME}
path.data: /var/lib/opensearch
path.logs: /var/log/opensearch
discovery.type: single-node
network.host: 0.0.0.0
action.auto_create_index: false
plugins.security.disabled: true
indices.query.bool.max_clause_count: 32768

To create multi-node Opensearch clusters, see - https://opensearch.org/docs/latest/tuning-your-cluster/cluster/

3. Enable JVM options:

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sudo nano /etc/opensearch/jvm.options

4. Now, update the Xms & Xmx settings with half of the installed system memory

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-Xms1g
-Xmx1g

5. Configure the kernel parameters at runtime:

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sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144
echo 'vm.max_map_count=262144' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf

6. Finally, enable the system service:

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sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable opensearch.service
sudo systemctl start opensearch.service
sudo systemctl status opensearch.service

Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch 7.10.2 is the only version that is compatible with Graylog 5.0; however, we recommend OpenSearch for new Graylog cluster installations.

1. The following commands will begin the installation of the open-source version of Elasticsearch. See the Elasticsearch install page for more detailed instructions.

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wget -q https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch -O myKey
sudo apt-key add myKey
echo "deb https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/oss-7.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-7.x.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install elasticsearch-oss

2. Modify the Elasticsearch configuration file (/etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml), set the cluster name to graylog, and uncomment action.auto_create_index: false to enable the action:

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sudo tee -a /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml > /dev/null <<EOT
cluster.name: graylog
action.auto_create_index: false
EOT

3. After you have modified the configuration, you can start Elasticsearch and verify it is running.

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sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl restart elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl --type=service --state=active | grep elasticsearch

Graylog

Install the Graylog Open repository configuration and Graylog itself with the following commands:

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wget https://packages.graylog2.org/repo/packages/graylog-5.0-repository_latest.deb
sudo dpkg -i graylog-5.0-repository_latest.deb
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install graylog-server 

If you are installing Graylog Operations, then you will use the following commands:

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wget https://packages.graylog2.org/repo/packages/graylog-5.0-repository_latest.deb
sudo dpkg -i graylog-5.0-repository_latest.deb
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install graylog-enterprise

Edit the Graylog Configuration File

Read the instructions within the configurations file and edit as needed, located at /etc/graylog/server/server.conf. Additionally add password_secret and root_password_sha2 as these are mandatory and Graylog will not start without them.

1. To create your password_secret, run the following command:

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< /dev/urandom tr -dc A-Z-a-z-0-9 | head -c${1:-96};echo;

2. You will then need to use the following command to create your root_password_sha2:

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echo -n "Enter Password: " && head -1 </dev/stdin | tr -d '\n' | sha256sum | cut -d" " -f1

3. To be able to connect to Graylog, set http_bind_address to the public host name or a public IP address of the machine with which you can connect. More information about these settings can be found in Configuring the web interface.

Hint: If you’re operating a single-node setup and would like to use HTTPS for the Graylog web interface and the Graylog REST API, it’s possible to use NGINX or Apache as a reverse proxy.

4. The last step is to enable Graylog during the operating system’s startup:

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sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable graylog-server.service
sudo systemctl start graylog-server.service
sudo systemctl --type=service --state=active | grep graylog

Now you can ingest messages into your new Graylog Cluster and extract the messages with extractors or use pipelines to work with the messages.

Cluster Setup

If you plan to have multiple servers assuming different roles in your cluster like we have in this big production setup you need to modify only a few settings. This is covered in our multi-node setup guide. The default file location guide lists the locations of the files you need to modify.