How to Install Cortex Observable Analysis Tool on Ubuntu 22.04

How to Install Cortex Observable Analysis Tool on Ubuntu 22.04

Author: Łukasz Bodziony

Email: lukasz@bodziony.net.pl

DevOps Services: bodziony.net.pl

Published: June 2025

Introduction

Cortex is a horizontally scalable, multi-tenant, long-term Prometheus-compatible monitoring and analysis tool. In this tutorial, Łukasz Bodziony will show you how to install and configure Cortex on Ubuntu 22.04, so you can aggregate, store, and query metrics at scale.

Prerequisites

  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS server with sudo/root access
  • At least 4 GB RAM (8 GB+ recommended for production)
  • Static IP or DNS name pointing to your server
  • Object storage (e.g., Amazon S3) or local filesystem for chunk storage

Step 1: Update System & Install Dependencies

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y  
sudo apt install -y wget unzip

Step 2: Create Directories

sudo mkdir -p /etc/cortex /var/lib/cortex/chunks /var/lib/cortex/rules

Step 3: Download & Extract Cortex


CORTEX_VERSION="1.13.1"
cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/grafana/cortex/releases/download/v${CORTEX_VERSION}/cortex-${CORTEX_VERSION}.linux-amd64.zip
unzip cortex-${CORTEX_VERSION}.linux-amd64.zip
sudo mv cortex-${CORTEX_VERSION}.linux-amd64/cortex /usr/local/bin/

Step 4: Configure Cortex

Create a minimal config file at /etc/cortex/config.yaml:

storage:
  backend: filesystem
  filesystem:
    dir: /var/lib/cortex/chunks

server:
  http_listen_port: 9009
  grpc_listen_port: 9095

distributor:
  ring:
    kvstore:
      store: in-memory

ingester:
  lifecycler:
    ring:
      kvstore:
        store: in-memory

querier:
  engine:
    timeout: 2m
    lookback_delta: 5m
    max_samples: 500000

Step 5: Create a systemd Service

Create /etc/systemd/system/cortex.service:

[Unit]
Description=Cortex Observability Service
After=network.target

[Service]
User=root
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cortex \
  -config.file=/etc/cortex/config.yaml
Restart=on-failure
LimitNOFILE=65536

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload systemd and start Cortex:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now cortex
sudo systemctl status cortex

Step 6: Verify Installation

Open your browser and visit the Cortex HTTP API:

http://Your-Server-IP:9009/metrics

You should see Prometheus-compatible metrics exposed by Cortex.

Conclusion

You now have Cortex up and running on Ubuntu 22.04, ready to collect and query metrics at scale. For production, consider integrating object storage (S3, GCS) and a proper KV store (Consul, DynamoDB).

🚀 Host your observability stack on a high-performance Linux VPS: netcloud24.com/servers/vps-linux/

© 2025 Written by Łukasz Bodziony – All rights reserved.

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