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Set Up Grafana Tempo as a Single-Node Linux Service

Set up a single-node Grafana Tempo service on Linux using the Debian AMD64 example, then check its storage, service state, and trace flow.

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For a straightforward Linux installation, Grafana’s single-node, monolithic Tempo setup installs a systemd service and stores data on the local filesystem. It is intended for development and evaluation, not a production-ready architecture. The commands below show Grafana’s Debian-package example for AMD64; choose a package that matches your Linux distribution and CPU architecture.

What this Linux setup includes

Monolithic mode runs Tempo’s components in one process and does not require Kafka. Grafana describes it as a common choice for local installation, testing, or small-scale deployment. Its Linux procedure configures one node with local storage, which makes it useful for trying Tempo but does not settle production needs such as availability, capacity, retention, or access controls. Grafana’s Linux deployment guide identifies the procedure as a test installation for development and evaluation.

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Before you begin, you need a Linux host, administrator privileges (root or sudo), and OpenTelemetry’s telemetrygen tool to send test traces. A running Grafana instance is optional and is needed only if you want to explore traces visually.

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Check the host and platform

Grafana’s starting guidance for a monolithic instance is 4 CPUs and 4–8 GB of memory. It suggests 16 GB or more for cases such as sharing the host with other local components, enabling the metrics-generator, moderate or high ingest, heavier live-trace buffering or query workloads, or wanting benchmarking headroom. These are guide-specific starting points, not hard minimums or production sizing recommendations. For production, size against the expected ingest rate, tenant count, query concurrency, retention, metrics-generator settings, and object-store performance.

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Tempo release packages are available for 64-bit AMD64 (amd64) and 64-bit ARM (arm64). The Debian commands here are specifically for Debian-compatible Linux on AMD64. Select the package for your distribution and architecture; the guide says no 32-bit ARM (arm) binary is published, so that platform requires a source build.

Install the Debian package on AMD64

Choose a Tempo release and use its matching package. Grafana’s example URL pattern is shown below; replace <TEMPO_VERSION_NUMBER> with the release version you selected. Do not run the pattern with the placeholder unchanged.

https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases/download/v<TEMPO_VERSION_NUMBER>/tempo_<TEMPO_VERSION_NUMBER>_linux_amd64.deb
  1. Download the selected package, substituting its version and release URL:

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    curl -Lo tempo_<TEMPO_VERSION_NUMBER>_linux_amd64.deb <release-package-url>
  2. Install it with administrator privileges:

    sudo dpkg -i tempo_<TEMPO_VERSION_NUMBER>_linux_amd64.deb
  3. Optionally verify the downloaded file against the SHA256SUMS file on the Tempo releases page before installation.

The dpkg command is not a universal Linux installation command. For another distribution or architecture, use its matching package or binary and follow the relevant installation instructions.

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Prepare the local storage directories

Grafana’s example keeps the write-ahead log (WAL) in /data/tempo/wal, trace blocks in /data/tempo/blocks, and runtime live-store data and internal caches under /var/tempo. Create the parent directories and assign them to the tempo user created by the Debian package:

sudo mkdir -p /data/tempo /var/tempo
sudo chown -R tempo /data/tempo /var/tempo

Confirm the service account and package behavior if you installed Tempo by another method; do not assume that it creates the same user. Local filesystem storage is appropriate for this single-node evaluation example. Grafana recommends object storage for production and names AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Google Cloud Storage. For local testing with an S3-compatible backend, its guide also points to MinIO, SeaweedFS, and rclone.

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Start Tempo and check the service

The following systemd commands apply to the monolithic package installation. Restart Tempo, or start it if it is stopped, then check whether systemd reports the service as active:

sudo systemctl restart tempo.service
systemctl is-active tempo

The expected output from the second command is active. That confirms the process is running, but it does not prove that traces can be ingested and stored.

If the service is not active

  • Review the Tempo configuration for errors, then start or restart the service as appropriate.

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  • Inspect service logs with journalctl -u tempo.

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Send traces to validate data flow

Use OpenTelemetry’s telemetrygen to send test traces to the local Tempo instance, then verify that the traces can be found using Grafana’s local deployment validation procedure. Also check that /data/tempo/ contains the wal and blocks directories. After traces are sent, Grafana’s guide says blocks may take 15–30 seconds to appear while the live store flushes; this is an observation in that guide, not a service-level guarantee.

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Know when this deployment model is not enough

Tempo offers deployment choices beyond this one-node package installation. Its deployment documentation includes Kubernetes, Helm, Tanka, and Docker options. Choose a topology that fits the tracing workload and operating environment rather than treating the Linux evaluation procedure as a general-purpose deployment recipe.

  • Monolithic: one process for all components; the setup overview says it does not require Kafka. Grafana describes this mode as common for local installation, testing, or small-scale deployment.

  • Microservices: separates components. Tempo 3.0 microservices mode requires a Kafka-compatible message queue; Grafana gives Apache Kafka, Redpanda, and WarpStream as examples.

Plan production storage and security separately

Do not carry the local filesystem example or the host-sizing starting points into production without validating them against the workload. Grafana recommends object storage for production and advises reviewing storage, retention, availability, and security against organizational requirements.

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Tempo has no built-in authentication layer. Grafana’s deployment documentation says to put an authenticating reverse proxy in front of Tempo services to prevent unauthorized access. Plan that boundary before exposing Tempo to users or networks that should not have unrestricted access.

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