Install by .msi Installer v4 (Windows)

The recommended way to install Fluentd on Windows is to use MSI installers of td-agent.

What is td-agent?

td-agent is a packaged distribution of Fluentd.

• Includes Ruby and other library dependencies (since most Windows machines don't have them installed).

• Includes a set of commonly-used 3rd-party plugins such as out_es.

• Originally developed by Treasure Data, Inc (hence the name).

Currently two versions of td-agent are available.

• td-agent v4 packages Fluentd 1.11.x (or later). This version is recommended.

• td-agent v3 packages Fluentd 1.10.x (or below).

Step 1: Install td-agent

NOTE: As Drop schedule announcement about EOL of Treasure Agent (td-agent) 4, recommend to Upgrade to fluent-package v5.

NOTE: About deprecated Treasure Agent (td-agent) 3 will not be maintained anymore, see Install by msi Package v3.

Download the latest MSI installer from the download page. Run the installer and follow the wizard.

td-agent installation wizard

Alternatively td-agent can be installed with winget:

> winget install td-agent

Step 2: Set up td-agent.conf

Open C:/opt/td-agent/etc/td-agent/td-agent.conf with a text editor. Replace the configuration with the following content:

<source>
  @type windows_eventlog2
  @id windows_eventlog2
  channels application
  read_existing_events false
  tag winevt.raw
  rate_limit 200
  <storage>
    @type local
    persistent true
    path C:\opt\td-agent\winlog.json
  </storage>
</source>

<match winevt.raw>
  @type stdout
</match>

Step 3: Launch Td-agent Command Prompt

Open Windows Start menu, and search Td-agent Command Prompt. In most environments, the program will be found right under the "Recently Added" section.

Windows start menu and Td-agent Command Prompt

Td-agent Command Prompt is basically cmd.exe, with a few PATH tweaks for td-agent programs. Use this program whenever you need to interact with td-agent.

Step 4: Run td-agent

Type the following command into Td-agent Command Prompt:

C:\opt\td-agent> td-agent

Now td-agent starts listening to Windows Eventlog, and will print records to stdout as they occur.

Td-agent Command Prompt

Step 5: Run td-agent as Windows service

Since version 4.0.0, td-agent is registered as a Windows service permanently by the msi installer. You can start td-agent service manually.

Using GUI

Please guide yourself to Control Panel -> System and Security -> Administrative Tools -> Services, and you'll see Fluentd Windows Service is listed.

Please double click Fluentd Window Service, and click Start button. Then the process will be executed as Windows Service.

Using net.exe

> net start fluentdwinsvc
The Fluentd Windows Service service is starting..
The Fluentd Windows Service service was started successfully.

Using Powershell Cmdlet

PS> Start-Service fluentdwinsvc

Note that using fluentdwinsvc is needed to start Fluentd service from the command-line. fluentdwinsvc is the service name and it should be passed to net.exe or Start-Service Cmdlet.

The log file will be located at C:/opt/td-agent/td-agent.log as we specified in Step 3.

Step 6: Install Plugins

Open Td-agent Command Prompt and use td-agent-gem command:

C:\opt\td-agent> td-agent-gem install fluent-plugin-xyz --version=1.2.3

Next Steps

You are now ready to collect real logs with Fluentd. Refer to the following tutorials on how to collect data from various sources:

• Basic Configuration

  • Config File

• Application Logs

  • Ruby

  • Java

  • Python

  • PHP

  • Perl

  • Node.js

  • Scala

• Examples

  • Store Apache Log into Amazon S3

  • Store Apache Log into MongoDB

  • Data Collection into HDFS

For further steps, follow these:

• ChangeLog of td-agent

• Chef Cookbook

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.