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syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.22 - 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 linux-audit: Collecting messages from Linux audit logs 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 python: writing server-style Python sources python-fetcher: writing fetcher-style Python sources 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 collectd: sending metrics to collectd elasticsearch2: Sending messages directly to Elasticsearch version 2.0 or higher (DEPRECATED) elasticsearch-http: Sending messages to Elasticsearch HTTP Bulk API 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 (Java implementation) kafka: Publishing messages to Apache Kafka (C implementation, using the librdkafka client) 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() python: writing custom Python destinations redis: Storing name-value pairs in Redis riemann: Monitoring your data with Riemann slack: Sending alerts and notifications to a Slack channel smtp: Generating SMTP messages (e-mail) from logs snmp: Sending SNMP traps 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 Client-side failover
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 Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) License

Running a failure script

Purpose:

You can create a failure script that is executed when syslog-ng OSE terminates abnormally, that is, when it exits with a non-zero exit code. For example, you can use this script to send an automatic e-mail notification.

Prerequisites:

The failure script must be the following file: /opt/syslog-ng/sbin/syslog-ng-failure, and must be executable.

To create a sample failure script, complete the following steps.

Steps:
  1. Create a file named /opt/syslog-ng/sbin/syslog-ng-failure with the following content:

    #!/usr/bin/env bash
    cat >>/tmp/test.txt <<EOF
    $(date)
    Name............$1
    Chroot dir......$2
    Pid file dir....$3
    Pid file........$4
    Cwd.............$5
    Caps............$6
    Reason..........$7
    Argbuf..........$8
    Restarting......$9
    
    EOF
  2. Make the file executable: chmod +x /opt/syslog-ng/sbin/syslog-ng-failure

  3. Run the following command in the /opt/syslog-ng/sbin directory: ./syslog-ng --process-mode=safe-background; sleep 0.5; ps aux | grep './syslog-ng' | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -KILL; sleep 0.5; cat /tmp/test.txt

    The command starts syslog-ng OSE in safe-background mode (which is needed to use the failure script) and then kills it. You should see that the relevant information is written into the /tmp/test.txt file, for example:

    Thu May 18 12:08:58 UTC 2017
    Name............syslog-ng
    Chroot dir......NULL
    Pid file dir....NULL
    Pid file........NULL
    Cwd.............NULL
    Caps............NULL
    Reason..........signalled
    Argbuf..........9
    Restarting......not-restarting
  4. You should also see messages similar to the following in system syslog. The exact message depends on the signal (or the reason why syslog-ng OSE stopped):

    May 18 13:56:09 myhost supervise/syslog-ng[10820]: Daemon exited gracefully, not restarting; exitcode='0'
    May 18 13:57:01 myhost supervise/syslog-ng[10996]: Daemon exited due to a deadlock/signal/failure, restarting; exitcode='131'
    May 18 13:57:37 myhost supervise/syslog-ng[11480]: Daemon was killed, not restarting; exitcode='9'

    The failure script should run on every non-zero exit event.

Stopping syslog-ng

To avoid problems, always use the init scripts to stop syslog-ng (/etc/init.d/syslog-ng stop), instead of using the kill command. This is especially true on Solaris and HP-UX systems, here use /etc/init.d/syslog stop.

Reporting bugs and finding help

If you need help, want to open a support ticket, or report a bug, we recommend using the syslog-ng-debun tool to collect information about your environment and syslog-ng OSE version. For details, see The syslog-ng-debun manual page. For support contacts, see About us.

Recover data from orphaned diskbuffer files

When you change the configuration of a syslog-ng OSE host that uses disk-based buffering (also called disk queue), syslog-ng OSE may start new disk buffer files for the destinations that you have changed. In such case, syslog-ng OSE abandons the old disk queue files. If there were unsent log messages in the disk queue files, these messages remain in the disk queue files, and will not be sent to the destinations.

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