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syslog-ng Premium Edition 7.0.29 - 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 without Java 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 Transfer 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

systemd-syslog: Collecting systemd messages using a socket

On platforms running systemd, the systemd-syslog() driver reads the log messages of systemd using the /run/systemd/journal/syslog socket. Note the following points about this driver:

  • If possible, use the more reliable systemd-journal() driver instead.

  • The socket activation of systemd is buggy, causing some log messages to get lost during system startup.

  • If syslog-ng PE is running in a jail or a Linux Container (LXC), it will not read from the /dev/kmsg or /proc/kmsg files.

Declaration
systemd-syslog();
Example: Using the systemd-syslog() driver
@version: 7.0

source s_systemdd {
    systemd-syslog();
};

destination d_network {
    syslog("server.host");
};

log {
    source(s_systemdd);
    destination(d_network);
};

tcp, tcp6, udp, udp6: Collecting messages from remote hosts using the BSD syslog protocol

NOTE: The tcp(), tcp6(), udp(), and udp6() drivers are obsolete. Use the network() source and the network() destination instead. For details, see network: Collecting messages using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver) and network: Sending messages to a remote log server using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver), respectively.

The tcp(), tcp6(), udp(), udp6() drivers can receive syslog messages conforming to RFC3164 from the network using the TCP and UDP networking protocols. The tcp6() and udp6() drivers use the IPv6 network protocol, while tcp() and udp() use IPv4.

To convert your existing tcp(), tcp6(), udp(), udp6() source drivers to use the network() driver, see Change an old source driver to the network() driver.

tcp(), tcp6(), udp() and udp6() source options — OBSOLETE

NOTE: The tcp(), tcp6(), udp(), and udp6() drivers are obsolete. Use the network() source and the network() destination instead. For details, see network: Collecting messages using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver) and network: Sending messages to a remote log server using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver), respectively.

To convert your existing tcp(), tcp6(), udp(), udp6() source drivers to use the network() driver, see Change an old source driver to the network() driver.

Change an old source driver to the network() driver

To replace your existing tcp(), tcp6(), udp(), udp6() sources with a network() source, complete the following steps.

  1. Replace the driver with network. For example, replace udp( with network(

  2. Set the transport protocol.

    • If you used TLS-encryption, add the transport("tls") option, then continue with the next step.

    • If you used the tcp or tcp6 driver, add the transport("tcp") option.

    • If you used the udp or udp driver, add the transport("udp") option.

  3. If you use IPv6 (that is, the udp6 or tcp6 driver), add the ip-protocol(6) option.

  4. If you did not specify the port used in the old driver, check network() source options and verify that your clients send the messages to the default port of the transport protocol you use. Otherwise, set the appropriate port number in your source using the port() option.

  5. All other options are identical. Test your configuration with the syslog-ng --syntax-only command.

    The following configuration shows a simple tcp source.

    source s_old_tcp {
        tcp(
            ip(127.0.0.1) port(1999)
            tls(
                peer-verify("required-trusted")
                key-file("/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.key")
                cert-file('/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.crt')
            )
        );
    };

    When replaced with the network() driver, it looks like this.

    source s_new_network_tcp {
        network(
            transport("tls")
            ip(127.0.0.1) port(1999)
            tls(
                peer-verify("required-trusted")
                key-file("/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.key")
                cert-file('/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.crt')
            )
        );
    };

Change an old source driver to the network() driver

To replace your existing tcp(), tcp6(), udp(), udp6() sources with a network() source, complete the following steps.

  1. Replace the driver with network. For example, replace udp( with network(

  2. Set the transport protocol.

    • If you used TLS-encryption, add the transport("tls") option, then continue with the next step.

    • If you used the tcp or tcp6 driver, add the transport("tcp") option.

    • If you used the udp or udp driver, add the transport("udp") option.

  3. If you use IPv6 (that is, the udp6 or tcp6 driver), add the ip-protocol(6) option.

  4. If you did not specify the port used in the old driver, check network() source options and verify that your clients send the messages to the default port of the transport protocol you use. Otherwise, set the appropriate port number in your source using the port() option.

  5. All other options are identical. Test your configuration with the syslog-ng --syntax-only command.

    The following configuration shows a simple tcp source.

    source s_old_tcp {
        tcp(
            ip(127.0.0.1) port(1999)
            tls(
                peer-verify("required-trusted")
                key-file("/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.key")
                cert-file('/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.crt')
            )
        );
    };

    When replaced with the network() driver, it looks like this.

    source s_new_network_tcp {
        network(
            transport("tls")
            ip(127.0.0.1) port(1999)
            tls(
                peer-verify("required-trusted")
                key-file("/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.key")
                cert-file('/opt/syslog-ng/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.crt')
            )
        );
    };
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