elasticsearch2: Sending messages directly to Elasticsearch version 2.0 or higher (DEPRECATED)

 Caution:

This destination is deprecated and will be removed from a future version of syslog-ng OSE. We recommend using the elasticsearch-http: Sending messages to Elasticsearch HTTP Bulk API destination instead.

Starting with version 3.7 of syslog-ng OSE can directly send log messages to Elasticsearch, allowing you to search and analyze your data in real time, and visualize it with Kibana.

Note the following limitations when using the syslog-ng OSE elasticsearch2 destination:

  • This destination is only supported on the Linux platform.

  • Since syslog-ng OSE uses Java libraries, the elasticsearch2 destination has significant memory usage.

  • The log messages of the underlying client libraries are available in the internal() source of syslog-ng OSE.

Declaration:
@include "scl.conf"

elasticsearch2(
    index("syslog-ng_${YEAR}.${MONTH}.${DAY}")
    type("test")
    cluster("syslog-ng")
);
Example: Sending log data to Elasticsearch version 2.x and above

The following example defines an elasticsearch2 destination that sends messages in transport mode to an Elasticsearch server running on the localhost, using only the required parameters.

@include "scl.conf"

destination d_elastic {
    elasticsearch2(
        index("syslog-ng_${YEAR}.${MONTH}.${DAY}")
        type("test")
    );
};

The following example sends 10000 messages in a batch, in transport mode, and includes a custom unique ID for each message.

@include "scl.conf"

options {
    threaded(yes);
    use-uniqid(yes);
};

source s_syslog {
    syslog();
};

destination d_elastic {
    elasticsearch2(
        index("syslog-ng_${YEAR}.${MONTH}.${DAY}")
        type("test")
        cluster("syslog-ng")
        client-mode("transport")
        custom-id("${UNIQID}")
        flush-limit("10000")
    );
};

log {
    source(s_syslog);
    destination(d_elastic);
    flags(flow-control);
};
Example: Sending log data to Elasticsearch using the HTTP REST API

The following example send messages to Elasticsearch over HTTP using its REST API:

@include "scl.conf"

source s_network {
    network(port(5555));
};

destination d_elastic {
    elasticsearch2(
        client-mode("http")
        cluster("es-syslog-ng")
        index("x201")
        cluster-url("http://192.168.33.10:9200")
        type("slng_test_type")
        flush-limit("0")
    );
};

log {
    source(s_network);
    destination(d_elastic);
    flags(flow-control);
};

Verify the certificate of the Elasticsearch server and perform certificate authentication (this is actually a mutual, certificate-based authentication between the syslog-ng OSE client and the Elasticsearch server):

destination d_elastic {
    elasticsearch2(
        client-mode("https")
        cluster("es-syslog-ng")
        index("x201")
        cluster-url("http://192.168.33.10:9200")
        type("slng_test_type")
        flush-limit("0")
        http-auth-type("clientcert")
        java-keystore-filepath("<path-to-your-java-keystore>.jks")
        java-keystore-password("password-to-your-keystore")
        java-truststore-filepath("<path-to-your-java-keystore>.jks")
        java-truststore-password("password-to-your-keystore")
    );
};

The elasticsearch2() driver is actually a reusable configuration snippet configured to receive log messages using the Java language-binding of syslog-ng OSE. For details on using or writing such configuration snippets, see Reusing configuration blocks. You can find the source of the elasticsearch configuration snippet on GitHub. For details on extending syslog-ng OSE in Java, see the Getting started with syslog-ng development guide.

NOTE: If you delete all Java destinations from your configuration and reload syslog-ng, the JVM is not used anymore, but it is still running. If you want to stop JVM, stop syslog-ng and then start syslog-ng again.