syslog

Milestone: 1

Read syslog messages as events over the network.

This input is a good choice if you already use syslog today. It is also a good choice if you want to receive logs from appliances and network devices where you cannot run your own log collector.

Of course, ‘syslog’ is a very muddy term. This input only supports RFC3164 syslog with some small modifications. The date format is allowed to be RFC3164 style or ISO8601. Otherwise the rest of RFC3164 must be obeyed. If you do not use RFC3164, do not use this input.

For more information see (the RFC3164 page)[http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3164.txt].

Note: this input will start listeners on both TCP and UDP.

Synopsis

This is what it might look like in your config file:
input {
  syslog {
    add_field => ... # hash (optional), default: {}
    codec => ... # codec (optional), default: "plain"
    facility_labels => ... # array (optional), default: ["kernel", "user-level", "mail", "system", "security/authorization", "syslogd", "line printer", "network news", "UUCP", "clock", "security/authorization", "FTP", "NTP", "log audit", "log alert", "clock", "local0", "local1", "local2", "local3", "local4", "local5", "local6", "local7"]
    host => ... # string (optional), default: "0.0.0.0"
    port => ... # number (optional), default: 514
    severity_labels => ... # array (optional), default: ["Emergency", "Alert", "Critical", "Error", "Warning", "Notice", "Informational", "Debug"]
    tags => ... # array (optional)
    type => ... # string (optional)
    use_labels => ... # boolean (optional), default: true
  }
}

Details

add_field

  • Value type is hash
  • Default value is {}

Add a field to an event

charset DEPRECATED

  • DEPRECATED WARNING: This config item is deprecated. It may be removed in a further version.
  • Value can be any of: "ASCII-8BIT", "Big5", "Big5-HKSCS", "Big5-UAO", "CP949", "Emacs-Mule", "EUC-JP", "EUC-KR", "EUC-TW", "GB18030", "GBK", "ISO-8859-1", "ISO-8859-2", "ISO-8859-3", "ISO-8859-4", "ISO-8859-5", "ISO-8859-6", "ISO-8859-7", "ISO-8859-8", "ISO-8859-9", "ISO-8859-10", "ISO-8859-11", "ISO-8859-13", "ISO-8859-14", "ISO-8859-15", "ISO-8859-16", "KOI8-R", "KOI8-U", "Shift_JIS", "US-ASCII", "UTF-8", "UTF-16BE", "UTF-16LE", "UTF-32BE", "UTF-32LE", "Windows-1251", "GB2312", "IBM437", "IBM737", "IBM775", "CP850", "IBM852", "CP852", "IBM855", "CP855", "IBM857", "IBM860", "IBM861", "IBM862", "IBM863", "IBM864", "IBM865", "IBM866", "IBM869", "Windows-1258", "GB1988", "macCentEuro", "macCroatian", "macCyrillic", "macGreek", "macIceland", "macRoman", "macRomania", "macThai", "macTurkish", "macUkraine", "CP950", "CP951", "stateless-ISO-2022-JP", "eucJP-ms", "CP51932", "GB12345", "ISO-2022-JP", "ISO-2022-JP-2", "CP50220", "CP50221", "Windows-1252", "Windows-1250", "Windows-1256", "Windows-1253", "Windows-1255", "Windows-1254", "TIS-620", "Windows-874", "Windows-1257", "Windows-31J", "MacJapanese", "UTF-7", "UTF8-MAC", "UTF-16", "UTF-32", "UTF8-DoCoMo", "SJIS-DoCoMo", "UTF8-KDDI", "SJIS-KDDI", "ISO-2022-JP-KDDI", "stateless-ISO-2022-JP-KDDI", "UTF8-SoftBank", "SJIS-SoftBank", "BINARY", "CP437", "CP737", "CP775", "IBM850", "CP857", "CP860", "CP861", "CP862", "CP863", "CP864", "CP865", "CP866", "CP869", "CP1258", "Big5-HKSCS:2008", "eucJP", "euc-jp-ms", "eucKR", "eucTW", "EUC-CN", "eucCN", "CP936", "ISO2022-JP", "ISO2022-JP2", "ISO8859-1", "CP1252", "ISO8859-2", "CP1250", "ISO8859-3", "ISO8859-4", "ISO8859-5", "ISO8859-6", "CP1256", "ISO8859-7", "CP1253", "ISO8859-8", "CP1255", "ISO8859-9", "CP1254", "ISO8859-10", "ISO8859-11", "CP874", "ISO8859-13", "CP1257", "ISO8859-14", "ISO8859-15", "ISO8859-16", "CP878", "CP932", "csWindows31J", "SJIS", "PCK", "MacJapan", "ASCII", "ANSI_X3.4-1968", "646", "CP65000", "CP65001", "UTF-8-MAC", "UTF-8-HFS", "UCS-2BE", "UCS-4BE", "UCS-4LE", "CP1251", "external", "locale"
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The character encoding used in this input. Examples include “UTF-8” and “cp1252”

This setting is useful if your log files are in Latin-1 (aka cp1252) or in another character set other than UTF-8.

This only affects “plain” format logs since json is UTF-8 already.

codec

  • Value type is codec
  • Default value is "plain"

The codec used for input data. Input codecs are a convenient method for decoding your data before it enters the input, without needing a separate filter in your Logstash pipeline.

debug DEPRECATED

  • DEPRECATED WARNING: This config item is deprecated. It may be removed in a further version.
  • Value type is boolean
  • Default value is false

facility_labels

  • Value type is array
  • Default value is ["kernel", "user-level", "mail", "system", "security/authorization", "syslogd", "line printer", "network news", "UUCP", "clock", "security/authorization", "FTP", "NTP", "log audit", "log alert", "clock", "local0", "local1", "local2", "local3", "local4", "local5", "local6", "local7"]

Labels for facility levels. These are defined in RFC3164.

format DEPRECATED

  • DEPRECATED WARNING: This config item is deprecated. It may be removed in a further version.
  • Value can be any of: "plain", "json", "json_event", "msgpack_event"
  • There is no default value for this setting.

The format of input data (plain, json, json_event)

host

  • Value type is string
  • Default value is "0.0.0.0"

The address to listen on.

message_format DEPRECATED

  • DEPRECATED WARNING: This config item is deprecated. It may be removed in a further version.
  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

If format is “json”, an event sprintf string to build what the display @message should be given (defaults to the raw JSON). sprintf format strings look like %{fieldname}

If format is “json_event”, ALL fields except for @type are expected to be present. Not receiving all fields will cause unexpected results.

port

  • Value type is number
  • Default value is 514

The port to listen on. Remember that ports less than 1024 (privileged ports) may require root to use.

severity_labels

  • Value type is array
  • Default value is ["Emergency", "Alert", "Critical", "Error", "Warning", "Notice", "Informational", "Debug"]

Labels for severity levels. These are defined in RFC3164.

tags

  • Value type is array
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Add any number of arbitrary tags to your event.

This can help with processing later.

type

  • Value type is string
  • There is no default value for this setting.

Add a ‘type’ field to all events handled by this input.

Types are used mainly for filter activation.

The type is stored as part of the event itself, so you can also use the type to search for it in the web interface.

If you try to set a type on an event that already has one (for example when you send an event from a shipper to an indexer) then a new input will not override the existing type. A type set at the shipper stays with that event for its life even when sent to another Logstash server.

use_labels

  • Value type is boolean
  • Default value is true

Use label parsing for severity and facility levels.


This is documentation from lib/logstash/inputs/syslog.rb