SUSE Installation

This guide describes the recommended way to install Graylog on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 and 15. 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 5.2 requires the following to maintain compatibility with its software dependencies:

OpenJDK 17 (This is embedded in Graylog and does not need to be separately installed.)
OpenSearch 1.x, 2.x (or Elasticsearch 7.10.2)
MongoDB 5.x or 6.x
Review the version notes specific to your preferred version of Graylog for additional guidance on installing and configuring your Graylog instance.

Additionally, the following patterns are required for a minimal setup (see SUSE 15 SP3 Deployment Guide):

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- Base System
- Minimal System (Appliances)
- YaST configuration packages

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

Installing MongoDB on SUSE should follow the tutorial for SUSE from the MongoDB documentation. Graylog 5.2 is compatible with MongoDB 5.x-6.x.

1. Import the MongoDB public key.

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sudo rpm --import https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-6.0.asc

2. Add the MongoDB repository.

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sudo zypper addrepo --gpgcheck "https://repo.mongodb.org/zypper/suse/15/mongodb-org/6.0/x86_64/" mongodb

3. Install the MongoDB packages.

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sudo zypper -n install mongodb-org

4. Then, start the MongoDB instance.

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sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start mongod.service

5. In order to automatically start MongoDB on system boot, you have to activate the MongoDB service by running the following command:

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sudo systemctl enable mongod.service

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.

Hint: These installation steps assume you are using Zypper as your package manager with SUSE.

1. Import the OpenSearch GPG key. This key is used to validate signatures of packages from the OpenSearch software repository.

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sudo rpm --import https://artifacts.opensearch.org/publickeys/opensearch.pgp

2. 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.

sudo curl -SL https://artifacts.opensearch.org/releases/bundle/opensearch/2.x/opensearch-2.x.repo -o /etc/zypp/repos.d/opensearch-2.x.repo
sudo zypper update
sudo OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(tr -dc A-Z-a-z-0-9_@#%^-_=+ < /dev/urandom  | head -c${1:-32}) zypper install -y opensearch  
                                            

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

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sudo curl -SL https://artifacts.opensearch.org/releases/bundle/opensearch/2.x/opensearch-2.x.repo -o /etc/zypp/repos.d/opensearch-2.x.repo sudo zypper update
sudo OPENSEARCH_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(tr -dc A-Z-a-z-0-9_@#%^-_=+ < /dev/urandom | head -c${1:-32})
zypper install --oldpackage 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: 
path.data: /var/lib/opensearch
path.logs: /var/log/opensearch
action.auto_create_index: false
plugins.security.disabled: true
network.host: 0.0.0.0  
discovery.type: single-node
indices.query.bool.max_clause_count: 32768

To create multi-node OpenSearch clusters, see the documentation.

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. Enable OpenSearch to start during operating system’s startup and verify it is running.

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

Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch 7.10.2 is the only version that is compatible with Graylog 5.2; however, we recommend OpenSearch for new Graylog cluster installations.

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

1. First install the Elasticsearch GPG key.

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rpm --import https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch

2. Then add the repository file /etc/zypp/repos.d/elasticsearch.repo with the following contents:

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echo "[elasticsearch-7.10.2]
name=Elasticsearch repository for 7.10.2 packages
baseurl=https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/oss-7.x/yum
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://artifacts.elastic.co/GPG-KEY-elasticsearch
enabled=1
autorefresh=1
type=rpm-md" | sudo tee /etc/zypp/repos.d/elasticsearch.repo

3. Install the 7.10.2 release.

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sudo zypper install elasticsearch-oss

Graylog Configuration for Elasticsearch

1. Make sure to 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

2. In order to automatically start Elasticsearch on system boot, you must activate the Elasticsearch service by running the following commands:

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sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service
sudo systemctl start elasticsearch.service

Graylog

1. First install the Graylog GPG key.

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sudo wget https://downloads.graylog.org/repo/el/stable/GPG-KEY-graylog -O /etc/pki/GPG-KEY-graylog

2. Then add the repository file /etc/zypp/repos.d/graylog.repo with the following content:

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[graylog]
name=graylog
baseurl=https://packages.graylog2.org/repo/el/stable/5.2/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/GPG-KEY-graylog
repo_gpgcheck=0

3. Refresh zypper repositories.

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sudo zypper --gpg-auto-import-keys ref

4. After that, install the latest Graylog Open release.

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sudo zypper install graylog-server

If you are installing Graylog Operations, use this command:

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sudo zypper install graylog-enterprise

Edit the 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. You can use the following command to create your password_secret:

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cat /dev/urandom | base64 | cut -c1-96 | head -1

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, you should set http_bind_address to the public host name or a public IP address for 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. It is necessary in Graylog 5.2 to manually adjust the elasticsearch_hosts setting to include a list of comma-separated URIs to one or more valid Elasticsearch/OpenSearch nodes. A sample specification may look as follows:

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elasticsearch_hosts = http://es-node-1.example.org:9200/foo,https://someuser:somepassword@es-node-2.example.org:19200

Warning: If this setting is not adjusted before start up, then you will NOT be able to log into Graylog using your previously configured root password! For more information on this configuration setting, see Elasticsearch Configuration.

5. 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

Now you can ingest messages into Graylog.

Getting Started

Now that you have installed Graylog, you can review your initial configuration settings and connect to the web interface!

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.