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.
About Grafana Mimir configurations
You can configure Grafana Mimir via a (YAML-based) configuration file or CLI (command-line-interface) flags. It is best to specify your configuration via the configuration file rather than CLI flags. Every parameter that is set in the configuration file can also be set via a corresponding CLI flag. If you specify both CLI flags and configuration parameters, CLI flags take precedence over corresponding values in a configuration file. You can specify the configuration file by using the -config.file CLI flag.
To see the most common CLI flags that you need to get started with Grafana Mimir, run the mimir -help command. To see all of the available CLI flags, run the mimir -help-all command.
A given configuration loads at startup and cannot be modified at runtime. However, Grafana Mimir does have a second configuration file, known as the runtime configuration, that is dynamically reloaded. For more information, see About runtime configuration.
To see the current configuration state of any component, use the /config or /runtime_config HTTP API endpoint.
Operational considerations
Use a single configuration file, and either pass it to all replicas of Grafana Mimir (when running multiple single-process Mimir replicas) or to all components of Grafana Mimir (when running Grafana Mimir as microservices). When running Grafana Mimir on Kubernetes, you can achieve this by storing the configuration file in a ConfigMap and mounting it in each Grafana Mimir container.
This recommendation helps to avoid a common misconfiguration pitfall: while certain configuration parameters might look like they’re only needed by one type of component, they might in fact be used by multiple components. For example, the -ingester.ring.replication-factor CLI flag is not only required by ingesters, but also by distributors, queriers, and rulers.
By using a single configuration file, you ensure that each component gets all of the configuration that it needs without needing to track which parameter belongs to which component. There is no harm in passing a configuration that is specific to one component (such as an ingester) to another component (such as a querier). In such case, the configuration is simply ignored.
If you need to, you can use advanced CLI flags to override specific values on a particular Grafana Mimir component or replica. This can be helpful if you want to change a parameter that is specific to a certain component, without having to do a full restart of all other components.
The most common use case for CLI flags is to use the -target flag to run Grafana Mimir as microservices. By setting the -target CLI flag, all Grafana Mimir components share the same configuration file, but you can make them behave as a given component by specifying a -target command-line value, such as -target=ingester or -target=querier.
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