Grafana Logging Configuration

This guide provides the exact .env file parameters required to set up Grafana and Loki logging. This method is preferable for Docker deployments. All logging settings are managed directly within your .env configuration file.

Warning: Grafana Security

By design, the Grafana web interface (accessible on port 3000) is bound exclusively to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) on your host machine. It is intentionally not exposed or forwarded to external networks out-of-the-box as a strict security measure to prevent unauthorized access to your system logs.

Step 1. Set the Log Level

To control the volume of diagnostic data generated by the application and prevent your storage from filling up with unnecessary debug information, set the global verbosity using the Serilog__MinimumLevel__Default parameter.

The available levels are Information, Debug, Warning, and Error.

Warning: Avoid Debug Mode in Production

It is highly recommended to keep the log level set to Errorfor regular day-to-day operations. You should only change this value to Debug if explicitly instructed by Sendent Support to capture detailed diagnostics for bug resolution. The Debug level generates a massive amount of data and can quickly consume disk space and degrade performance.

Step 2. Select the Log Output Destination

The application uses a bitwise mathematical configuration for the Service__LoggingConfiguration__LogsOutput parameter. To enable Grafana output, you must include the value 8.

Service__LoggingConfiguration__LogsOutput=8

If you wish to combine Grafana logging with other methods, simply sum their respective values (e.g., 1 for Console + 8 for Grafana = 9).

Step 3. Method-Specific Configurations

Because Grafana relies on an internal Loki container to parse the logs, you must provide the internal routing URL and establish your administrator credentials for the web interface in your .env file.

# Internal Docker network URL for Loki
Service__LoggingConfiguration__LokiInternalUrl=http://loki:3100
 
# Administrator credentials for the Grafana Web UI
GRAFANA_USER="SuperAdmin"
GRAFANA_PASSWORD="YourSecurePassword123!"

Step 4. Accessing Your Logs

Open a web browser on the host machine where your Docker containers are running.
Navigate to http://127.0.0.1:3000 or http://localhost:3000.
Log in using the GRAFANA_USER and GRAFANA_PASSWORD values you set in your .env file.
In the left sidebar, click the Dashboards icon.
Select the Sendent-Dashboards.