The file buffer plugin provides a persistent buffer implementation. It uses files to store buffer chunks on disk.

Parameters

• ​Common Parameters​

• ​Buffer Section Configurations​

path

The path where buffer chunks are stored. The '*' is replaced with random characters. This parameter is required.

This parameter must be unique to avoid the race condition problem. For example, you cannot use a fixed path parameter in fluent-plugin-forest. ${tag} or similar placeholder is needed. Of course, this parameter must also be unique between fluentd instances.

In addition, path should not be another path prefix. For example, the following configuration does not work well. /var/log/fluent/foo resumes /var/log/fluent/foo.bar's buffer files during start phase and it causes No such file or directory in /var/log/fluent/foo.bar side.

<match pattern1>
  <buffer>
    @type file
    path /var/log/fluent/foo
  </buffer>
</match>
​
<match pattern2>
  <buffer>
    @type file
    path /var/log/fluent/foo.bar
  </buffer>
</match>

Here is the correct version to avoid the prefix problem:

<match pattern1>
  <buffer>
    @type file
    path /var/log/fluent/foo.baz
  </buffer>
</match>
​
<match pattern2>
  <buffer>
    @type file
    path /var/log/fluent/foo.bar
  </buffer>
</match>

Please make sure that you have enough space in the path directory. Running out of disk space is a problem frequently reported by users.

path_suffix

Changes the suffix of the buffer file.

# default 
/var/log/fluentd/buf/buffer.b58eec11d08ca8143b40e4d303510e0bb.log
/var/log/fluentd/buf/buffer.b58eec11d08ca8143b40e4d303510e0bb.log.meta
​
# with 'path_suffix .buf'
/var/log/fluentd/buf/buffer.b58eec11d08ca8143b40e4d303510e0bb.buf
/var/log/fluentd/buf/buffer.b58eec11d08ca8143b40e4d303510e0bb.buf.meta

This parameter is useful when .log is not fit for your environment. See also this issue's comment.

Example

<match pattern>
  <buffer>
    @type file
    path /var/log/fluent/myapp.*.buffer
  </buffer>
</match>

Tips

Multi-Process Environment

If you use this plugin under the multi-process environment, you need to use @id/root_dir parameters instead of fixed path parameter. See Multi Process Workers article.

Limitation

Caution: file buffer implementation depends on the characteristics of the local file system. Don't use file buffer on remote file systems e.g. NFS, GlusterFS, HDFS, etc. We observed major data loss by using the remote file system.

If this article is incorrect or outdated, or omits critical information, please let us know.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