Chat now with support
Chat with Support

syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.36 - 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 mqtt: receiving messages from an MQTT broker network: Collecting messages using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver) nodejs: Receiving JSON messages from nodejs applications mbox: Converting local email 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 discord: Sending alerts and notifications to Discord 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-c(): Publishing messages to Apache Kafka using the librdkafka client (C implementation) loggly: Using Loggly logmatic: Using Logmatic.io mongodb(): Storing messages in a MongoDB database mqtt() destination: sending messages from a local network to an MQTT broker 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 (email) from logs snmp: Sending SNMP traps Splunk: Sending log messages to Splunk sql: Storing messages in an SQL database stomp: Publishing messages using STOMP Sumo Logic destinations: sumologic-http() and sumologic-syslog() syslog: Sending messages to a remote logserver using the IETF-syslog protocol syslog-ng(): Forward logs 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
Parsing syslog messages Parsing messages with comma-separated and similar values Parsing key=value pairs JSON parser XML parser Parsing dates and timestamps Python parser Parsing tags Apache access log parser Linux audit parser Cisco parser Parsing enterprise-wide message model (EWMM) messages iptables parser Netskope parser panos-parser(): parsing PAN-OS log messages Sudo parser Websense parser Fortigate parser Check Point Log Exporter parser Regular expression (regexp) parser 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 Glossary

pdbtool.1

Table of Contents

pdbtool — An application to test and convert syslog-ng pattern database rules
Name

pdbtool — An application to test and convert syslog-ng pattern database rules

Synopsis

pdbtool [command] [options]

Description

This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of syslog-ng and pdbtool, see the syslog-ng Documentation page.

The syslog-ng application can match the contents of the log messages to a database of predefined message patterns (also called patterndb). By comparing the messages to the known patterns, syslog-ng is able to identify the exact type of the messages, tag the messages, and sort them into message classes. The message classes can be used to classify the type of the event described in the log message. The functionality of the pattern database is similar to that of the logcheck project, but the syslog-ng approach is faster, scales better, and is much easier to maintain compared to the regular expressions of logcheck.

The pdbtool application is a utility that can be used to:

The dictionary command

dictionary [options]

Lists every name-value pair that can be set by the rules of the pattern database.

--dump-tags or -T

List the tags instead of the names of the name-value pairs.

--pdb <path-to-file> or -p <path-to-file>

Name of the pattern database file to use.

--program <programname> or -P <programname>

List only the name-value pairs that can be set for the messages of the specified $PROGRAM application.

The dump command

dump [options]

Display the RADIX tree built from the patterns. This shows how are the patterns represented in syslog-ng and it might also help to track down pattern-matching problems. The dump utility can dump the tree used for matching the PROGRAM or the MESSAGE parts.

--debug or -d

Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

--pdb or -p

Name of the pattern database file to use.

--program or -P

Displays the RADIX tree built from the patterns belonging to the ${PROGRAM} application.

--program-tree or -T

Display the ${PROGRAM} tree.

--verbose or -v

Enable verbose messages on stderr.

Example and sample output:

        pdbtool dump -p patterndb.xml  -P 'sshd'
'p'
   'assword for'
     @QSTRING:@
       'from'
        @QSTRING:@
          'port '
            @NUMBER:@ rule_id='fc49054e-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
              ' ssh' rule_id='fc55cf86-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
                 '2' rule_id='fc4b7982-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
    'ublickey for'
      @QSTRING:@
        'from'
         @QSTRING:@
           'port '
             @NUMBER:@ rule_id='fc4d377c-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
               ' ssh' rule_id='fc5441ac-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
                  '2' rule_id='fc44a9fe-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
The match command

match [options]

Use the match command to test the rules in a pattern database. The command tries to match the specified message against the patterns of the database, evaluates the parsers of the pattern, and also displays which part of the message was parsed successfully. The command returns with a 0 (success) or 1 (no match) return code and displays the following information:

  • the class assigned to the message (that is, system, violation, and so on),

  • the ID of the rule that matched the message, and

  • the values of the parsers (if there were parsers in the matching pattern).

The match command has the following options:

--color-out or -c

Color the terminal output to highlight the part of the message that was successfully parsed.

--debug or -d

Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

--debug-csv or -C

Print the debugging information returned by the --debug-pattern option as comma-separated values.

--debug-pattern or -D

Print debugging information about the pattern matching. See also the --debug-csv option.

--file=<filename-with-path> or -f

Process the messages of the specified log file with the pattern database. This option allows to classify messages offline, and to apply the pattern database to already existing logfiles. To read the messages from the standard input (stdin), specify a hyphen (-) character instead of a filename.

--filter=<filter-expression> or -F

Print only messages matching the specified syslog-ng filter expression.

--message or -M

The text of the log message to match (only the ${MESSAGE} part without the syslog headers).

--pdb or -p

Name of the pattern database file to use.

--program or -P

Name of the program to use, as contained in the ${PROGRAM} part of the syslog message.

--template=<template-expression> or -T

A syslog-ng template expression that is used to format the output messages.

--verbose or -v

Enable verbose messages on stderr.

Example: The following command checks if the patterndb.xml file recognizes the Accepted publickey for myuser from 127.0.0.1 port 59357 ssh6 message:

        pdbtool match -p patterndb.xml -P sshd -M "Accepted publickey for myuser from 127.0.0.1 port 59357 ssh6"

The following example applies the sshd.pdb pattern database file to the log messages stored in the /var/log/messages file, and displays only the messages that received a useracct tag.

pdbtool match -p sshd.pdb \
  –file /var/log/messages \
  –filter ‘tags(“usracct”);’
The merge command

merge [options]

Use the merge command to combine separate pattern database files into a single file (pattern databases are usually stored in separate files per applications to simplify maintenance). If a file uses an older database format, it is automatically updated to the latest format (V3). See the syslog-ng Documentation page for details on the different pattern database versions.

--debug or -d

Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

--directory or -D

The directory that contains the pattern database XML files to be merged.

--glob or -G

Specify filenames to be merged using a glob pattern, for example, using wildcards. For details on glob patterns, see man glob. This pattern is applied only to the filenames, and not on directory names.

--pdb or -p

Name of the output pattern database file.

--recursive or -r

Merge files from subdirectories as well.

--sort or -s

Sort files into alphabetic order during the merge (first sort by filename, then by directory name).

--verbose or -v

Enable verbose messages on stderr.

Example:

        pdbtool merge --recursive --directory /home/me/mypatterns/  --pdb /var/lib/syslog-ng/patterndb.xml

Currently it is not possible to convert a file without merging, so if you only want to convert an older pattern database file to the latest format, you have to copy it into an empty directory.

The patternize command

patternize [options]

Automatically create a pattern database from a log file containing a large number of log messages. The resulting pattern database is printed to the standard output (stdout). The pdbtool patternize command uses a data clustering technique to find similar log messages and replacing the differing parts with @ESTRING:: @ parsers. For details on pattern databases and message parsers, see the syslog-ng Documentation page. The patternize command is available only in syslog-ng OSE version 3.2 and later.

--debug or -d

Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

--file=<path> or -f

The logfile containing the log messages to create patterns from. To receive the log messages from the standard input (stdin), use -.

--iterate-outliers or -o

Recursively iterate on the log lines to cover as many log messages with patterns as possible.

--named-parsers or -n

The number of example log messages to include in the pattern database for every pattern. Default value: 1

--no-parse or -p

Do not parse the input file, treat every line as the message part of a log message.

--samples=<number-of-samples>

Include a generated name in the parsers, for example, .dict.string1, .dict.string2, and so on.

--support=<number> or -S

A pattern is added to the output pattern database if at least the specified percentage of log messages from the input logfile match the pattern. For example, if the input logfile contains 1000 log messages and the --support=3.0 option is used, a pattern is created only if the pattern matches at least 3 percent of the log messages (that is, 30 log messages). If patternize does not create enough patterns, try to decrease the support value.

Default value: 4.0

--verbose or -v

Enable verbose messages on stderr.

Example:

        pdbtool patternize --support=2.5 --file=/var/log/messages
The test command

test [options]

Use the test command to validate a pattern database XML file. Note that you must have the xmllint application installed. The test command is available only in syslog-ng OSE version 3.2 and later.

--color-out or -c

Enable coloring in terminal output.

--debug or -d

Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

--debug or -D

Print debugging information on non-matching patterns.

--rule-id or -r

Test only the patterndb rule (specified by its rule id) against its example.

--validate

Validate a pattern database XML file.

--verbose or -v

Enable verbose messages on stderr.

Example:

        pdbtool test --validate /home/me/mypatterndb.pdb
Files

/opt/syslog-ng/

/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng.conf

See also

The syslog-ng Documentation page

syslog-ng.conf(5)

syslog-ng(8)

Note

For the detailed documentation of syslog-ng OSE see the syslog-ng Documentation page

If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng mailing list.

For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng blogs.

Author

This manual page was written by the One Identity Documentation Team.

Copyright

The authors grant permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this manual page under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 or newer (GPL v2+).

syslog-ng-ctl.1

Table of Contents

syslog-ng-ctl — Display message statistics and enable verbose, debug and trace modes in syslog-ng Open Source Edition
Name

syslog-ng-ctl — Display message statistics and enable verbose, debug and trace modes in syslog-ng Open Source Edition

Synopsis

syslog-ng-ctl [command] [options]

Description

NOTE: The syslog-ng-ctl application is distributed with the syslog-ng Open Source Edition system logging application, and is usually part of the syslog-ng package. The latest version of the syslog-ng application is available at syslog-ng page.

This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of syslog-ng, see the syslog-ng Documentation page.

The syslog-ng-ctl application is a utility that can be used to:

  • enable/disable various syslog-ng messages for troubleshooting

  • display statistics about the processed messages

  • handling password-protected private keys

  • display the currently running configuration of syslog-ng OSE

  • reload the configuration of syslog-ng OSE.

Enabling troubleshooting messages

command [options]

Use the syslog-ng-ctl <command> --set=on command to display verbose, trace, or debug messages. If you are trying to solve configuration problems, the verbose (and occasionally trace) messages are usually sufficient. Debug messages are needed mostly for finding software errors. After solving the problem, do not forget to turn these messages off using the syslog-ng-ctl <command> --set=off. Note that enabling debug messages does not enable verbose and trace messages.

Use syslog-ng-ctl <command> without any parameters to display whether the particular type of messages are enabled or not.

If you need to use a non-standard control socket to access syslog-ng, use the syslog-ng-ctl <command> --set=on --control=<socket> command to specify the socket to use.

verbose

Print verbose messages. If syslog-ng was started with the --stderr or -e option, the messages will be sent to stderr. If not specified, syslog-ng will log such messages to its internal source.

trace

Print trace messages of how messages are processed. If syslog-ng was started with the --stderr or -e option, the messages will be sent to stderr. If not specified, syslog-ng will log such messages to its internal source.

debug

Print debug messages. If syslog-ng was started with the --stderr or -e option, the messages will be sent to stderr. If not specified, syslog-ng will log such messages to its internal source.

Example:

syslog-ng-ctl verbose --set=on
syslog-ng-ctl query

The syslog-ng OSE application stores various data, metrics, and statistics in a hash table. Every property has a name and a value. For example:

[syslog-ng]
|
|_[destinations]-[network]-[tcp]->[stats]->{received=12;dropped=2}
|
|_[sources]-[sql]-[stats]->{received=501;dropped=0}

You can query the nodes of this tree, and also use filters to select the information you need. A query is actually a path in the tree. You can also use the ? and * wildcards. For example:

  • Select every property: *

  • Select all dropped value from every stats node: *.stats.dropped

The nodes and properties available in the tree depend on your syslog-ng OSE configuration (that is, the sources, destinations, and other objects you have configured), and also on your stats-level() settings.

The list command

syslog-ng-ctl query list

Use the syslog-ng-ctl query list command to display the list of metrics that syslog-ng OSE collects about the processed messages. For details about the displayed metrics, see The syslog-ng Administrator Guide ???.

An example output:

center.received.stats.processed
center.queued.stats.processed
destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.dropped
destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.processed
destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.queued
destination.d_elastic.stats.processed
source.s_tcp.stats.processed
source.severity.7.stats.processed
source.severity.0.stats.processed
source.severity.1.stats.processed
source.severity.2.stats.processed
source.severity.3.stats.processed
source.severity.4.stats.processed
source.severity.5.stats.processed
source.severity.6.stats.processed
source.facility.7.stats.processed
source.facility.16.stats.processed
source.facility.8.stats.processed
source.facility.17.stats.processed
source.facility.9.stats.processed
source.facility.18.stats.processed
source.facility.19.stats.processed
source.facility.20.stats.processed
source.facility.0.stats.processed
source.facility.21.stats.processed
source.facility.1.stats.processed
source.facility.10.stats.processed
source.facility.22.stats.processed
source.facility.2.stats.processed
source.facility.11.stats.processed
source.facility.23.stats.processed
source.facility.3.stats.processed
source.facility.12.stats.processed
source.facility.4.stats.processed
source.facility.13.stats.processed
source.facility.5.stats.processed
source.facility.14.stats.processed
source.facility.6.stats.processed
source.facility.15.stats.processed
source.facility.other.stats.processed
global.payload_reallocs.stats.processed
global.msg_clones.stats.processed
global.sdata_updates.stats.processed
tag..source.s_tcp.stats.processed

The syslog-ng-ctl query list command has the following options:

--reset

Use --reset to set the selected counters to 0 after executing the query.

Displaying metrics and statistics

syslog-ng-ctl query get [options]

The syslog-ng-ctl query get <query> command lists the nodes that match the query, and their values.

For example, the "destination*" query lists the configured destinations, and the metrics related to each destination. An example output:

          destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.dropped=0
destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.processed=0
destination.java.d_elastic#0.java_dst(ElasticSearch,elasticsearch-syslog-ng-test,t7cde889529c034aea9ec_micek).stats.queued=0
destination.d_elastic.stats.processed=0

The syslog-ng-ctl query get command has the following options:

--sum

Add up the result of each matching node and return only a single number.

For example, the syslog-ng-ctl query get --sum "destination*.dropped" command displays the number of messages dropped by the syslog-ng OSE instance.

--reset

Use --reset to set the selected counters to 0 after executing the query.

The stats command

stats [options]

Use the stats command to display statistics about the processed messages. For details about the displayed statistics, see The syslog-ng Administrator Guide ???. The stats command has the following options:

--control=<socket> or -c

Specify the socket to use to access syslog-ng. Only needed when using a non-standard socket.

--reset=<socket> or -r

Reset all statistics to zero, except for the queued counters. (The queued counters show the number of messages in the message queue of the destination driver, waiting to be sent to the destination.)

--remove-orphans

Safely removes all counters that are not referenced by any syslog-ng stat producer objects.

The flag can be used to prune dynamic and static counters manually. This is useful, for example, when a templated file destination produces a lot of stats:

dst.file;#anon-destination0#0;/tmp/2021-08-16.log;o;processed;253592
dst.file;#anon-destination0#0;/tmp/2021-08-17.log;o;processed;156
dst.file;#anon-destination0#0;/tmp/2021-08-18.log;a;processed;961

NOTE: The stats-lifetime() can be used to do the same automatically and periodically, but currently stats-lifetime() removes only dynamic counters that have a timestamp field set.

Example:

syslog-ng-ctl stats

An example output:

        src.internal;s_all#0;;a;processed;6445
src.internal;s_all#0;;a;stamp;1268989330
destination;df_auth;;a;processed;404
destination;df_news_dot_notice;;a;processed;0
destination;df_news_dot_err;;a;processed;0
destination;d_ssb;;a;processed;7128
destination;df_uucp;;a;processed;0
source;s_all;;a;processed;7128
destination;df_mail;;a;processed;0
destination;df_user;;a;processed;1
destination;df_daemon;;a;processed;1
destination;df_debug;;a;processed;15
destination;df_messages;;a;processed;54
destination;dp_xconsole;;a;processed;671
dst.tcp;d_network#0;10.50.0.111:514;a;dropped;5080
dst.tcp;d_network#0;10.50.0.111:514;a;processed;7128
dst.tcp;d_network#0;10.50.0.111:514;a;queued;2048
destination;df_syslog;;a;processed;6724
destination;df_facility_dot_warn;;a;processed;0
destination;df_news_dot_crit;;a;processed;0
destination;df_lpr;;a;processed;0
destination;du_all;;a;processed;0
destination;df_facility_dot_info;;a;processed;0
center;;received;a;processed;0
destination;df_kern;;a;processed;70
center;;queued;a;processed;0
destination;df_facility_dot_err;;a;processed;0
Handling password-protected private keys

syslog-ng-ctl credentials [options]

The syslog-ng-ctl credentials status command allows you to query the status of the private keys that syslog-ng OSE uses in the network() and syslog() drivers. You can also provide the passphrase for password-protected private keys using the syslog-ng-ctl credentials add command. For details on using password-protected keys, see The syslog-ng Administrator Guide .

Displaying the status of private keys

syslog-ng-ctl credentials status [options]

The syslog-ng-ctl credentials status command allows you to query the status of the private keys that syslog-ng OSE uses in the network() and syslog() drivers. The command returns the list of private keys used, and their status. For example:

syslog-ng-ctl credentials status
Secret store status:
/home/user/ssl_test/client-1/client-encrypted.key SUCCESS

If the status of a key is PENDING, you must provide the passphrase for the key, otherwise syslog-ng OSE cannot use it. The sources and destinations that use these keys will not work until you provide the passwords. Other parts of the syslog-ng OSE configuration will be unaffected. You must provide the passphrase of the password-protected keys every time syslog-ng OSE is restarted.

The following log message also notifies you of PENDING passphrases:

          Waiting for password; keyfile='private.key'
--control=<socket> or -c

Specify the socket to use to access syslog-ng. Only needed when using a non-standard socket.

Opening password-protected private keys

syslog-ng-ctl credentials add [options]

You can add the passphrase to a password-protected private key file using the following command. syslog-ng OSE will display a prompt for you to enter the passphrase. We recommend that you use this method.

          syslog-ng-ctl credentials add --id=<path-to-the-key>

Alternatively, you can include the passphrase in the --secret parameter:

          syslog-ng-ctl credentials add --id=<path-to-the-key> --secret=<passphrase-of-the-key>

Or you can pipe the passphrase to the syslog-ng-ctl command, for example:

          echo "<passphrase-of-the-key>" | syslog-ng-ctl credentials add --id=<path-to-the-key>
--control=<socket> or -c

Specify the socket to use to access syslog-ng. Only needed when using a non-standard socket.

--id=<path-to-the-key> or -i

The path to the password-protected private key file. This is the same path that you use in the key-file() option of the syslog-ng OSE configuration file.

--secret=<passphrase-of-the-key> or -s

The password or passphrase of the private key.

Displaying the configuration

syslog-ng-ctl config [options]

Use the syslog-ng-ctl config command to display the configuration that syslog-ng OSE is currently running. Note by default, only the content of the main configuration file are displayed, included files are not resolved. To resolve included files and display the entire configuration, use the syslog-ng-ctl config --preprocessed command.

Reloading the configuration

syslog-ng-ctl reload [options]

Use the syslog-ng-ctl reload command to reload the configuration file of syslog-ng OSE without having to restart the syslog-ng OSE application. The syslog-ng-ctl reload works like a SIGHUP.

The syslog-ng-ctl reload command returns 0 if the operation was successful, 1 otherwise.

Files

/opt/syslog-ng/sbin/syslog-ng-ctl

See also

The syslog-ng Documentation page

syslog-ng.conf(5)

syslog-ng(8)

Note

For the detailed documentation of syslog-ng OSE see the syslog-ng Documentation page

If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng mailing list.

For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng blogs.

Author

This manual page was written by the One Identity Documentation Team.

Copyright

The authors grant permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this manual page under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 or newer (GPL v2+).

syslog-ng-debun.1

Table of Contents

syslog-ng-debun — syslog-ng DEBUg buNdle generator
Name

syslog-ng-debun — syslog-ng DEBUg buNdle generator

Synopsis

syslog-ng-debun [options]

Description

NOTE: The syslog-ng-debun application is distributed with the syslog-ng OSE system logging application, and is usually part of the syslog-ng OSE package. The latest version of the syslog-ng OSE application is available at the syslog-ng page.

This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of syslog-ng, see the syslog-ng Documentation page.

The syslog-ng-debun tool collects and saves information about your syslog-ng OSE installation, making troubleshooting easier, especially if you ask help about your syslog-ng OSE related problem.

General Options
-r

Run syslog-ng-debun. Using this option is required to actually execute the data collection with syslog-ng-debun. It is needed to prevent accidentally running syslog-ng-debun.

-h

Display the help page.

-l

Do not collect privacy-sensitive data, for example, process tree, fstab, and so on. If you use with -d, then the following parameters will be used for debug mode:-Fev

-R <directory>

The directory where syslog-ng OSE is installed instead of /opt/syslog-ng.

-W <directory>

Set the working directory, where the debug bundle will be saved. Default value: /tmp. The name of the created file is syslog.debun.${host}.${date}.${3-random-characters-or-pid}.tgz

Debug mode options
-d

Start syslog-ng OSE in debug mode, using the -Fedv --enable-core options.

Warning! Using this option under high message load may increase disk I/O during the debug, and the resulting debug bundle can be huge. To exit debug mode, press Enter.

-D <options>

Start syslog-ng OSE in debug mode, using the specified command-line options. To exit debug mode, press Enter. For details on the available options, see ???.

-t <seconds>

Run syslog-ng OSE in noninteractive debug mode for <seconds>, and automatically exit debug mode after the specified number of seconds.

-w <seconds>

Wait <seconds> seconds before starting debug mode.

System call tracing
-s

Enable syscall tracing (strace -f or truss -f). Note that using -s itself does not enable debug mode, only traces the system calls of an already running syslog-ng OSE process. To trace system calls in debug mode, use both the -s and -d options.

Packet capture options

Capturing packets requires a packet capture tool on the host. The syslog-ng-debun tool attempts to use tcpdump on most platforms, except for Solaris, where it uses snoop.

-i <interface>

Capture packets only on the specified interface, for example, eth0.

-p

Capture incoming packets using the following filter: port 514 or port 601 or port 53

-P <options>

Capture incoming packets using the specified filter.

-t <seconds>

Run syslog-ng OSE in noninteractive debug mode for <seconds>, and automatically exit debug mode after the specified number of seconds.

Examples
syslog-ng-debun -r

Create a simple debug bundle, collecting information about your environment, for example, list packages containing the word: syslog, ldd of your syslog-binary, and so on.

syslog-ng-debun -r -l

Similar to syslog-ng-debun -r, but without privacy-sensitive information. For example, the following is NOT collected: fstab, df output, mount info, ip / network interface configuration, DNS resolv info, and process tree.

syslog-ng-debun -r -d

Similar to syslog-ng-debun -r, but it also stops syslog-ng, then restarts it in debug mode (-Fedv --enable-core). To stop debug mode, press Enter. The output of the debug mode collected into a separate file, and also added to the debug bundle.

syslog-ng-debun -r -s

Trace the system calls (using strace or truss) of an already running syslog-ng OSE process.

syslog-ng-debun -r -d -s

Restart syslog-ng OSE in debug mode, and also trace the system calls (using strace or truss) of the syslog-ng OSE process.

syslog-ng-debun -r -p

Run packet capture (pcap) with the filter: port 514 or port 601 or port 53 Also waits for pressing Enter, like debug mode.

syslog-ng-debun -r -p -t 10

Noninteractive debug mode: Similar to syslog-ng-debun -r -p, but automatically exit after 10 seconds.

        syslog-ng-debun -r -P "host 1.2.3.4"  -D "-Fev --enable-core"

Change the packet-capturing filter from the default to host 1.2.3.4. Also change debugging parameters from the default to -Fev --enable-core. Since a timeout (-t) is not given, waits for pressing Enter.

        syslog-ng-debun -r -p -d -w 5 -t 10

Collect pcap and debug mode output following this scenario:

  • Start packet capture with default parameters (-p)

  • Wait 5 seconds (-w 5)

  • Stop syslog-ng

  • Start syslog-ng in debug mode with default parameters (-d)

  • Wait 10 seconds (-t 10)

  • Stop syslog-ng debuging

  • Start syslog-ng

  • Stop packet capturing

Files

/opt/syslog-ng/bin/loggen

See also

syslog-ng.conf(5)

Note

For the detailed documentation of syslog-ng OSE see the syslog-ng Documentation page

If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng mailing list.

For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng blogs.

Author

This manual page was written by the One Identity Documentation Team.

Copyright

The authors grant permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this manual page under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 or newer (GPL v2+).

syslog-ng.8

Table of Contents

syslog-ng — syslog-ng system logger application
Name

syslog-ng — syslog-ng system logger application

Synopsis

syslog-ng [options]

Description

This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of syslog-ng, see the syslog-ng Documentation page or the syslog-ng page.

The syslog-ng OSE application is a flexible and highly scalable system logging application. Typically, syslog-ng is used to manage log messages and implement centralized logging, where the aim is to collect the log messages of several devices on a single, central log server. The different devices - called syslog-ng clients - all run syslog-ng, and collect the log messages from the various applications, files, and other sources. The clients send all important log messages to the remote syslog-ng server, where the server sorts and stores them.

Options
--caps

Run syslog-ng OSE process with the specified POSIX capability flags.

  • If the --no-caps option is not set,syslog-ng OSE has been compiled with the --enable-linux-caps compile option, and the host supports CAP_SYSLOG, syslog-ng OSE uses the following capabilities: "cap_net_bind_service, cap_net_broadcast, cap_net_raw, cap_dac_read_search, cap_dac_override, cap_chown, cap_fowner=p cap_syslog=ep"

  • If the --no-caps option is not set, and the host does not support CAP_SYSLOG, syslog-ng OSE uses the following capabilities: "cap_net_bind_service, cap_net_broadcast, cap_net_raw,cap_dac_read_search, cap_dac_override, cap_chown, cap_fowner=p cap_sys_admin=ep"

For example:

              /opt/syslog-ng/sbin/syslog-ng -Fv --caps cap_sys_admin,cap_chown,cap_dac_override,cap_net_bind_service,cap_fowner=pi

Note that the capabilities are not case sensitive, the following command is also good: /opt/syslog-ng/sbin/syslog-ng -Fv --caps CAP_SYS_ADMIN,CAP_CHOWN,CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE,CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE,CAP_FOWNER=pi

For details on the capability flags, see the following man pages: cap_from_text(3) and capabilities(7)

--cfgfile <file> or -f <file>

Use the specified configuration file.

--chroot <dir> or -C <dir>

Change root to the specified directory. The configuration file is read after chrooting so, the configuration file must be available within the chroot. That way it is also possible to reload the syslog-ng configuration after chrooting. However, note that the --user and --group options are resolved before chrooting.

--control <file> or -c <file>

Set the location of the syslog-ng control socket. Default value: /var/run/syslog-ng.ctl

--debug or -d

Start syslog-ng in debug mode.

--default-modules

A comma-separated list of the modules that are loaded automatically. Modules not loaded automatically can be loaded by including the @module <modulename> statement in the syslog-ng OSE configuration file. The following modules are loaded by default: affile, afprog, afsocket, afuser, basicfuncs, csvparser, dbparser, syslogformat, afsql, system-source. Available only in syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.3 and later.

--enable-core

Enable syslog-ng to write core files in case of a crash to help support and debugging.

--fd-limit <number>

Set the minimal number of required file descriptors (fd-s). This sets how many files syslog-ng can keep open simultaneously. Default value: 4096. Note that this does not override the global ulimit setting of the host.

--foreground or -F

Do not daemonize, run in the foreground. When running in the foreground, syslog-ng OSE starts from the current directory ($CWD) so it can create core files (normally, syslog-ng OSE starts from $PREFIX/var).

--group <group> or -g <group>

Switch to the specified group after initializing the configuration file.

--help or -h

Display a brief help message.

--module-registry

Display the list and description of the available modules. Note that not all of these modules are loaded automatically, only the ones specified in the --default-modules option. Available only in syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.3 and later.

--no-caps

Run syslog-ng as root, without capability-support. This is the default behavior. On Linux, it is possible to run syslog-ng as non-root with capability-support if syslog-ng was compiled with the --enable-linux-caps option enabled. (Execute syslog-ng --version to display the list of enabled build parameters.)

To run syslog-ng OSE with specific capabilities, use the --caps option.

--persist-file <persist-file> or -R <persist-file>

Set the path and name of the syslog-ng.persist file where the persistent options and data are stored.

--pidfile <pidfile> or -p <pidfile>

Set path to the PID file where the pid of the main process is stored.

--preprocess-into <output-file>

After processing the configuration file and resolving included files and variables, write the resulting configuration into the specified output file. Available only in syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.3 and later.

In syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.23 and later, you can display the preprocessed configuration on stdout using --preprocess-into=/dev/stdout

--process-mode <mode>

Sets how to run syslog-ng: in the foreground (mainly used for debugging), in the background as a daemon, or in safe-background mode. By default, syslog-ng runs in safe-background mode. This mode creates a supervisor process called supervising syslog-ng , that restarts syslog-ng if it crashes.

--stderr or -e

Log internal messages of syslog-ng to stderr. Mainly used for debugging purposes in conjunction with the --foreground option. If not specified, syslog-ng will log such messages to its internal source.

--syntax-only or -s

Verify that the configuration file is syntactically correct and exit.

--user <user> or -u <user>

Switch to the specified user after initializing the configuration file (and optionally chrooting). Note that it is not possible to reload the syslog-ng configuration if the specified user has no privilege to create the /dev/log file.

--verbose or -v

Enable verbose logging used to troubleshoot syslog-ng.

--version or -V

Display version number and compilation information, and also the list and short description of the available modules. For detailed description of the available modules, see the --module-registry option. Note that not all of these modules are loaded automatically, only the ones specified in the --default-modules option. When including configuration snippets in the configuration files, the default path where syslog-ng looks for the snippets is displayed as Include-Path.

--worker-threads

Sets the number of worker threads syslog-ng OSE can use, including the main syslog-ng OSE thread. Note that certain operations in syslog-ng OSE can use threads that are not limited by this option. This setting has effect only when syslog-ng OSE is running in multithreaded mode. Available only in syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.3 and later. See The syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.15 Administrator Guide for details.

Files

/opt/syslog-ng/

/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng.conf

See also

syslog-ng.conf(5)

Note

For the detailed documentation of syslog-ng OSE see the syslog-ng Documentation page

If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng mailing list.

For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng blogs.

Author

This manual page was written by the One Identity Documentation Team.

Copyright

The authors grant permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this manual page under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 or newer (GPL v2+).

Related Documents

The document was helpful.

Select Rating

I easily found the information I needed.

Select Rating