winston-loki


A Grafana Loki transport for the nodejs logging library Winston.

Usage

This Winston transport is used similarly to other Winston transports. Require winston and define a new LokiTransport() inside its options when creating it.

$3

Several usage examples with a test configuration for Grafana+Loki+Promtail reside under examples/. If you want the simplest possible configuration, that's probably the place to check out. By defining json: true and giving winston-loki the correct host address for Loki is enough for most.

$3

LokiTransport() takes a Javascript object as an input. These are the options that are available, __required in bold__:

| Parameter | Description | Example | Default |
| ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------- | -----------------------| ------------- |
| __host__ | URL for Grafana Loki | http://127.0.0.1:3100 | null |
| interval | The interval at which batched logs are sent in seconds | 30 | 5 |
| json | Use JSON instead of Protobuf for transport | true | false |
| batching | If batching is not used, the logs are sent as they come | true | true |
| clearOnError | Discard any logs that result in an error during transport | true | false |
| replaceTimestamp | Replace any log timestamps with Date.now(). Warning: Disabling replaceTimestamp may result in logs failing to upload due to recent changes in the upstream Loki project. It is recommended to leave this option enabled unless you have a specific reason to disable it. | true | true |
| labels | custom labels, key-value pairs | { module: 'http' } | undefined |
| format | winston format (https://github.com/winstonjs/winston#formats) | simple() | undefined |
| gracefulShutdown | Enable/disable graceful shutdown (wait for any unsent batches) | false | true |
| timeout | timeout for requests to grafana loki in ms | 30000 | undefined |
| basicAuth | basic authentication credentials to access Loki over HTTP | username:password | undefined |
| onConnectionError| Loki error connection handler | (err) => console.error(err) | undefined |
| useWinstonMetaAsLabels | Use Winston's "meta" (such as defaultMeta values) as Loki labels | true | false |
| ignoredMeta | When useWinstonMetaAsLabels is enabled, a list of meta values to ignore | ["error_description"] | undefined |

$3

With default formatting:
``js
const { createLogger, transports } = require("winston");
const LokiTransport = require("winston-loki");
const options = {
...,
transports: [
new LokiTransport({
host: "http://127.0.0.1:3100"
})
]
...
};
const logger = createLogger(options);
`

You can set custom labels in every log as well like this:
`js
logger.debug({ message: 'test', labels: { 'key': 'value' } })
`

TODO: Add custom formatting example

$3

Important: this snippet requires the following values, here are the instructions for how you can find them.

* LOKI_HOST: find this in your Grafana Cloud instance by checking Connections > Data Sources, find the right Loki connection, and copy its URL, which may look like https://logs-prod-006.grafana.net
* USER_ID: the user number in the same data source definition, it will be a multi-digit number like 372040
* GRAFANA_CLOUD_TOKEN: In Grafana Cloud, search for Cloud Access Policies. Create a new Cloud Access Policy, ensuring its scopes include logs:write. Generate a token for this cloud access policy, and use this value here.

`js
const { createLogger, transports } = require("winston");
const LokiTransport = require("winston-loki");
const options = {
...,
transports: [
new LokiTransport({
host: 'LOKI_HOST',
labels: { app: 'my-app' },
json: true,
basicAuth: 'USER_ID:GRAFANA_CLOUD_TOKEN',
format: winston.format.json(),
replaceTimestamp: true,
onConnectionError: (err) => console.error(err),
})
]
...
};
const logger = createLogger(options);
logger.debug({ message: 'test', labels: { 'key': 'value' } })
`




Developing

$3

Running a local Loki for testing is probably required, and the easiest way to do that is to follow this guide: https://github.com/grafana/loki/tree/master/production#run-locally-using-docker. After that, Grafana Loki instance is available at http://localhost:3100, with a Grafana instance running at http://localhost:3000. Username admin, password admin. Add the Loki source with the URL http://loki:3100, and the explorer should work.

Refer to https://grafana.com/docs/loki/latest/api/ for documentation about the available endpoints, data formats etc.

$3

`sh
npm install
npm link
cd ~/your_project
npm link winston-loki
npm install
`
And you should have a working, requirable winston-loki package under your project's node_modules.
After the link has been established, any changes to winston-loki should show on rerun of the software that uses it.

$3

`sh
npm test
`

Write new ones under /test`