Loki is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant log aggregation system inspired by Prometheus. It is designed to be cost-effective and easy to operate, focusing on providing a simple yet efficient way to manage logs. Unlike other log management systems, Loki does not index the contents of the logs but rather indexes the metadata, making it a lightweight solution for log aggregation.
When working with Loki, you might encounter the error message: 'invalid label name'. This error typically appears when you attempt to push logs to Loki or query logs using Grafana, and the label names do not meet the required conventions.
In the logs or the Grafana interface, you might see an error message indicating that a label name is invalid. This can prevent logs from being ingested or queried correctly, leading to incomplete or missing log data.
The error 'invalid label name' occurs when a label name in your log data does not conform to Loki's naming conventions. Label names in Loki must match the regular expression [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*. This means they must start with a letter or underscore, followed by any combination of letters, numbers, or underscores.
To resolve the 'invalid label name' error, follow these steps:
Examine the log data you are pushing to Loki. Check the label names to ensure they adhere to the naming conventions. Look for any special characters, spaces, or numbers at the beginning of label names.
Update any invalid label names to conform to the regular expression [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*. For example, if you have a label name 123status, change it to status_123.
If the invalid label names are part of a configuration file or script, ensure you update these files to reflect the corrected label names. This might involve editing your Loki configuration or Grafana data source settings.
After making the necessary changes, push your logs to Loki again and verify that the error no longer occurs. Use Grafana to query the logs and ensure they are being ingested and displayed correctly.
By ensuring that your label names conform to Loki's naming conventions, you can avoid the 'invalid label name' error and ensure smooth log ingestion and querying. For more information on Loki's label requirements, refer to the LogQL documentation.
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