syslog-ng Premium Edition 6.0.18 - Administration Guide

Description: The authentication method to use. Lowercase values (for example, sha) can be used as well.

This option is used with the SNMPv3 protocol.

Description: The password used for authentication. If the auth-username() option is set but the auth-password() is empty, syslog-ng PE will try to authenticate with an empty password.

This option is used with the SNMPv3 protocol.

Description: The username used to authenticate on the SNMP server. If this parameter is set, syslog-ng PE will try to authenticate on the SNMP server.

This option is used with the SNMPv3 protocol.

Description: The community string used for SNMPv2c authentication.

This option is used with the SNMPv2c protocol.

Description: The encryption method used to encrypt the SNMP traffic. Lowercase values (for example, aes) can be used as well.

This option is used with the SNMPv3 protocol.

Description: The password used for the encryption. Encryption is used only if the enc-password() is not empty.

This option is used with the SNMPv3 protocol.

Description: The engine ID is a hexadecimal number at least 10 digits long, starting with 0x. For example 0xABABABABAB.

This option is a required parameter when using the SNMPv3 protocol.

Description: Hostname of the SNMP server.

Description: The number of messages that the output queue can store.

Description: The port number to connect to.

Description: The snmp-obj() option can be used to create custom SNMP trap elements. To create a trap element, specify the OID, type, and value of the element in the snmp-obj() option. To send SNMP traps, at least one snmp-obj() option must be defined. The snmp-obj() option requires the following parameters. Note that syslog-ng PE does not validate the values of these elements.

snmp-obj('.1.3.6.1.4.1.18372.3.1.1.1.1.3', 'Ipaddress', '192.168.1.1')

snmp-obj('.1.3.6.1.4.1.18372.3.1.1.1.1.2', 'Octetstring', '${MESSAGE}')

Description: Convert timestamps to the timezone specified by this option. If this option is not set, then the original timezone information in the message is used. Converting the timezone changes the values of all date-related macros derived from the timestamp, for example, HOUR. For the complete list of such macros, see the section called “Date-related macros”.

The timezone can be specified as using the name of the (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.

Description: The trap-obj() is a specialized version of the snmp-obj() option that is used to identify the SNMP trap object. The type of the trap object is always Objectid. The <oid_of_the_object> and the <value_of_the_object> parameters are identical to the respective parameters of the snmp-obj() option. For details on these parameters, see the section called “snmp-obj()”.

Description: Specifies which version of the SNMP protocol to use.

Description: Name of the columns storing the data in fieldname [dbtype] format. The [dbtype] parameter is optional, and specifies the type of the field. By default, syslog-ng PE creates text columns. Note that not every database engine can index text fields.

Description: Name of the database that stores the logs. Macros cannot be used in database name. Also, when using an Oracle database, you cannot use the same database() settings in more than one destination.

Description: This option enables putting outgoing messages into the disk buffer of the destination to avoid message loss in case of a system failure on the destination side. It has the following options:

Options reliable() and disk-buf-size() are required options.

destination d_demo {
    network(
            "127.0.0.1"
            port(3333)
            disk-buffer(
                mem-buf-size(10000)
                disk-buf-size(2000000)
                reliable(yes)
                dir("/tmp/disk-buffer")
            )
        );
};

destination d_demo {
    network(
            "127.0.0.1"
            port(3333)
            disk-buffer(
                mem-buf-length(10000)
                disk-buf-size(2000000)
                reliable(no)
                dir("/tmp/disk-buffer")
            )
        );
};

Description: Flags related to the sql() destination.

flags(dont-create-tables,explicit-commits)

Description: Specifies how many lines are sent to a destination at a time. The syslog-ng PE application waits for this number of lines to accumulate and sends them off in a single batch. Setting this number high increases throughput as fully filled frames are sent to the destination, but also increases message latency.

For optimal performance when sending messages to an syslog-ng PE server, make sure that the flush-lines() is smaller than the window size set using the log-iw-size() option in the source of your server.

Description: This is an obsolete option. Specifies the time syslog-ng waits for lines to accumulate in its output buffer. For details, see the flush-lines() option.

Description: The syslog-ng application can store fractions of a second in the timestamps according to the ISO8601 format. The frac-digits() parameter specifies the number of digits stored. The digits storing the fractions are padded by zeros if the original timestamp of the message specifies only seconds. Fractions can always be stored for the time the message was received. Note that syslog-ng can add the fractions to non-ISO8601 timestamps as well.

Description: Hostname of the database server. Note that Oracle destinations do not use this parameter, but retrieve the hostname from the /etc/tnsnames.ora file.

Description: The list of columns that are indexed by the database to speed up searching. To disable indexing for the destination, include the empty indexes() parameter in the destination, simply omitting the indexes parameter will cause syslog-ng to request indexing on the default columns.

The syslog-ng PE application will create the name of indexes automaticaly with the following method:

Description: Sets the timezone used when expanding filename and tablename templates.

The timezone can be specified as using the name of the (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.

Description: The number of messages that the output queue can store.

Description: If the content of a column matches the string specified in the null() parameter, the contents of the column will be replaced with an SQL NULL value. If unset (by default), the option does not match on any string. For details, see the Example 7.39, “Using SQL NULL values”.

destination d_sql {
    sql(type(pgsql)
    host("logserver") username("syslog-ng") password("password")
    database("logs")
    table("messages_${HOST}_${R_YEAR}${R_MONTH}${R_DAY}")
    columns("datetime", "host", "program", "pid", "message")
    values("${R_DATE}", "${HOST}", "${PROGRAM}", "${PID}", "${MSGONLY}")
    indexes("datetime", "host", "program", "pid", "message")
    null(""));
};

destination d_sql {
    sql(type(pgsql)
    host("logserver") username("syslog-ng") password("password")
    database("logs")
    table("messages_${HOST}_${R_YEAR}${R_MONTH}${R_DAY}")
    columns("datetime", "host", "program", "pid", "message")
    values("${R_DATE}", "${HOST}", "${PROGRAM}", "${PID:-@@NULL@@}", "${MSGONLY}")
    indexes("datetime", "host", "program", "pid", "message")
    null("@@NULL@@"));
};

Description: Password of the database user.

Description: The port number to connect to.

Description: The number of insertion attempts. If syslog-ng PE could not insert a message into the database, it will repeat the attempt until the number of attempts reaches retries, then drops the connection to the database. For example, syslog-ng PE will try to insert a message maximum three times by default (once for first insertion and twice if the first insertion was failed).

Description: Specifies one or more SQL-like statement which is executed after syslog-ng PE has successfully connected to the database. For example:

session-statements("SET COLLATION_CONNECTION='utf8_general_ci'")

Description: Name of the database table to use (can include macros). When using macros, note that some databases limit the length of table names.

Description: Convert timestamps to the timezone specified by this option. If this option is not set, then the original timezone information in the message is used. Converting the timezone changes the values of all date-related macros derived from the timestamp, for example, HOUR. For the complete list of such macros, see the section called “Date-related macros”.

The timezone can be specified as using the name of the (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.

Description: Specifies the type of the database, that is, the DBI database driver to use. Use the mssql option to send logs to an MSSQL database. For details, see the examples of the databases on the following sections.

Description: Name of the database user.

Description: The parts of the message to store in the fields specified in the columns() parameter.

It is possible to give a special value calling: default (without quotation marks).It means that the value will be used that is the default of the column type of this value.

columns("date datetime", "host varchar(32)", "row_id serial")
values("${R_DATE}", "${HOST}", default)

Description: This option enables putting outgoing messages into the disk buffer of the destination to avoid message loss in case of a system failure on the destination side. It has the following options:

Options reliable() and disk-buf-size() are required options.

destination d_demo {
    network(
            "127.0.0.1"
            port(3333)
            disk-buffer(
                mem-buf-size(10000)
                disk-buf-size(2000000)
                reliable(yes)
                dir("/tmp/disk-buffer")
            )
        );
};

destination d_demo {
    network(
            "127.0.0.1"
            port(3333)
            disk-buffer(
                mem-buf-length(10000)
                disk-buf-size(2000000)
                reliable(no)
                dir("/tmp/disk-buffer")
            )
        );
};

Description: Available only in syslog-ng Premium Edition version 3.2 and later. Specifies a secondary destination server where log messages are sent if the primary server becomes unaccessible. To list several failover servers, separate the address of the servers with comma. The time syslog-ng PE waits for the a server before switching to the next failover server is set in the time-reopen() option. For details about how client-side failover works, see the section called “Client-side failover”.

destination d_syslog_tcp{
                syslog("10.100.20.40"
                transport("tcp")
                port(6514)
                failover-servers("10.2.3.4", "myfailoverserver")
                );};

destination d_syslog_tls{
                network("10.100.20.40"
                transport("tls")
                port(6514)
                failover-servers("10.2.3.4", "myfailoverserver")
                tls(peer-verify(required-trusted)
                ca-dir('/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/keys/ca.d/')
                key-file('/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/keys/client_key.pem')
                cert-file('/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/keys/client_certificate.pem'))
                );};

Description: Flags influence the behavior of the destination driver.

Description: Specifies how many lines are sent to a destination at a time. The syslog-ng PE application waits for this number of lines to accumulate and sends them off in a single batch. Setting this number high increases throughput as fully filled frames are sent to the destination, but also increases message latency.

For optimal performance when sending messages to an syslog-ng PE server, make sure that the flush-lines() is smaller than the window size set using the log-iw-size() option in the source of your server.

Description: This is an obsolete option. Specifies the time syslog-ng waits for lines to accumulate in its output buffer. For details, see the flush-lines() option.

Description: The syslog-ng application can store fractions of a second in the timestamps according to the ISO8601 format. The frac-digits() parameter specifies the number of digits stored. The digits storing the fractions are padded by zeros if the original timestamp of the message specifies only seconds. Fractions can always be stored for the time the message was received. Note that syslog-ng can add the fractions to non-ISO8601 timestamps as well.

Description: Specifies the Type-of-Service value of outgoing packets.

Description: Specifies the Time-To-Live value of outgoing packets.

Description: Specifies whether connections to destinations should be closed when syslog-ng is reloaded. Note that this applies to the client (destination) side of the syslog-ng connections, server-side (source) connections are always reopened after receiving a HUP signal unless the keep-alive option is enabled for the source.

Description: The IP address to bind to before connecting to target.

Description: The port number to bind to. Messages are sent from this port.

Description: The number of messages that the output queue can store.

Description: An alias for the obsolete mark() option, retained for compatibility with syslog-ng version 1.6.x. The number of seconds between two MARK messages. MARK messages are generated when there was no message traffic to inform the receiver that the connection is still alive. If set to zero (0), no MARK messages are sent. The mark-freq() can be set for global option and/or every MARK capable destination driver if mark-mode() is periodical or dst-idle or host-idle. If mark-freq() is not defined in the destination, then the mark-freq() will be inherited from the global options. If the destination uses internal mark-mode(), then the global mark-freq() will be valid (does not matter what mark-freq() set in the destination side).

Description: The mark-mode() option can be set for the following destination drivers: file(), program(), unix-dgram(), unix-stream(), network(), pipe(), syslog() and in global option.

Available in syslog-ng PE 4 LTS and later.

Description: The port number to connect to.

Description: This option controls the SO_BROADCAST socket option required to make syslog-ng send messages to a broadcast address. For details, see the socket(7) manual page.

Description: Enables keep-alive messages, keeping the socket open. This only effects TCP and UNIX-stream sockets. For details, see the socket(7) manual page.

Description: Specifies the size of the socket receive buffer in bytes. For details, see the socket(7) manual page.

Description: Specifies the size of the socket send buffer in bytes. For details, see the socket(7) manual page.

Description: Enables source address spoofing. This means that the host running syslog-ng generates UDP packets with the source IP address matching the original sender of the message. This is useful when you want to perform some kind of preprocessing via syslog-ng, then forward messages to your central log management solution with the source address of the original sender. This option only works for UDP destinations, though the original message can be received by TCP as well.

Description: If several identical log messages would be sent to the destination without any other messages between the identical messages (for example, an application repeated an error message ten times), syslog-ng can suppress the repeated messages and send the message only once, followed by the Last message repeated n times. message. The parameter of this option specifies the number of seconds syslog-ng waits for identical messages.

Description: Specifies a template defining the logformat to be used in the destination. Macros are described in the section called “Macros of syslog-ng PE”. Please note that for network destinations it might not be appropriate to change the template as it changes the on-wire format of the syslog protocol which might not be tolerated by stock syslog receivers (like syslogd or syslog-ng itself). For network destinations make sure the receiver can cope with the custom format defined.

Description: Turns on escaping for the ', ", and backspace characters in templated output files. This is useful for generating SQL statements and quoting string contents so that parts of the log message are not interpreted as commands to the SQL server.

Description: Sets the maximum number of messages sent to the destination per second. Use this output-rate-limiting functionality only when using disk-buffer as well to avoid the risk of losing messages. Specifying 0 or a lower value sets the output limit to unlimited.

Description: Convert timestamps to the timezone specified by this option. If this option is not set, then the original timezone information in the message is used. Converting the timezone changes the values of all date-related macros derived from the timestamp, for example, HOUR. For the complete list of such macros, see the section called “Date-related macros”.

The timezone can be specified as using the name of the (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.

Description: This option sets various options related to TLS encryption, for example, key/certificate files and trusted CA locations. TLS can be used only with tcp-based transport protocols. For details, see the section called “TLS options”.

Description: Specifies the protocol used to send messages to the destination server.

If you use the udp transport, syslog-ng PE automatically sends multicast packets if a multicast destination address is specified. The tcp transport does not support multicasting.

Description: Override the global timestamp format (set in the global ts-format() parameter) for the specific destination. For details, see the section called “A note on timezones and timestamps”.