# forward
The `out_forward` Buffered Output plugin forwards events to other fluentd nodes. This plugin supports load-balancing and automatic fail-over (a.k.a. active-active backup). For replication, please use the [out\_copy](https://docs.fluentd.org/0.12/output/copy) plugin.
The `out_forward` plugin detects server faults using a "φ accrual failure detector" algorithm. You can customize the parameters of the algorithm. When a server fault recovers, the plugin makes the server available automatically after a few seconds.
The `out_forward` plugin supports at-most-once and at-least-once semantics. The default is at-most-once. Do **NOT** use this plugin for inter-DC or public internet data transfer without secure connections. All the data is not encrypted, and this plugin is not designed for high-latency network environment. If you require a secure connection between nodes, please consider using [in\_secure\_forward](https://docs.fluentd.org/0.12/input/secure_forward).
## Example Configuration
`out_forward` is included in Fluentd's core. No additional installation process is required.
```
@type forward
send_timeout 60s
recover_wait 10s
hard_timeout 60s
name myserver1
host 192.168.1.3
port 24224
weight 60
name myserver2
host 192.168.1.4
port 24224
weight 60
...
@type file
path /var/log/fluent/forward-failed
```
Please see the [Config File](https://docs.fluentd.org/0.12/configuration/config-file) article for the basic structure and syntax of the configuration file.
## Parameters
### type (required)
The value must be `forward`.
### \ (at least one is required)
The destination servers. Each server must have following information.
* *name*: The name of the server. This parameter is used in error
messages.
* *host* (required): The IP address or host name of the server.
* *port*: The port number of the host. The default is `24224`. Note
that both TCP packets (event stream) and UDP packets (heartbeat
message) are sent to this port.
* *weight*: The load balancing weight. If the weight of one server is
20 and the weight of the other server is 30, events are sent in a
2:3 ratio. The default weight is 60.
* *standby*: Set the destination to standby node. The default is
`false`. standby servers will be selected when all non-standby
servers went down.
### require\_ack\_response
Change the protocol to at-least-once. The plugin waits the ack from destination's in\_forward plugin.
### ack\_response\_timeout
This option is used when `require_ack_response` is `true`. The default is 190. This default value is based on popular tcp\_syn\_retries.
If set `0`, this plugin doesn't wait the ack response.
### \ (optional)
The backup destination that is used when all servers are unavailable.
### send\_timeout
The timeout time when sending event logs. The default is 60 seconds.
### recover\_wait
The wait time before accepting a server fault recovery. The default is 10 seconds.
### heartbeat\_type
The transport protocol to use for heartbeats. The default is "udp", but you can select "tcp" as well. Set "none" to disable heartbeat.
### heartbeat\_interval
The interval of the heartbeat packer. The default is 1 second.
### phi\_failure\_detector
Use the "Phi accrual failure detector" to detect server failure. The default value is `true`.
### phi\_threshold
The threshold parameter used to detect server faults. The default value is 16.
\`phi\_threshold\` is deeply related to \`heartbeat\_interval\`. If you are using longer \`heartbeat\_interval\`, please use the larger \`phi\_threshold\`. Otherwise you will see frequent detachments of destination servers. The default value 16 is tuned for \`heartbeat\_interval\` 1s.
### hard\_timeout
The hard timeout used to detect server failure. The default value is equal to the send\_timeout parameter.
### standby
Marks a node as the standby node for an Active-Standby model between Fluentd nodes. When an active node goes down, the standby node is promoted to an active node. The standby node is not used by the `out_forward` plugin until then.
```
@type forward
...
name myserver1
host 192.168.1.3
weight 60
# forward doesn't use myserver2 until myserver1 goes down
name myserver2
host 192.168.1.4
weight 60
standby
...
```
### expire\_dns\_cache
Set TTL to expire DNS cache in seconds. Set 0 not to use DNS Cache. The default is nil (which means the persistent cache).
### dns\_round\_robin
Enable client-side DNS round robin. Uniform randomly pick an IP address to send data when a hostname has serveral IP addresses.
\`heartbeat\_type udp\` is not available with \`dns\_round\_robin true\`. Use \`heartbeat\_type tcp\` or \`heartbeat\_type none\`.
## Buffered Output Parameters
For advanced usage, you can tune Fluentd's internal buffering mechanism with these parameters.
### buffer\_type
The buffer type is `memory` by default ([buf\_memory](https://docs.fluentd.org/0.12/buffer/memory)) for the ease of testing, however `file` ([buf\_file](https://docs.fluentd.org/0.12/buffer/file)) buffer type is always recommended for the production deployments. If you use `file` buffer type, `buffer_path` parameter is required.
### buffer\_queue\_limit, buffer\_chunk\_limit
The length of the chunk queue and the size of each chunk, respectively. Please see the [Buffer Plugin Overview](https://docs.fluentd.org/0.12/buffer) article for the basic buffer structure. The default values are 64 and 8m, respectively. The suffixes "k" (KB), "m" (MB), and "g" (GB) can be used for buffer\_chunk\_limit.
### flush\_interval
The interval between data flushes. The default is 60s. The suffixes "s" (seconds), "m" (minutes), and "h" (hours) can be used.
### flush\_at\_shutdown
If set to true, Fluentd waits for the buffer to flush at shutdown. By default, it is set to true for Memory Buffer and false for File Buffer.
### retry\_wait, max\_retry\_wait
The initial and maximum intervals between write retries. The default values are 1.0 seconds and unset (no limit). The interval doubles (with +/-12.5% randomness) every retry until `max_retry_wait` is reached.
Since td-agent will retry 17 times before giving up by default (see the `retry_limit` parameter for details), the sleep interval can be up to approximately 131072 seconds (roughly 36 hours) in the default configurations.
### retry\_limit, disable\_retry\_limit
The limit on the number of retries before buffered data is discarded, and an option to disable that limit (if true, the value of `retry_limit` is ignored and there is no limit). The default values are 17 and false (not disabled). If the limit is reached, buffered data is discarded and the retry interval is reset to its initial value (`retry_wait`).
### num\_threads
The number of threads to flush the buffer. This option can be used to parallelize writes into the output(s) designated by the output plugin. Increasing the number of threads improves the flush throughput to hide write / network latency. The default is 1.
### slow\_flush\_log\_threshold
The threshold for checking chunk flush performance. The default value is `20.0` seconds. Note that parameter type is `float`, not `time`.
If chunk flush takes longer time than this threshold, fluentd logs warning message like below:
```
2016-12-19 12:00:00 +0000 [warn]: buffer flush took longer time than slow_flush_log_threshold: elapsed_time = 15.0031226690043695 slow_flush_log_threshold=10.0 plugin_id="foo"
```
#### log\_level option
The `log_level` option allows the user to set different levels of logging for each plugin. The supported log levels are: `fatal`, `error`, `warn`, `info`, `debug`, and `trace`.
Please see the [logging article](https://docs.fluentd.org/0.12/deployment/logging) for further details.
## Troubleshooting
### "no nodes are available"
Please make sure that you can communicate with port 24224 using **not only TCP, but also UDP**. These commands will be useful for checking the network configuration.
```
$ telnet host 24224
$ nmap -p 24224 -sU host
```
Please note that there is one [known issue](http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US\&cmd=displayKC\&externalId=2019944) where VMware will occasionally lose small UDP packets used for heartbeat.
If this article is incorrect or outdated, or omits critical information, please [let us know](https://github.com/fluent/fluentd-docs-gitbook/issues?state=open). [Fluentd](http://www.fluentd.org/) is a open source project under [Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)](https://cncf.io/). All components are available under the Apache 2 License.