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syslog-ng Premium Edition 7.0.31 - Administration Guide

Preface Introduction to syslog-ng The concepts of syslog-ng Installing syslog-ng PE The syslog-ng PE quick-start guide The syslog-ng PE configuration file Collecting log messages — sources and source drivers
How sources work default-network-drivers: Receive and parse common syslog messages internal: Collecting internal messages file: Collecting messages from text files google-pubsub: collecting messages from the Google Pub/Sub messaging service wildcard-file: Collecting messages from multiple text files linux-audit: Collecting messages from Linux audit logs mssql, oracle, sql: collecting messages from an SQL database network: Collecting messages using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver) office365: Fetching logs from Office 365 osquery: Collect and parse osquery result logs pipe: Collecting messages from named pipes program: Receiving messages from external applications python: writing server-style Python sources python-fetcher: writing fetcher-style Python sources snmptrap: Read Net-SNMP traps 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 udp-balancer: Receiving UDP messages at very high rate unix-stream, unix-dgram: Collecting messages from UNIX domain sockets windowsevent: Collecting Windows event logs
Sending and storing log messages — destinations and destination drivers
elasticsearch2>: Sending messages directly to Elasticsearch version 2.0 or higher (DEPRECATED) elasticsearch-http: Sending messages to Elasticsearch HTTP Event Collector file: Storing messages in plain-text files google_pubsub(): Sending logs to the Google Cloud Pub/Sub messaging service hdfs: Storing messages on the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) http: Posting messages over HTTP kafka(): Publishing messages to Apache Kafka (Java implementation) (DEPRECATED) kafka-c(): Publishing messages to Apache Kafka using the librdkafka client (C implementation) logstore: Storing messages in encrypted files mongodb: Storing messages in a MongoDB database network: Sending messages to a remote log server using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver) pipe: Sending messages to named pipes program: Sending messages to external applications python: writing custom Python destinations sentinel(): Sending logs to the Microsoft Azure Sentinel cloud snmp: Sending SNMP traps smtp: Generating SMTP messages (email) from logs splunk-hec: Sending messages to Splunk HTTP Event Collector sql(): Storing messages in an SQL database stackdriver: Sending logs to the Google Stackdriver cloud 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) unix-stream, unix-dgram: Sending messages to UNIX domain sockets usertty: Sending messages to a user terminal — usertty() destination Client-side failover
Routing messages: log paths, flags, and filters Global options of syslog-ng PE TLS-encrypted message transfer Advanced Log Transport Protocol Reliability and minimizing the loss of log messages Manipulating messages parser: Parse and segment structured messages Processing message content with a pattern database Correlating log messages Enriching log messages with external data Monitoring statistics and metrics of syslog-ng Multithreading and scaling in syslog-ng PE Troubleshooting syslog-ng Best practices and examples The syslog-ng manual pages Glossary

What's new in the syslog-ng pattern database format V5

The V5 database format has the following differences compared to the V4 format:

  • The <ruleset> element can now store multiple reference URLs using the new <rule_urls> element. For details, see Element: ruleset.

  • In an <action>, you can now initialize a new context. As a result, the <message> element is not required. For details, see Element: create-context.

  • The inherit-properties attribute is deprecated, use the inherit-mode attribute instead. For details, see Element: action.

The syslog-ng pattern database format

Pattern databases are XML files that contain rules describing the message patterns. For sample pattern databases, see Downloading sample pattern databases.

The following scheme describes the V5 format of the pattern database. This format is backwards-compatible with the earlier formats.

For a sample database containing only a single pattern, see Example: A pattern database containing a single rule.

TIP: Use the pdbtool utility that is bundled with syslog-ng to test message patterns and convert existing databases to the latest format. For details, see The pdbtool manual page.

To automatically create an initial pattern database from an existing log file, use the pdbtool patternize command. For details, see The pdbtool manual page.

Example: A pattern database containing a single rule

The following pattern database contains a single rule that matches a log message of the ssh application. A sample log message looks like:

Accepted password for sampleuser from 10.50.0.247 port 42156 ssh2

The following is a simple pattern database containing a matching rule.

<patterndb version='5' pub_date='2010-10-17'>
    <ruleset name='ssh' id='123456678'>
        <pattern>ssh</pattern>
            <rules>
                <rule provider='me' id='182437592347598' class='system'>
                    <patterns>
                        <pattern>Accepted @QSTRING:SSH.AUTH_METHOD: @ for@QSTRING:SSH_USERNAME: @from\ @QSTRING:SSH_CLIENT_ADDRESS: @port @NUMBER:SSH_PORT_NUMBER:@ ssh2</pattern>
                    </patterns>
                </rule>
            </rules>
    </ruleset>
</patterndb>

Note that the rule uses macros that refer to parts of the message, for example, you can use the ${SSH_USERNAME} macro refer to the username used in the connection.

The following is the same example, but with a test message and test values for the parsers.

<patterndb version='4' pub_date='2010-10-17'>
    <ruleset name='ssh' id='123456678'>
        <pattern>ssh</pattern>
            <rules>
                <rule provider='me' id='182437592347598' class='system'>
                    <patterns>
                        <pattern>Accepted @QSTRING:SSH.AUTH_METHOD: @ for@QSTRING:SSH_USERNAME: @from\ @QSTRING:SSH_CLIENT_ADDRESS: @port @NUMBER:SSH_PORT_NUMBER:@ ssh2</pattern>
                    </patterns>
                    <examples>
                        <example>
                            <test_message>Accepted password for sampleuser from 10.50.0.247 port 42156 ssh2</test_message>
                            <test_values>
                                <test_value name="SSH.AUTH_METHOD">password</test_value>
                                <test_value name="SSH_USERNAME">sampleuser</test_value>
                                <test_value name="SSH_CLIENT_ADDRESS">10.50.0.247</test_value>
                                <test_value name="SSH_PORT_NUMBER">42156</test_value>
                            </test_values>
                       </example>
                    </examples>
                </rule>
            </rules>
    </ruleset>
</patterndb>

Element: patterndb

Location

/patterndb

Description

The container element of the pattern database.

Attributes
  • version: The schema version of the pattern database. The current version is 4.

  • pubdate: The publication date of the XML file.

Children
Example
<patterndb version='4' pub_date='2010-10-25'>

Element: ruleset

Location

/patterndb/ruleset

Description

A container element to group log patterns for an application or program. A <patterndb> element may contain any number of <ruleset> elements.

Attributes
  • name: The name of the application. Note that the function of this attribute is to make the database more readable, syslog-ng uses the <pattern> element to identify the applications sending log messages.

  • id: A unique ID of the application, for example, the md5 sum of the name attribute.

Children
  • patterns

  • rules

  • actions

  • tags

  • description: OPTIONAL — A description of the ruleset or the application.

  • url: OPTIONAL — An URL referring to further information about the ruleset or the application.

  • rule_urls: OPTIONAL — To list multiple URLs referring to further information about the ruleset or the application, enclose the <url> elements into an <urls> element.

Example
<ruleset name='su' id='480de478-d4a6-4a7f-bea4-0c0245d361e1'>
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