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syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.16 - Administration Guide

Preface Introduction to syslog-ng The concepts of syslog-ng Installing syslog-ng The syslog-ng OSE quick-start guide The syslog-ng OSE configuration file source: Read, receive, and collect log messages
How sources work default-network-drivers: Receive and parse common syslog messages internal: Collecting internal messages file: Collecting messages from text files wildcard-file: Collecting messages from multiple text files network: Collecting messages using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver) nodejs: Receiving JSON messages from nodejs applications mbox: Converting local e-mail messages to log messages osquery: Collect and parse osquery result logs pipe: Collecting messages from named pipes pacct: Collecting process accounting logs on Linux program: Receiving messages from external applications snmptrap: Read Net-SNMP traps sun-streams: Collecting messages on Sun Solaris syslog: Collecting messages using the IETF syslog protocol (syslog() driver) system: Collecting the system-specific log messages of a platform systemd-journal: Collecting messages from the systemd-journal system log storage systemd-syslog: Collecting systemd messages using a socket tcp, tcp6, udp, udp6: Collecting messages from remote hosts using the BSD syslog protocol— OBSOLETE unix-stream, unix-dgram: Collecting messages from UNIX domain sockets stdin: Collecting messages from the standard input stream
destination: Forward, send, and store log messages
amqp: Publishing messages using AMQP elasticsearch: Sending messages directly to Elasticsearch version 1.x elasticsearch2: Sending logs directly to Elasticsearch and Kibana 2.0 or higher file: Storing messages in plain-text files graphite: Sending metrics to Graphite Sending logs to Graylog hdfs: Storing messages on the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) Posting messages over HTTP http: Posting messages over HTTP without Java kafka: Publishing messages to Apache Kafka loggly: Using Loggly logmatic: Using Logmatic.io mongodb: Storing messages in a MongoDB database network: Sending messages to a remote log server using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver) osquery: Sending log messages to osquery's syslog table pipe: Sending messages to named pipes program: Sending messages to external applications pseudofile() redis: Storing name-value pairs in Redis riemann: Monitoring your data with Riemann smtp: Generating SMTP messages (e-mail) from logs Splunk: Sending log messages to Splunk sql: Storing messages in an SQL database stomp: Publishing messages using STOMP syslog: Sending messages to a remote logserver using the IETF-syslog protocol syslog-ng: Forwarding messages and tags to another syslog-ng node tcp, tcp6, udp, udp6: Sending messages to a remote log server using the legacy BSD-syslog protocol (tcp(), udp() drivers) Telegram: Sending messages to Telegram unix-stream, unix-dgram: Sending messages to UNIX domain sockets usertty: Sending messages to a user terminal: usertty() destination Write your own custom destination in Java or Python
log: Filter and route log messages using log paths, flags, and filters Global options of syslog-ng OSE TLS-encrypted message transfer template and rewrite: Format, modify, and manipulate log messages parser: Parse and segment structured messages db-parser: Process message content with a pattern database (patterndb) Correlating log messages Enriching log messages with external data Statistics of syslog-ng Multithreading and scaling in syslog-ng OSE Troubleshooting syslog-ng Best practices and examples The syslog-ng manual pages Third-party contributions Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) License About us

Element: tags

Location

/patterndb/ruleset/tags

Description

OPTIONAL — An element containing custom keywords (tags) about the messages matching the patterns. The tags can be used to label specific events (for example user logons). It is also possible to filter on these tags later (for details, see Tagging messages). Starting with syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.2, the list of tags assigned to a message can be referenced with the ${TAGS} macro.

Attributes

N/A

Children
  • tag: OPTIONAL — A keyword or tags applied to messages matching the rule.

Example
<tags><tag>UserLogin</tag></tags>

Correlating log messages

The syslog-ng OSE application can correlate log messages. Alternatively, you can also correlate log messages using pattern databases. For details, see Correlating log messages using pattern databases.

Log messages are supposed to describe events, but applications often separate information about a single event into different log messages. For example, the Postfix e-mail server logs the sender and recipient addresses into separate log messages, or in case of an unsuccessful login attempt, the OpenSSH server sends a log message about the authentication failure, and the reason of the failure in the next message. Of course, messages that are not so directly related can be correlated as well, for example, login-logout messages, and so on.

To correlate log messages with syslog-ng OSE, you can add messages into message-groups called contexts. A context consists of a series of log messages that are related to each other in some way, for example, the log messages of an SSH session can belong to the same context. As new messages come in, they may be added to a context. Also, when an incoming message is identified it can trigger actions to be performed, for example, generate a new message that contains all the important information that was stored previously in the context.

Correlating messages using the grouping-by() parser

The syslog-ng OSE application can correlate log messages that match a set of filters. This works similarly to SQL GROUP BY statements. Alternatively, you can also correlate log messages using pattern databases. For details, see Correlating log messages using pattern databases.

Log messages are supposed to describe events, but applications often separate information about a single event into different log messages. For example, the Postfix e-mail server logs the sender and recipient addresses into separate log messages, or in case of an unsuccessful login attempt, the OpenSSH server sends a log message about the authentication failure, and the reason of the failure in the next message. Of course, messages that are not so directly related can be correlated as well, for example, login-logout messages, and so on.

To correlate log messages with syslog-ng OSE, you can add messages into message-groups called contexts. A context consists of a series of log messages that are related to each other in some way, for example, the log messages of an SSH session can belong to the same context. As new messages come in, they may be added to a context. Also, when an incoming message is identified it can trigger actions to be performed, for example, generate a new message that contains all the important information that was stored previously in the context.

How the grouping-by() parser works
    +--------------------+
    |Incoming log message|
    +--------------------+
              |
              |
              |
              |
              V
    +-------------------------------------------+    No
    |Does it match key(), scope(), and where()? +----------> Ignore message
    +-------------------------------------------+
              |
              |
              V
    Add message to context
              |
              |
              v                    No
    Is it a trigger() message or --------> Wait until timeout() or a new message
    has the timeout() expired?
             +
             |
             |
             v                              No
    Does the context match having()? +-------------> Close the context
            +                                         and do nothing
            |
            |
            v
    Inject the aggregate() log message and close the context
    

The grouping-by() parser has three options that determine if a message is added to a context: scope(), key(), and where().

  • The scope() option acts as an early filter, selecting messages sent by the same process (${HOST}${PROGRAM}${PID} is identical), application (${HOST}${PROGRAM} is identical), or host.

  • The key() identifies the context the message belongs to. (The value of the key must be the same for every message of the context.)

  • To use a filter to further limit the messages that are added to the context, you can use the where() option.

The timeout() option determines how long a context is stored, that is, how long syslog-ng OSE waits for related messages to arrive. If the group has a specific log message that ends the context (for example, a logout message), you can specify it using the trigger() option.

When the context is closed, and the messages match the filter set in the having() option (or the having() option is not set), syslog-ng OSE generates and sends the message set in the aggregate() option.

NOTE:

Message contexts are persistent and are not lost when syslog-ng OSE is reloaded (SIGHUP), but are lost when syslog-ng OSE is restarted.

Declaration:
parser parser_name {
    grouping-by(
        key()
        having()
        aggregate()
        timeout()
    );
};

For the parser to work, you must set at least the following options: key(), aggregate(), and timeout().

Note the following points about timeout values:

  • When a new message is added to a context, syslog-ng OSE will restart the timeout using the context-timeout set for the new message.

  • When calculating if the timeout has already expired or not, syslog-ng OSE uses the timestamps of the incoming messages, not system time elapsed between receiving the two messages (unless the messages do not include a timestamp, or the keep-timestamp(no) option is set). That way syslog-ng OSE can be used to process and correlate already existing log messages offline. However, the timestamps of the messages must be in chronological order (that is, a new message cannot be older than the one already processed), and if a message is newer than the current system time (that is, it seems to be coming from the future), syslog-ng OSE will replace its timestamp with the current system time.

    Example: How syslog-ng OSE calculates context-timeout

    Consider the following two messages:

    <38>1990-01-01T14:45:25 customhostname program6[1234]: program6 testmessage
    <38>1990-01-01T14:46:25 customhostname program6[1234]: program6 testmessage

    If the context-timeout is 10 seconds and syslog-ng OSE receives the messages within 1 sec, the timeout event will occour immediately, because the difference of the two timestamp (60 sec) is larger than the timeout value (10 sec).

  • Avoid using unnecessarily long timeout values on high-traffic systems, as storing the contexts for many messages can require considerable memory. For example, if two related messages usually arrive within seconds, it is not needed to set the timeout to several hours.

Example: Correlating Linux Audit logs

Linux audit logs tend to be broken into several log messages (generated as a list of lines). Usually, the related lines are close to each other in time, but multiple events can be logged at around the same time, which get mixed up in the output. The example below is the audit log for running ntpdate:

type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1440927434.124:40347): arch=c000003e syscall=59 success=yes exit=0 a0=7f121cef0b88 a1=7f121cef0c00 a2=7f121e690d98 a3=2 items=2 ppid=4312 pid=4347 auid=4294967295 uid=0 gid=0 euid=0 suid=0 fsuid=0 egid=0 sgid=0 fsgid=0 tty=(none) ses=4294967295 comm="ntpdate" exe="/usr/sbin/ntpdate" key=(null)
type=EXECVE msg=audit(1440927434.124:40347): argc=3 a0="/usr/sbin/ntpdate" a1="-s" a2="ntp.ubuntu.com"
type=CWD msg=audit(1440927434.124:40347):  cwd="/"
type=PATH msg=audit(1440927434.124:40347): item=0 name="/usr/sbin/ntpdate" inode=2006003 dev=08:01 mode=0100755 ouid=0 ogid=0 rdev=00:00 nametype=NORMAL
type=PATH msg=audit(1440927434.124:40347): item=1 name="/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2" inode=5243184 dev=08:01 mode=0100755 ouid=0 ogid=0 rdev=00:00 nametype=NORMAL
type=PROCTITLE msg=audit(1440927434.124:40347): proctitle=2F62696E2F7368002F7573722F7362696E2F6E7470646174652D64656269616E002D73

These lines are connected by their second field: msg=audit(1440927434.124:40347). You can parse such messages using the Linux Audit Parser of syslog-ng OSE, and then use the parsed .auditd.msg field to group the messages.

parser auditd_groupingby {
    grouping-by(
        key("${.auditd.msg}")
        aggregate(
            value("MESSAGE" "$(format-json .auditd.*)")
        )
        timeout(10)
    );
};

For another example, see The grouping-by() parser in syslog-ng blog post

Referencing earlier messages of the context

When creating the aggregated message, or in the various parameters of the grouping-by() parser, you can also refer to fields and values of earlier messages of the context by adding the @<distance-of-referenced-message-from-the-current> suffix to the macro. For example, if there are three log messages in a context, the ${HOST}@1 expression refers to the host field of the current (third) message in the context, the ${HOST}@2 expression refers to the host field of the previous (second) message in the context, ${PID}@3 to the PID of the first message, and so on. For example, the following message can be created from SSH login/logout messages: An SSH session for ${SSH_USERNAME}@1 from ${SSH_CLIENT_ADDRESS}@2 closed. Session lasted from ${DATE}@2 to ${DATE}.

Caution:

When referencing an earlier message of the context, always enclose the field name between braces, for example, ${PID}@3. The reference will not work if you omit the braces.

NOTE:

To use a literal @ character in a template, use @@.

Example: Referencing values from an earlier message

The following action can be used to log the length of an SSH session (the time difference between a login and a logout message in the context):

aggregate(
    value('value name="MESSAGE" An SSH session for ${SSH_USERNAME}@1 from ${SSH_CLIENT_ADDRESS}@2 closed. Session lasted from ${DATE}@2 to ${DATE}')
)

For another example, see The grouping-by() parser in syslog-ng blog post

If you do not know in which message of the context contains the information you need, you can use the grep template function. For details, see grep.

Example: Using the grep template function

The following example selects the message of the context that has a username name-value pair with the root value, and returns the value of the auth_method name-value pair.

$(grep ("${username}" == "root") ${auth_method})

To perform calculations on fields that have numerical values, see Numerical operations.

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