Accept configuration file path as an argument

[shinebayar-g]

Request

It seems /etc/alloy/config.alloy is hardcoded and there is no way to pass a custom location.

Use case

I want to put configuration file in the same directory as Alloy instance as I don't have access to /etc/ directory.

[dehaansa]

Can you explain how you're running Alloy? The configuration is provided to the run command in the first argument, like the following.

./alloy run /another/directory/my_config.alloy

[shinebayar-g]

Just running the binary like ./alloy-linux-amd64. If that's the case, it's not documented at all.

❯ ./alloy-linux-amd64 --help
Grafana Alloy

Usage:
  ./alloy-linux-amd64 [global options] <subcommand> [flags]
  ./alloy-linux-amd64 [command]

Available Commands:
  completion  Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
  convert     Convert a supported config file to Alloy
  fmt         Format a configuration file
  help        Help about any command
  run         Run Grafana Alloy
  tools       Utilties for various components

Flags:
  -h, --help      help for ./alloy-linux-amd64
  -v, --version   version for ./alloy-linux-amd64

Use "./alloy-linux-amd64 [command] --help" for more information about a command.

./alloy-linux-amd64 run --help doesn't mention anything about configuration.

[dehaansa]

So the documentation lists it here and here and on my environment I see the following for run --help. The first paragraph specifies that the provided argument specifies the configuration file/directory. That said, it doesn't say anything about the default path (and says if not specified it will exit), so I'll make sure we take a look at that!

./alloy run --help
The run subcommand runs Grafana Alloy in the foreground until an interrupt
is received.

run must be provided an argument pointing at the Alloy configuration
directory or file path to use. If the configuration directory or file path
wasn't specified, can't be loaded, or contains errors, run will exit
immediately.

If path is a directory, all *.alloy files in that directory will be combined
into a single unit. Subdirectories are not recursively searched for further merging.

run starts an HTTP server which can be used to debug Grafana Alloy or
force it to reload (by sending a GET or POST request to /-/reload). The listen
address can be changed through the --server.http.listen-addr flag.

By default, the HTTP server exposes a debugging UI at /. The path of the
debugging UI can be changed by providing a different value to
--server.http.ui-path-prefix.

Additionally, the HTTP server exposes the following debug endpoints:

  /debug/pprof   Go performance profiling tools

If reloading the config dir/file-path fails, Grafana Alloy will continue running in
its last valid state. Components which failed may be be listed as unhealthy,
depending on the nature of the reload error.

Usage:
  ./build/alloy run [flags] path

Flags:
      ...

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