Alloy On Loopback, Reporting Off, Validated

Grafana Alloy from the upstream release (sha256-verified) as a hardened system service on loopback with --disable-reporting, a self-scrape pipeline that proves the collector runs, and its configuration checked by alloy validate before it lands. The live test reads Alloy's own metrics and asks the component API for the scrape component's health. Original role, live-tested on Rocky Linux 10.

ansibleObservability

Verification

Live-tested

Really deployed to a container sandbox, proven idempotent (a second run changes nothing), verified against the role’s assertions, then torn down.

Conformance

  • Static validation (yamllint · ansible-lint)

Provenance

  • SHA-256 checksum
  • Signature (pending)

Functional

  • Live-tested - applied, verified, destroyed

Last verified 2026-09-20 · podman 4.9.3 · ansible 2.21.4 · how we verify

Documentation

alloy

Grafana Alloy from the upstream release (sha256-verified), as a system service on loopback with usage reporting switched off, a self-scrape pipeline that proves the collector runs, and its configuration checked by alloy validate before it lands. Original role for EL 10, live-tested with podman on Rocky Linux 10.

No package, so the checksum is the whole story. EL 10 carries no alloy; Grafana ships a release with a checksum file beside it. The role downloads both and has Ansible's get_url refuse the asset unless its SHA-256 is the one in the vendor's file, then installs the binaries as root's in /usr/local/bin, pinned by alloy_version.

A service account, a hardened unit, a loopback listener. alloy is a system user with no shell that owns the data directory and nothing else; the unit runs with NoNewPrivileges, PrivateTmp, ProtectHome and ProtectSystem=strict. The listener is 127.0.0.1:12345 by default, for a proxy that authenticates or a client on the same host; the live test reads the listening sockets and expects loopback only.

A pipeline that runs before yours. The shipped configuration scrapes Alloy's own metrics and forwards them nowhere (or to alloy_remote_write_url when you set one); the live test reads alloy_build_info from /metrics and asks the component API for the scrape component's health, expecting healthy. Your own components go in alloy_extra_config, appended verbatim, and are validated by the same alloy validate before the file lands.

Reporting off. Alloy sends usage reports to Grafana Labs by default; the unit passes --disable-reporting, and the live test reads that flag back from the unit file. The release zip carries the binary without the execute bit; the role installs it as 0755.

License

Commercial - IaC Bazaar EULA. (c) IaC Bazaar.

Usage code & full reference need an account

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  • Variables
  • Test

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