Send Syslog Data to InfluxDB
Syslog + Fluentd + InfluxDB
- A basic understanding of Fluentd
- A running instance of
rsyslogd
In this guide, we assume we are running
td-agent (Fluentd package for Linux and macOS) on Ubuntu Xenial.InfluxDB supports Ubuntu, RedHat and macOS (via
brew).Since we are assumed to be on Ubuntu, the following two lines install InfluxDB:
$ wget https://dl.influxdata.com/influxdb/releases/influxdb_1.7.3_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i influxdb_1.7.3_amd64.deb
Once it is installed, you can run it with:
$ sudo systemctl start influxdb
Then, you can verify that InfluxDB is running:
$ curl "http://localhost:8086/query?q=show+databases"
If InfluxDB is running normally, you will see an object that contains the
_internal database:{"results":[{"statement_id":0,"series":[{"name":"databases","columns":["name"],"values":[["_internal"]]}]}]}
Also, the following two lines install Chronograf:
$ wget https://dl.influxdata.com/chronograf/releases/chronograf_1.7.7_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i chronograf_1.7.7_amd64.deb
Once it is installed, you can run it with:
$ sudo systemctl start chronograf
Then, go to localhost:8888 (or wherever you are hosting Chronograf) to access Chronograf's web console which is the successor to InfluxDB's web console.
Create a database called
test. This is where we will be storing syslog data:$ curl -i -XPOST http://localhost:8086/query --data-urlencode "q=CREATE DATABASE test"
If you prefer command line or cannot access port 8083 from your local machine, running the following command creates a database called
test:$ curl -i -X POST 'http://localhost:8086/write?db=test' --data-binary 'task,host=server01,region=us-west value=1 1434055562000000000'
We are done for now.
On your aggregator server, set up Fluentd.
$ curl -L https://toolbelt.treasuredata.com/sh/install-ubuntu-xenial-td-agent3.sh | sh
Next, install the InfluxDB output plugin:
/usr/sbin/td-agent-gem install fluent-plugin-influxdb
For the vanilla Fluentd, run:
fluent-gem install fluent-plugin-influxdb
You might need
sudo to install the plugin.Finally, configure
/etc/td-agent/td-agent.conf as follows:<source>
@type syslog
port 42185
tag system
</source>
<match system.*.*>
@type influxdb
dbname test
flush_interval 10s # for testing
host YOUR_INFLUXDB_HOST # default: localhost
port YOUR_INFLUXDB_PORT # default: 8086
</match>
Restart
td-agent with sudo service td-agent restart.If remote
rsyslogd instances are already collecting data into the aggregator rsyslogd, the settings for rsyslog should remain unchanged. However, if this is a brand new setup, start forward syslog output by adding the following line to /etc/rsyslogd.conf:*.* @182.39.20.2:42185
You should replace
182.39.20.2 with the IP address of your aggregator server. Also, there is nothing special about port 42185 (do make sure this port is open though).Now, restart
rsyslogd:$ sudo systemctl restart rsyslog
Your
syslog data should be flowing into InfluxDB every 10 seconds (this is configured by flush_interval).Clicking on
Explore brings up the query interface that lets you write SQL queries against your log data.And then click
Visualization and select the line chart:
Chronograf: Explore Data
Now, to count the number of lines of
syslog messages per facility/priority:SELECT COUNT(ident) FROM test.autogen./^system\./ GROUP BY time(1s)
Click on Submit Query to get a graph like this:
Chronograf: Query
Here is another screenshot for the
system.daemon.info series:
Chronograf: Query
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.
Last modified 1yr ago