How to Install and Setup Influxdb on Linux

InfluxDB OSS networking ports

By default, InfluxDB uses the following network ports:

  • TCP port 8086 is available for client-server communication using the InfluxDB API.
  • TCP port 8088 is available for the RPC service to perform back up and restore operations.

Ubuntu & Debian

Debian and Ubuntu users can install the latest stable version of InfluxDB using the apt-get package manager.

For Ubuntu users, add the InfluxData repository with the following commands:

curl -s https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key | sudo apt-key add -
source /etc/lsb-release
echo "deb https://repos.influxdata.com/${DISTRIB_ID,,} ${DISTRIB_CODENAME} stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdb.list

For Debian users, add the InfluxData repository:

wget -qO- https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key | sudo apt-key add -
source /etc/os-release
echo "deb https://repos.influxdata.com/debian $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdb.list

Then, install and start the InfluxDB service:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install influxdb
sudo systemctl unmask influxdb.service
sudo systemctl start influxdb

Redhat and Centos

Red Hat and CentOS users can install the latest stable version of InfluxDB using the yum package manager:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/influxdb.repo
[influxdb]
name = InfluxDB Repository - RHEL \$releasever
baseurl = https://repos.influxdata.com/rhel/\$releasever/\$basearch/stable
enabled = 1
gpgcheck = 1
gpgkey = https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key
EOF

Once repository is added to the yum configuration, install and start the InfluxDB service by running:

sudo yum install influxdb
sudo service influxdb start

Or if your operating system is using systemd (CentOS 7+, RHEL 7+):

sudo yum install influxdb
sudo systemctl start influxdb

Restart

sudo systemctl restart influxdb

sudo systemctl status influxdb

Troubleshooting

journalctl -fu influxdb

The first time running influxdb, the service couldn’t start, error log shows this:

Aug 03 13:28:26 frhb64566ds systemd[46045]: influxdb.service: Failed to execute command: Permission denied
Aug 03 13:28:26 frhb64566ds systemd[46045]: influxdb.service: Failed at step EXEC spawning /usr/lib/influxdb/scripts/influxd-systemd-start.sh: Permission denied
Aug 03 13:28:26 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC
Aug 03 13:28:26 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Failed with result &#039;exit-code&#039;.
Aug 03 13:28:26 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: Failed to start InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database.
Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: Stopped InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database.
Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Failed with result &#039;exit-code&#039;.
Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: Failed to start InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database.

Checking the status of the service with:

sudo systemctl status influxdb

I get this output:

root@frhb64566ds:~# sudo systemctl status influxdb
&#x25CF; influxdb.service - InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/influxdb.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2021-08-03 13:28:27 UTC; 56s ago
       Docs: https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/
    Process: 46045 ExecStart=/usr/lib/influxdb/scripts/influxd-systemd-start.sh (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)

Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: Stopped InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database.
Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: influxdb.service: Failed with result &#039;exit-code&#039;.
Aug 03 13:28:27 frhb64566ds systemd[1]: Failed to start InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database.

Inspecting the file permissions with:

root@frhb64566ds:~# ls -l /usr/lib/influxdb/scripts/influxd-systemd-start.sh
-rwxr--r-- 1 root root 520 Jul 21 20:13 /usr/lib/influxdb/scripts/influxd-systemd-start.sh

From the output it looks like this file in exec start /usr/lib/influxdb/scripts/influxd-systemd-start.sh is owned by root.

To know the user running the service, edit the service file in systemd output above:

cat /lib/systemd/system/influxdb.service

Output:

# If you modify this, please also make sure to edit init.sh

[Unit]
Description=InfluxDB is an open-source, distributed, time series database
Documentation=https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=influxdb
Group=influxdb
LimitNOFILE=65536
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/influxdb
ExecStart=/usr/lib/influxdb/scripts/influxd-systemd-start.sh
KillMode=control-group
Restart=on-failure
Type=forking
PIDFile=/var/lib/influxdb/influxd.pid

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Alias=influxd.service

Since the service user and group is influxdb, we need to update permissions to that with this command:

sudo chown influxdb.influxdb /usr/lib/influxdb/scripts/influxd-systemd-start.sh

For this error

Aug 03 20:24:20 cloudsrv.citizix.com influxd-systemd-start.sh[544688]: run: open server: open tsdb store: mkdir /var/lib/influxdb/data/_internal/_series: permission denied

Ensure the influxdb data dir is owned by infludb user

chown -R influxdb.influxdb /var/lib/influxdb
comments powered by Disqus
Built with Hugo
Theme Stack designed by Jimmy