unix

Milestone: 2

Read events over a UNIX socket.

Like stdin and file inputs, each event is assumed to be one line of text.

Can either accept connections from clients or connect to a server, depending on mode.

Synopsis

This is what it might look like in your config file:

input {
  unix {
    add_field => ... # hash (optional), default: {}
    codec => ... # codec (optional), default: "plain"
    data_timeout => ... # number (optional), default: -1
    force_unlink => ... # boolean (optional), default: false
    mode => ... # string, one of ["server", "client"] (optional), default: "server"
    path => ... # string (required)
    tags => ... # array (optional)
    type => ... # string (optional)
  }
}

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.

data_timeout

Value type is number
Default value is -1

The ‘read’ timeout in seconds. If a particular connection is idle for more than this timeout period, we will assume it is dead and close it.

If you never want to timeout, use -1.

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

force_unlink

Value type is boolean
Default value is false

Remove socket file in case of EADDRINUSE failure

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)

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.

mode

Value can be any of: "server", "client"
Default value is "server"

Mode to operate in. server listens for client connections, client connects to a server.

path (required setting)

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

When mode is server, the path to listen on. When mode is client, the path to connect to.

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.

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