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Caution

Grafana Alloy is the new name for our distribution of the OTel collector. Grafana Agent has been deprecated and is in Long-Term Support (LTS) through October 31, 2025. Grafana Agent will reach an End-of-Life (EOL) on November 1, 2025. Read more about why we recommend migrating to Grafana Alloy.

Important: This documentation is about an older version. It's relevant only to the release noted, many of the features and functions have been updated or replaced. Please view the current version.

Documentationbreadcrumb arrow Grafana Agentbreadcrumb arrow Flow modebreadcrumb arrow Set up flow modebreadcrumb arrow Start flow mode
Open source

Start Grafana Agent in flow mode

You can start, restart, and stop Grafana Agent after it is installed.

Linux

Grafana Agent is installed as a systemd service on Linux.

Start Grafana Agent

To start Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

shell 
sudo systemctl start grafana-agent-flow

(Optional) Verify that the service is running:

shell 
sudo systemctl status grafana-agent-flow

Configure Grafana Agent to start at boot

To automatically run Grafana Agent when the system starts, run the following command in a terminal window:

shell 
sudo systemctl enable grafana-agent-flow.service

Restart Grafana Agent

To restart Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

shell 
sudo systemctl restart grafana-agent-flow

Stop Grafana Agent

To stop Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

shell 
sudo systemctl stop grafana-agent-flow

View Grafana Agent logs on Linux

To view the Grafana Agent log files, run the following command in a terminal window:

shell 
sudo journalctl -u grafana-agent-flow

macOS

Grafana Agent is installed as a launchd service on macOS.

Start Grafana Agent

To start Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

shell 
brew services start grafana-agent-flow

Grafana Agent automatically runs when the system starts.

Optional: Verify that the service is running:

shell 
brew services info grafana-agent-flow

Restart Grafana Agent

To restart Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

shell 
brew services restart grafana-agent-flow

Stop Grafana Agent

To stop Grafana Agent, run the following command in a terminal window:

shell 
brew services stop grafana-agent-flow

View Grafana Agent logs on macOS

By default, logs are written to $(brew --prefix)/var/log/grafana-agent-flow.log and $(brew --prefix)/var/log/grafana-agent-flow.err.log.

If you followed Configure the Grafana Agent service and changed the path where logs are written, refer to your current copy of the Grafana Agent formula to locate your log files.

Windows

Grafana Agent is installed as a Windows Service. The service is configured to automatically run on startup.

To verify that Grafana Agent is running as a Windows Service:

  1. Open the Windows Services manager (services.msc):

    1. Right click on the Start Menu and select Run.

    2. Type: services.msc and click OK.

  2. Scroll down to find the Grafana Agent Flow service and verify that the Status is Running.

View Grafana Agent logs

When running on Windows, Grafana Agent writes its logs to Windows Event Logs with an event source name of Grafana Agent Flow.

To view the logs, perform the following steps:

  1. Open the Event Viewer:

    1. Right click on the Start Menu and select Run.

    2. Type eventvwr and click OK.

  2. In the Event Viewer, click on Windows Logs > Application.

  3. Search for events with the source Grafana Agent Flow.

Standalone binary

If you downloaded the standalone binary, you must run the agent from a terminal or command window.

Start Grafana Agent on Linux, macOS, or FreeBSD

To start Grafana Agent on Linux, macOS, or FreeBSD, run the following command in a terminal window:

shell 
AGENT_MODE=flow BINARY_PATH run CONFIG_FILE

Replace the following:

  • BINARY_PATH: The path to the Grafana Agent binary file
  • CONFIG_FILE: The path to the Grafana Agent configuration file.

Start Grafana Agent on Windows

To start Grafana Agent on Windows, run the following commands in a command prompt:

cmd 
set AGENT_MODE=flow
BINARY_PATH run CONFIG_FILE

Replace the following:

  • BINARY_PATH: The path to the Grafana Agent binary file
  • CONFIG_FILE: The path to the Grafana Agent configuration file.