The PAN-OS (a short version of Palo Alto Networks Operating System) parser can parse log messages originating from Palo Alto Networks devices. Even though these messages completely comply to the RFC standards, their MESSAGE part is not a plain text. Instead, the MESSAGE part contains a data structure that requires additional parsing.
The panos-parser() of syslog-ng Open Source Edition (syslog-ng OSE) solves this problem, and can separate PAN-OS log messages to name-value pairs.
For details on using value-pairs in syslog-ng OSE, see Structuring macros, metadata, and other value-pairs.
Limitations
The panos-parser() only works on syslog-ng OSE version 3.29 or later.
Configuration
You can include the panos-parser() in your syslog-ng OSE configuration like this:
parser p_parser{
panos-parser();
};
To use this parser, the scl.conf file must be included in your syslog-ng OSE configuration:
@include "scl.conf"
The panos-parser() is a reusable configuration snippet configured to parse Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS log messages. For details on using or writing such configuration snippets, see Reusing configuration blocks. You can find the source of this configuration snippet on GitHub.
This section illustrates the most commonly used PAN-OS log format on the syslog-ng Open Source Edition (syslog-ng OSE) side.
For information about customizing log format on the PAN-OS side, see the relevant section of the PAN-OS® Administrator's Guide.
Message format and log format
Using the panos-parser(), the parsed messages in syslog-ng OSE have the following general format:
<PRI><TIMESTAMP> <HOST> <PALO-ALTO-fields-in-CSV-format>
There are several "types" of log formats in Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS. For example, the most commonly used SYSTEM type has the following message format on the syslog-ng OSE side after parsing:
<12>Apr 14 16:48:54 paloalto.test.net 1,2020/04/14 16:48:54,unknown,SYSTEM,auth,0,2020/04/14 16:48:54,,auth-fail,,0,0,general,medium,failed authentication for user 'admin'. Reason: Invalid username/password. From: 10.0.10.55.,1718,0x0,0,0,0,0,,paloalto
The panos-parser() has the following options:
prefix()
| Synopsis: |
prefix() |
|
Default: |
".panos." |
Description: Insert a prefix before the name part of the parsed name-value pairs to help further processing. For example:
-
To insert the my-parsed-data. prefix, use the prefix(my-parsed-data.) option.
-
To refer to a particular data that has a prefix, use the prefix in the name of the macro, for example, ${my-parsed-data.name}.
-
If you forward the parsed messages using the IETF-syslog protocol, you can insert all the parsed data into the SDATA part of the message using the prefix(.SDATA.my-parsed-data.) option.
Names starting with a dot (for example, .example) are reserved for use by syslog-ng OSE. If you use such a macro name as the name of a parsed value, it will attempt to replace the original value of the macro (note that only soft macros can be overwritten, see Hard versus soft macros for details). To avoid such problems, use a prefix when naming the parsed values, for example, prefix(my-parsed-data.)
The sudo parser can parse the log messages of the sudo command. Available in version 3.16 and later.
Declaration:
@version: 3.36
@include "scl.conf"
log {
source { system(); };
parser { sudo-parser(); };
destination { ... };
};
The sudo-parser() is actually a reusable configuration snippet configured to parse sudo messages. For details on using or writing such configuration snippets, see Reusing configuration blocks. You can find the source of this configuration snippet on GitHub.
prefix()
Description: Insert a prefix before the name part of the parsed name-value pairs to help further processing. For example:
-
To insert the my-parsed-data. prefix, use the prefix(my-parsed-data.) option.
-
To refer to a particular data that has a prefix, use the prefix in the name of the macro, for example, ${my-parsed-data.name}.
-
If you forward the parsed messages using the IETF-syslog protocol, you can insert all the parsed data into the SDATA part of the message using the prefix(.SDATA.my-parsed-data.) option.
Names starting with a dot (for example, .example) are reserved for use by syslog-ng OSE. If you use such a macro name as the name of a parsed value, it will attempt to replace the original value of the macro (note that only soft macros can be overwritten, see Hard versus soft macros for details). To avoid such problems, use a prefix when naming the parsed values, for example, prefix(my-parsed-data.)
Names starting with a dot (for example,
.example) are reserved for use by syslog-ng OSE. If you use such a macro name as the name of a parsed value, it will attempt to replace the original value of the macro (note that only soft macros can be overwritten, see
Hard versus soft macros for details). To avoid such problems, use a prefix when naming the parsed values, for example,
prefix(my-parsed-data.)
By default, sudo-parser() uses the .sudo. prefix. To modify it, use the following format:
parser {
sudo-parser(prefix("myprefix."));
};
