Install From Source

This article explains how to install Fluentd from source code (git repository). This is useful for developers.

Step-1: Install Ruby interpreter

Please install Ruby >= 1.9.3 and bundler on your local environment.

Step-2: Fetch Source Code

Fetch the source code from github. The official repository is located here.

$ git clone https://github.com/fluent/fluentd.git
$ cd fluentd
$ git checkout -b v0.12 origin/v0.12

master branch is now for v1.x development so you need to checkout v0.12 branch.

Step-3: Build and Install

Build the package with rake and install it with gem.

$ bundle install
Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/.........
...
Your bundle is complete!
Use `bundle show [gemname]` to see where a bundled gem is installed.
$ bundle exec rake build
fluentd xxx built to pkg/fluentd-xxx.gem.
$ gem install pkg/fluentd-xxx.gem

Step-4: Run

Run the following commands to to confirm that Fluentd was installed successfully:

$ fluentd --setup ./fluent
$ fluentd -c ./fluent/fluent.conf -vv &
$ echo '{"json":"message"}' | fluent-cat debug.test

The last command sends Fluentd a message '{"json":"message"}' with a "debug.test" tag. If the installation was successful, Fluentd will output the following message:

2011-07-10 16:49:50 +0900 debug.test: {"json":"message"}

It's HIGHLY recommended that you set up ntpd on the node to prevent invalid timestamps in your logs.

For large deployments, you must use jemalloc to avoid memory fragmentation. This is already included in the rpm and deb packages.

Next Steps

You're now ready to collect your real logs using Fluentd. Please see the following tutorials to learn how to collect your data from various data sources.

If this article is incorrect or outdated, or omits critical information, please let us know. Fluentd is a open source project under Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). All components are available under the Apache 2 License.

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