Syslog Input Plugin

The syslog plugin listens for syslog messages transmitted over UDP or TCP.

Syslog messages should be formatted according to RFC 5424.

Configuration

[[inputs.syslog]]
  ## Specify an ip or hostname with port - eg., tcp://localhost:6514, tcp://10.0.0.1:6514
  ## Protocol, address and port to host the syslog receiver.
  ## If no host is specified, then localhost is used.
  ## If no port is specified, 6514 is used (RFC5425#section-4.1).
  server = "tcp://:6514"

  ## TLS Config
  # tls_allowed_cacerts = ["/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"]
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"

  ## Period between keep alive probes.
  ## 0 disables keep alive probes.
  ## Defaults to the OS configuration.
  ## Only applies to stream sockets (e.g. TCP).
  # keep_alive_period = "5m"

  ## Maximum number of concurrent connections (default = 0).
  ## 0 means unlimited.
  ## Only applies to stream sockets (e.g. TCP).
  # max_connections = 1024

  ## Read timeout is the maximum time allowed for reading a single message (default = 5s).
  ## 0 means unlimited.
  # read_timeout = "5s"

  ## Whether to parse in best effort mode or not (default = false).
  ## By default best effort parsing is off.
  # best_effort = false

  ## Character to prepend to SD-PARAMs (default = "_").
  ## A syslog message can contain multiple parameters and multiple identifiers within structured data section.
  ## Eg., [id1 name1="val1" name2="val2"][id2 name1="val1" nameA="valA"]
  ## For each combination a field is created.
  ## Its name is created concatenating identifier, sdparam_separator, and parameter name.
  # sdparam_separator = "_"

Best Effort

The best_effort option instructs the parser to extract partial but valid info from syslog messages. If unset only full messages will be collected.

Rsyslog Integration

Rsyslog can be configured to forward logging messages to Telegraf by configuring remote logging.

Most system are setup with a configuration split between /etc/rsyslog.conf and the files in the /etc/rsyslog.d/ directory, it is recommended to add the new configuration into the config directory to simplify updates to the main config file.

Add the following lines to /etc/rsyslog.d/50-telegraf.conf making adjustments to the target address as needed:

$ActionQueueType LinkedList # use asynchronous processing
$ActionQueueFileName srvrfwd # set file name, also enables disk mode
$ActionResumeRetryCount -1 # infinite retries on insert failure
$ActionQueueSaveOnShutdown on # save in-memory data if rsyslog shuts down

# forward over tcp with octet framing according to RFC 5425
*.* @@(o)127.0.0.1:6514;RSYSLOG_SyslogProtocol23Format

# uncomment to use udp according to RFC 5424
#*.* @127.0.0.1:6514;RSYSLOG_SyslogProtocol23Format

You can alternately use advanced format (aka RainerScript):

# forward over tcp with octet framing according to RFC 5425
action(type="omfwd" Protocol="tcp" TCP_Framing="octet-counted" Target="127.0.0.1" Port="6514" Template="RSYSLOG_SyslogProtocol23Format")

# uncomment to use udp according to RFC 5424
#action(type="omfwd" Protocol="udp" Target="127.0.0.1" Port="6514" Template="RSYSLOG_SyslogProtocol23Format")

To complete TLS setup please refer to rsyslog docs.

Metrics

syslog
- tags
  - severity (string)
  - facility (string)
  - hostname (string)
  - appname (string)
- fields
  - version (integer)
  - severity_code (integer)
  - facility_code (integer)
  - timestamp (integer): the time recorded in the syslog message
  - procid (string)
  - msgid (string)
  - sdid (bool)
  - Structured Data (string)
- timestamp: the time the messages was received

Structured Data

Structured data produces field keys by combining the SD_ID with the PARAM_NAME combined using the sdparam_separator as in the following example:

170 <165>1 2018-10-01:14:15.000Z mymachine.example.com evntslog - ID47 [exampleSDID@32473 iut="3" eventSource="Application" eventID="1011"] An application event log entry...

syslog,appname=evntslog,facility=local4,hostname=mymachine.example.com,severity=notice exampleSDID@32473_eventID="1011",exampleSDID@32473_eventSource="Application",exampleSDID@32473_iut="3",facility_code=20i,message="An application event log entry...",msgid="ID47",severity_code=5i,timestamp=1065910455003000000i,version=1i 1538421339749472344

Troubleshooting

You can send debugging messages directly to the input plugin using netcat:

# TCP with octet framing
echo "57 <13>1 2018-10-01T12:00:00.0Z example.org root - - - test" | nc 127.0.0.1 6514

# UDP
echo "<13>1 2018-10-01T12:00:00.0Z example.org root - - - test" | nc -u 127.0.0.1 6514

RFC3164

RFC3164 encoded messages are not currently supported. You may see the following error if a message encoded in this format:

E! Error in plugin [inputs.syslog]: expecting a version value in the range 1-999 [col 5]

You can use rsyslog to translate RFC3164 syslog messages into RFC5424 format.

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