Universal installer: otel-installer

otel-installer is the deployment half of the per-OS collector setup. It's paired with a per-OS Helm chart that renders the config:

The installer accepts --config <path> (Linux/macOS) or -Config <path> (Windows) pointing at a user-authored config, or nothing — in which case it ships with a minimal built-in config.

Repo: telemetry-shippers/otel-installer/. Releases: telemetry-shippers GitHub Releases.

Contents

• One-liners by platform
• Linux, macOS, Docker, and Windows install commands
• Cross-platform flags
• Required environment variables
• Region and domain handling
• When to recommend the installer
• Operational notes and key facts

One-liners by platform

Linux (systemd)

CORALOGIX_PRIVATE_KEY="<key>" \
CORALOGIX_DOMAIN="<cx-region>.coralogix.com" \
  bash -c "$(curl -sSL https://github.com/coralogix/telemetry-shippers/releases/latest/download/coralogix-otel-collector.sh)"

Deep coverage of the resulting systemd deployment: setup-linux-standalone.md.

macOS (launchd)

CORALOGIX_PRIVATE_KEY="<key>" \
CORALOGIX_DOMAIN="<cx-region>.coralogix.com" \
  bash -c "$(curl -sSL https://github.com/coralogix/telemetry-shippers/releases/latest/download/coralogix-otel-collector.sh)"

Same script as Linux. Detects macOS and switches to launchd + install prefix /opt/otelcol. See the macOS note at the end of setup-linux-standalone.md.

Docker (any OS)

CORALOGIX_PRIVATE_KEY="<key>" \
CORALOGIX_DOMAIN="<cx-region>.coralogix.com" \
  bash -c "$(curl -sSL https://github.com/coralogix/telemetry-shippers/releases/latest/download/docker-install.sh)" \
  -- --config /path/to/config.yaml

Runs the collector in a container (otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib by default, or coralogixrepo/otel-supervised-collector with --supervisor) with ports 4317 (gRPC), 4318 (HTTP), 13133 (health) exposed.

Windows (PowerShell + MSI)

$u = 'https://github.com/coralogix/telemetry-shippers/releases/latest/download/coralogix-otel-collector.ps1'
$f = Join-Path $env:TEMP 'coralogix-otel-collector.ps1'
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $u -OutFile $f -UseBasicParsing
$env:CORALOGIX_PRIVATE_KEY = '<key>'
$env:CORALOGIX_DOMAIN = '<cx-region>.coralogix.com'
& $f -Config 'C:/path/to/config.yaml'

Deep coverage: setup-windows-standalone.md.

Flags (consistent across Linux/macOS/Docker)

The PowerShell variant uses -PascalCase; the bash variants use --kebab-case. Semantics are identical.

Environment

Region / domain handling

The installer's built-in default config references ${env:CORALOGIX_DOMAIN}. If a user only passes CORALOGIX_PRIVATE_KEY, the collector needs the domain somewhere — either (a) supplied as env, (b) baked into the config via --config, or (c) auto-detected from the cloud provider metadata (AWS only; Google/Azure not auto-detected).

Practical advice: always set CORALOGIX_DOMAIN explicitly. Auto-detect is best-effort and a user debugging "no data is landing" almost always benefits from being explicit.

When to recommend the installer vs. a deeper integration

Gotchas

• Version drift on re-run. Running the installer without --version will pull latest on every run — a user who re-runs to "fix" something can accidentally upgrade to a breaking minor. Pin versions in repeatable scripts.
• --foreground is for debugging only. It bypasses service registration, so there's no restart on boot. Don't use it for production.
• Docker variant exposes ports 4317/4318/13133 on the host. If the host already uses these, pass --p <host>:<container> equivalents via the underlying docker command (the installer surfaces this through env: OTLP_GRPC_PORT, OTLP_HTTP_PORT, HEALTH_CHECK_PORT).
• The supervisor path pulls a different image (coralogixrepo/otel-supervised-collector vs. the vanilla contrib image). Size on disk is larger; not a concern in most deployments.

Key Facts

• The installer is the end-user install path for every non-k8s, non-ECS case.
• Same script handles Linux and macOS. Windows has its own PowerShell variant with equivalent flags.
• --version matters for reproducibility. Don't pin in exploration; do pin in any documented install.
• Auto domain detection is AWS-only. Always set CORALOGIX_DOMAIN explicitly.
• --supervisor enables Fleet Management via the opampsupervisor wrapper process. Modern Windows builds (collector ≥ v0.130) also support the in-process opamp extension as an alternative; see setup-windows-standalone.md.