Send Syslog Data to Graylog

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This article explains how to set up Fluentd with Graylog. Graylog is a popular log management server powered by Elasticsearch and MongoDB. You can combine Fluentd and Graylog to create a scalable log analytics pipeline.
Prerequisites
Basic Understanding of Fluentd
Linux Server (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS was used for this guide.)
How to Setup Graylog + Fluentd
Dependencies
Install the dependencies with the following command:
$ sudo apt install mongodb-server openjdk-8-jre-headless uuid-runtime
Elasticsearch
Graylog requires Elasticsearch, which can be instantly launched using the following commands:
# Note that Graylog 2.4 doesn't support Elasticsearch 6.X.
$ wget https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-5.6.13.tar.gz
$ tar -xzf elasticsearch-5.6.13.tar.gz
$ cd elasticsearch-5.6.13
Elasticsearch is ready. Start it with:
$ ./bin/elasticsearch
Graylog
In this article, we will use Graylog 2.4.
$ wget https://packages.graylog2.org/repo/packages/graylog-2.4-repository_latest.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i graylog-2.4-repository_latest.deb
Update the package cache and install graylog-server:
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install graylog-server
Open /etc/graylog/server/server.conf and configure the following parameters:
1.password_secret
2.root_password_sha2.
3.web_enable
For root_password_sha2, run echo -n ROOT_PASSWORD | sha256sum and set the hash. Also you need to set web_enable to true to access the web interface.
Now let's start Graylog:
$ sudo systemctl start graylog-server
Prepare Graylog for Fluentd
Go to http://localhost:9000 and log into the web interface.
To log in, use admin as the username and YOUR_PASSWORD as the password (the one you have set up for root_password_sha2).
Once logged in, click on System in the top nav. Next, click on Inputs from the left navigation bar. (Or, simply go to http://localhost:9000/system/inputs.
Then, from the dropdown, choose GELF UDP and click on Launch new input, which should pop up a modal dialogue, Select the Node and fill the Title. Then, click Save.
Graylog Inputs
Now, Graylog2 is ready to accept messages from Fluentd over UDP. It is time to configure Fluentd.
Fluentd
See the download page for all the options. Here, we are using the deb package:
$ wget http://packages.treasuredata.com.s3.amazonaws.com/3/ubuntu/bionic/pool/contrib/t/td-agent/td-agent_3.2.1-0_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i td-agent_3.2.1-0_amd64.deb
Then, install the out_gelf plugin to send data to Graylog. Currently, the GELF plugin is not available on RubyGems, so we need to download the plugin file and place it in /etc/td-agent/plugin:
$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/emsearcy/fluent-plugin-gelf/master/lib/fluent/plugin/out_gelf.rb
$ sudo mv out_gelf.rb /etc/td-agent/plugin
We also need to gem-install GELF's Ruby client:
$ sudo /usr/sbin/td-agent-gem install gelf
Configure /etc/td-agent/td-agent.conf as follows:
<source>
  @type syslog
  tag graylog2
</source>
​
<match graylog2.**>
  @type gelf
  host 127.0.0.1
  port 12201
  <buffer>
    flush_interval 5s
  </buffer>
</match>
Open /etc/rsyslog.conf and add the following line to the file:
*.* @127.0.0.1:5140
Finally, restart rsyslog and Fluentd with the following commands:
$ sudo systemctl restart rsyslog
$ sudo systemctl restart td-agent
Visualize the Data Stream
When you log back into Graylog, you should be seeing a graph like this (wait for events to flow in):
Graylog Graph
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.
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Last modified 1yr ago
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Outline
Prerequisites
How to Setup Graylog + Fluentd
Dependencies
Elasticsearch
Graylog
Prepare Graylog for Fluentd
Fluentd
Visualize the Data Stream