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syslog-ng Open Source Edition 3.16 - 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 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 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 elasticsearch: Sending messages directly to Elasticsearch version 1.x elasticsearch2: Sending logs directly to Elasticsearch and Kibana 2.0 or higher 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 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() redis: Storing name-value pairs in Redis riemann: Monitoring your data with Riemann smtp: Generating SMTP messages (e-mail) from logs 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
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 Third-party contributions Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) License About us

pacct() options

The pacct() driver has the following options:

file()
Type: filename with path
Default: /var/log/account/pacct

Description: The file where the process accounting logs are stored — syslog-ng OSE reads accounting messages from this file.

follow-freq()
Type: number
Default: 1

Description: Indicates that the source should be checked periodically. This is useful for files which always indicate readability, even though no new lines were appended. If this value is higher than zero, syslog-ng will not attempt to use poll() on the file, but checks whether the file changed every time the follow-freq() interval (in seconds) has elapsed. Floating-point numbers (for example 1.5) can be used as well.

hook-commands()

Description: This option makes it possible to execute external programs when the relevant driver is initialized or torn down. The hook-commands() can be used with all source and destination drivers with the exception of the usertty() and internal() drivers.

NOTE: The syslog-ng OSE application must be able to start and restart the external program, and have the necessary permissions to do so. For example, if your host is running AppArmor or SELinux, you might have to modify your AppArmor or SELinux configuration to enable syslog-ng OSE to execute external applications.

Using the hook-commands() when syslog-ng OSE starts or stops

To execute an external program when syslog-ng OSE starts or stops, use the following options:

startup()
Type: string
Default: N/A

Description: Defines the external program that is executed as syslog-ng OSE starts.

shutdown()
Type: string
Default: N/A

Description: Defines the external program that is executed as syslog-ng OSE stops.

Using the hook-commands() when syslog-ng OSE reloads

To execute an external program when the syslog-ng OSE configuration is initiated or torn down, for example, on startup/shutdown or during a syslog-ng OSE reload, use the following options:

setup()
Type: string
Default: N/A

Description: Defines an external program that is executed when the syslog-ng OSE configuration is initiated, for example, on startup or during a syslog-ng OSE reload.

teardown()
Type: string
Default: N/A

Description: Defines an external program that is executed when the syslog-ng OSE configuration is stopped or torn down, for example, on shutdown or during a syslog-ng OSE reload.

Example: Using the hook-commands() with a network source

In the following example, the hook-commands() is used with the network() driver and it opens an iptables port automatically as syslog-ng OSE is started/stopped.

The assumption in this example is that the LOGCHAIN chain is part of a larger ruleset that routes traffic to it. Whenever the syslog-ng OSE created rule is there, packets can flow, otherwise the port is closed.

source {
   network(transport(udp)
	hook-commands(
          startup("iptables -I LOGCHAIN 1 -p udp --dport 514 -j ACCEPT")
          shutdown("iptables -D LOGCHAIN 1")
        )
     );
};

program: Receiving messages from external applications

The program driver starts an external application and reads messages from the standard output (stdout) of the application. It is mainly useful to receive log messages from daemons that accept incoming messages and convert them to log messages.

The program driver has a single required parameter, specifying the name of the application to start.

Declaration:
program(filename);
Example: Using the program() driver
source s_program {
    program("/etc/init.d/mydaemon");
};

NOTE:

The program is restarted automatically if it exits.

program() source options

The program driver has the following options:

flags()
Type: assume-utf8, empty-lines, expect-hostname, kernel, no-hostname, no-multi-line, no-parse, sanitize-utf8, store-legacy-msghdr, syslog-protocol, validate-utf8
Default: empty set

Description: Specifies the log parsing options of the source.

  • assume-utf8: The assume-utf8 flag assumes that the incoming messages are UTF-8 encoded, but does not verify the encoding. If you explicitly want to validate the UTF-8 encoding of the incoming message, use the validate-utf8 flag.

  • empty-lines: Use the empty-lines flag to keep the empty lines of the messages. By default, syslog-ng OSE removes empty lines automatically.

  • expect-hostname: If the expect-hostname flag is enabled, syslog-ng OSE will assume that the log message contains a hostname and parse the message accordingly. This is the default behavior for TCP sources. Note that pipe sources use the no-hostname flag by default.

  • kernel: The kernel flag makes the source default to the LOG_KERN | LOG_NOTICE priority if not specified otherwise.

  • no-hostname: Enable the no-hostname flag if the log message does not include the hostname of the sender host. That way, syslog-ng OSE assumes that the first part of the message header is ${PROGRAM} instead of ${HOST}. For example:

    source s_dell {
        network(port(2000) flags(no-hostname));
    };
  • no-multi-line: The no-multi-line flag disables line-breaking in the messages: the entire message is converted to a single line. Note that this happens only if the underlying transport method actually supports multi-line messages. Currently the file() and pipe() drivers support multi-line messages.

  • no-parse: By default, syslog-ng OSE parses incoming messages as syslog messages. The no-parse flag completely disables syslog message parsing and processes the complete line as the message part of a syslog message. The syslog-ng OSE application will generate a new syslog header (timestamp, host, and so on) automatically and put the entire incoming message into the MESSAGE part of the syslog message (available using the ${MESSAGE} macro). This flag is useful for parsing messages not complying to the syslog format.

    If you are using the flags(no-parse) option, then syslog message parsing is completely disabled, and the entire incoming message is treated as the ${MESSAGE} part of a syslog message. In this case, syslog-ng OSE generates a new syslog header (timestamp, host, and so on) automatically. Note that since flags(no-parse) disables message parsing, it interferes with other flags, for example, disables flags(no-multi-line).

  • dont-store-legacy-msghdr: By default, syslog-ng stores the original incoming header of the log message. This is useful if the original format of a non-syslog-compliant message must be retained (syslog-ng automatically corrects minor header errors, for example, adds a whitespace before msg in the following message: Jan 22 10:06:11 host program:msg). If you do not want to store the original header of the message, enable the dont-store-legacy-msghdr flag.

  • sanitize-utf8: When using the sanitize-utf8 flag, syslog-ng OSE converts non-UTF-8 input to an escaped form, which is valid UTF-8.

  • store-raw-message: Save the original message as received from the client in the ${RAWMSG} macro. You can forward this raw message in its original form to another syslog-ng node using the syslog-ng() destination, or to a SIEM system, ensuring that the SIEM can process it. Available only in 3.16 and later.

  • syslog-protocol: The syslog-protocol flag specifies that incoming messages are expected to be formatted according to the new IETF syslog protocol standard (RFC5424), but without the frame header. Note that this flag is not needed for the syslog driver, which handles only messages that have a frame header.

  • validate-utf8: The validate-utf8 flag enables encoding-verification for messages formatted according to the new IETF syslog standard (for details, see IETF-syslog messages). If theBOM1character is missing, but the message is otherwise UTF-8 compliant, syslog-ng automatically adds the BOM character to the message.

hook-commands()

Description: This option makes it possible to execute external programs when the relevant driver is initialized or torn down. The hook-commands() can be used with all source and destination drivers with the exception of the usertty() and internal() drivers.

NOTE: The syslog-ng OSE application must be able to start and restart the external program, and have the necessary permissions to do so. For example, if your host is running AppArmor or SELinux, you might have to modify your AppArmor or SELinux configuration to enable syslog-ng OSE to execute external applications.

Using the hook-commands() when syslog-ng OSE starts or stops

To execute an external program when syslog-ng OSE starts or stops, use the following options:

startup()
Type: string
Default: N/A

Description: Defines the external program that is executed as syslog-ng OSE starts.

shutdown()
Type: string
Default: N/A

Description: Defines the external program that is executed as syslog-ng OSE stops.

Using the hook-commands() when syslog-ng OSE reloads

To execute an external program when the syslog-ng OSE configuration is initiated or torn down, for example, on startup/shutdown or during a syslog-ng OSE reload, use the following options:

setup()
Type: string
Default: N/A

Description: Defines an external program that is executed when the syslog-ng OSE configuration is initiated, for example, on startup or during a syslog-ng OSE reload.

teardown()
Type: string
Default: N/A

Description: Defines an external program that is executed when the syslog-ng OSE configuration is stopped or torn down, for example, on shutdown or during a syslog-ng OSE reload.

Example: Using the hook-commands() with a network source

In the following example, the hook-commands() is used with the network() driver and it opens an iptables port automatically as syslog-ng OSE is started/stopped.

The assumption in this example is that the LOGCHAIN chain is part of a larger ruleset that routes traffic to it. Whenever the syslog-ng OSE created rule is there, packets can flow, otherwise the port is closed.

source {
   network(transport(udp)
	hook-commands(
          startup("iptables -I LOGCHAIN 1 -p udp --dport 514 -j ACCEPT")
          shutdown("iptables -D LOGCHAIN 1")
        )
     );
};
keep-timestamp()
Type: yes or no
Default: yes

Description: Specifies whether syslog-ng should accept the timestamp received from the sending application or client. If disabled, the time of reception will be used instead. This option can be specified globally, and per-source as well. The local setting of the source overrides the global option if available.

Caution:

To use the S_ macros, the keep-timestamp() option must be enabled (this is the default behavior of syslog-ng OSE).

log-fetch-limit()
Type: number
Default: 100

Description: The maximum number of messages fetched from a source during a single poll loop. The destination queues might fill up before flow-control could stop reading if log-fetch-limit() is too high.

inherit-environment()
Type: yes|no
Default: yes

Description: By default, when program() starts an external application or script, it inherits the entire environment of the parent process (that is, syslog-ng OSE). Use inherit-environment(no) to prevent this.

log-iw-size()
Type: number
Default: 100

Description: The size of the initial window, this value is used during flow control. If the max-connections() option is set, the log-iw-size() will be divided by the number of connections, otherwise log-iw-size() is divided by 10 (the default value of the max-connections() option). The resulting number is the initial window size of each connection. For optimal performance when receiving messages from syslog-ng OSE clients, make sure that the window size is larger than the flush-lines() option set in the destination of your clients.

Example: Initial window size of a connection

If log-iw-size(1000) and max-connections(10), then each connection will have an initial window size of 100.

log-msg-size()
Type: number (bytes)
Default: Use the global log-msg-size() option, which defaults to 65536.

Description: Maximum length of a message in bytes. This length includes the entire message (the data structure and individual fields). The maximal value that can be set is 268435456 bytes (256MB). For messages using the IETF-syslog message format (RFC5424), the maximal size of the value of an SDATA field is 64kB.

In most cases, it is not recommended to set log-msg-size() higher than 10 MiB.

For details on how encoding affects the size of the message, see Message size and encoding.

Uses the value of the global option if not specified.

log-prefix() (DEPRECATED)
Type: string
Default:

Description: A string added to the beginning of every log message. It can be used to add an arbitrary string to any log source, though it is most commonly used for adding kernel: to the kernel messages on Linux.

NOTE:

This option is deprecated. Use program-override() instead.

optional()
Type: yes or no
Default:

Description: Instruct syslog-ng to ignore the error if a specific source cannot be initialized. No other attempts to initialize the source will be made until the configuration is reloaded. This option currently applies to the pipe(), unix-dgram, and unix-stream drivers.

pad-size()
Type: number
Default: 0

Description: Specifies input padding. Some operating systems (such as HP-UX) pad all messages to block boundary. This option can be used to specify the block size. (HP-UX uses 2048 bytes). The syslog-ng OSE application will pad reads from the associated device to the number of bytes set in pad-size(). Mostly used on HP-UX where /dev/log is a named pipe and every write is padded to 2048 bytes. If pad-size() was given and the incoming message does not fit into pad-size(), syslog-ng will not read anymore from this pipe and displays the following error message:

Padding was set, and couldn't read enough bytes
program()
Type: filename with path
Default:

Description: The name of the application to start and read messages from.

program-override()
Type: string
Default:

Description: Replaces the ${PROGRAM} part of the message with the parameter string. For example, to mark every message coming from the kernel, include the program-override("kernel") option in the source containing /proc/kmsg.

tags()
Type: string
Default:

Description: Label the messages received from the source with custom tags. Tags must be unique, and enclosed between double quotes. When adding multiple tags, separate them with comma, for example tags("dmz", "router"). This option is available only in syslog-ng 3.1 and later.

time-zone()
Type: name of the timezone, or the timezone offset
Default:

Description: The default timezone for messages read from the source. Applies only if no timezone is specified within the message itself.

The timezone can be specified by using the name, for example, time-zone("Europe/Budapest")), or as the timezone offset in +/-HH:MM format, for example, +01:00). On Linux and UNIX platforms, the valid timezone names are listed under the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory.

snmptrap: Read Net-SNMP traps

Using the snmptrap() source, you can read and parse the SNMP traps of the Net-SNMP's snmptrapd application. syslog-ng OSE can read these traps from a log file, and extract their content into name-value pairs, making it easy to forward them as a structured log message (for example, in JSON format). The syslog-ng OSE application automatically adds the .snmp. prefix to the name of the fields the extracted from the message.

The snmptrap() source is available in syslog-ng OSE version 3.10 and later.

Limitations:
  • The snmptrap() source has only the options listed in snmptrap() source options. Other options commonly available in other source drivers are not supported.

  • In addition to traps, the log of snmptrapd may contain other messages (for example, daemon start/stop information, debug logs) as well. Currently syslog-ng OSE discards these messages.

  • The syslog-ng OSE application cannot resolve OIDs, you have to configure snmptrapd to do so. Note that because of a bug, if snmptrapd does not escape String values in the VarBindList if it can resolve an OID to a symbolic name. As a result, syslog-ng OSE cannot process traps that contain the = in the value of the string. To overcome this problem, disable resolving OIDs in snmptrapd. For details, see the documentation of snmptrapd.

  • The colon (:) character is commonly used in SNMP traps. However, this character cannot be used in the name of syslog-ng OSE macros (name-value pairs). Therefore, the syslog-ng OSE application automatically replaces all consecutive : characters with a single underscore (_) character. For example, you can reference the value of the NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB::netSnmpExampleString key using the ${NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB_netSnmpExampleString} macro.

    Note that this affects only name-value pairs (macros). The generated message always contains the original name of the key.

Prerequisites:
  • Configure snmptrapd to log into a file.

  • If you use SMIv1 traps, include the following format string in the configuration file of snmptrapd:

    format1 %.4y-%.2m-%.2l %.2h:%.2j:%.2k %B [%b]: %N\n\t%W Trap (%q) Uptime: %#T\n%v\n
  • If you use SMIv2 traps, use the default format. The snmptrap() source of syslog-ng OSE expects this default format:

    format2 %.4y-%.2m-%.2l %.2h:%.2j:%.2k %B [%b]:\n%v\n
  • Beacause of an snmptrapd bug, if you specify the filename in the configuration file with logOption, you must also specify another output as a command line argument (-Lf, -Ls). Otherwise, snmptrapd will not apply the the trap format.

To use the snmptrap() driver, the scl.conf file must be included in your syslog-ng OSE configuration:

@include "scl.conf"
Example: Using the snmptrap() driver

A sample snmptrapd configuration:

authCommunity log,execute,net public
format1 %.4y-%.2m-%.2l %.2h:%.2j:%.2k %B [%b]: %N\n\t%W Trap (%q) Uptime: %#T\n%v\n
outputOption s

Starting snmptrapd: snmptrapd -A -Lf /var/log/snmptrapd.log

Sending a sample V2 trap message: snmptrap -v2c -c public 127.0.0.1 666 NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB::netSnmpExampleHeartbeatNotification netSnmpExampleHeartbeatRate i 60 netSnmpExampleString s "string". From this trap, syslog-ng OSE receives the following input:

2017-05-23 15:29:40 localhost [UDP: [127.0.0.1]:59993->[127.0.0.1]:162]:
SNMPv2-SMI::mib-2.1.3.0 = Timeticks: (666) 0:00:06.66   SNMPv2-SMI::snmpModules.1.1.4.1.0 = OID: NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB::netSnmpExampleHeartbeatNotification     NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB::netSnmpExampleHeartbeatRate = INTEGER: 60        NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB::netSnmpExampleString = STRING: string

The following syslog-ng OSE configuration sample uses the default settings of the driver, reading SNMP traps from the /var/log/snmptrapd.log file, and writes the log messages generated from the traps into a file.

@include "scl.conf"
log {
  source {
    snmptrap(filename("/var/log/snmptrapd.log"));
  };
  destination {
    file("/var/log/example.log");
  };
};

From the trap, syslog-ng OSE writes the following into the log file:

May 23 15:29:40 myhostname snmptrapd: hostname='localhost', transport_info='UDP: [127.0.0.1]:59993->[127.0.0.1]:162', SNMPv2-SMI::mib-2.1.3.0='(666) 0:00:06.66', SNMPv2-SMI::snmpModules.1.1.4.1.0='NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB::netSnmpExampleHeartbeatNotification', NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB::netSnmpExampleHeartbeatRate='60', NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB::netSnmpExampleString='string'

Using the same input trap, the following configuration example formats the SNMP traps as JSON messages.

@include "scl.conf"
log {
  source {
    snmptrap(
      filename("/var/log/snmptrapd.log")
      set-message-macro(no)
    );
  };

  destination {
    file("/var/log/example.log" template("$(format-json --scope dot-nv-pairs)\n"));
  };
};

The previous trap formatted as JSON:

{
   "_snmp":{
      "transport_info":"UDP: [127.0.0.1]:59993->[127.0.0.1]:162",
      "hostname":"localhost",
      "SNMPv2-SMI_snmpModules":{
         "1":{
            "1":{
               "4":{
                  "1":{
                     "0":"NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB::netSnmpExampleHeartbeatNotification"
                  }
               }
            }
         }
      },
      "SNMPv2-SMI_mib-2":{
         "1":{
            "3":{
               "0":"(666) 0:00:06.66"
            }
         }
      },
      "NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB_netSnmpExampleString":"string",
      "NET-SNMP-EXAMPLES-MIB_netSnmpExampleHeartbeatRate":"60"
   }
}
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