Red Hat Installation

This guide describes the fastest way to install Graylog on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7-9. All links and packages are present at the time of writing.

These installation steps also include installation and setup of Data Node for managing your search backend.

Prerequisites

Graylog 6.1 requires the following to maintain compatibility with its software dependencies: 

Additionally, we recommend you review the version notes specific to your preferred version of Graylog for guidance on installing and configuring your Graylog 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.)

sudo timedatectl set-timezone UTC

Install Data Node

1. Install the Data Node package:

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   sudo rpm -Uvh https://packages.graylog2.org/repo/packages/graylog-6.1-repository_latest.rpm
   sudo yum install graylog-datanode

2. As noted in the OpenSearch documentation, ensure that the Linux setting vm.max_map_count is set to at least 262144. To check the current value, run this command:

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   cat /proc/sys/vm/max_map_count

   To increase the value, add the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf:

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   vm.max_map_count=262144

3. Run the following command to reload this configuration setting: 

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   sudo sysctl -p

4. Create your password_secret with the following command:

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

   Now, open the Data Node configuration file:

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   sudo nano /etc/graylog/datanode/datanode.conf

   Add the password_secret value to the Data Node configuration file.

   Warning: Do not skip this step! This value is mandatory, and the Data Node service will not start without it. Also, save this value in a temporary file. You must add it to the Graylog server configuration file in a later step since it is crucial that this value be the same for all nodes that are members of the Graylog cluster.

5. Enable the Data Node service and start:

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   sudo systemctl enable graylog-datanode.service
   sudo systemctl start graylog-datanode

Install Graylog

1. Install Graylog itself with the following commands.

   Hint: For production environments, we do not recommend installing and running Data Node and Graylog server on the same machine.

   For Graylog Open:

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   sudo yum install graylog-server

   For Graylog Enterprise:

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   sudo yum install graylog-enterprise

2. Set your admin password for Graylog. Open the Graylog configuration file:

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   sudo nano /etc/graylog/server/server.conf

   Retrieve the password secret from the Data Node configuration file as indicated in step 4 above in Install Data Node and add it to the Graylog configuration file.

   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

   Hint: The admin password you set in this step is the one you use to log in to Graylog after you complete the preflight steps described below. For the initial preflight log in, you must use the generated credentials, as described in that section.

3. Set the http_bind_address value in the Graylog configuration file to the public host name or a public IP address for the machine to which you can connect. You can set this configuration using this command:

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   sudo sed -i 's/#http_bind_address = 127.0.0.1.*/http_bind_address = 0.0.0.0:9000/g' /etc/graylog/server/server.conf

   More information about these settings can be found in Connect to 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. 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

Log into the Graylog Interface

Your initial credentials for the Graylog web interface can be found in the log file after starting Graylog for the first time. To view your initial password and the instructions included in the log file, enter the following command:

tail /var/log/graylog-server/server.log

These credentials are for your initial preflight sign on, where you configure Data Node and set up certificates. You must use these credentials for preflight rather than your chosen administrator password. This step ensures that, if you have not yet set up HTTPS to connect to Graylog, your administrative password is not compromised.

For subsequent sign ons, you can use the password_secret you selected during installation.