Installing Fluentd Using deb Package

This guide is for td-agent v1, the old stable version. See here for the current installation guide for deb.

This article explains how to install the td-agent deb package, the stable Fluentd distribution package maintained by Treasure Data, Inc.

What is td-agent?

Fluentd is written in Ruby for flexibility, with performance sensitive parts written in C. However, casual users may have difficulty installing and operating a Ruby daemon.

That’s why Treasure Data, Inc is providing the stable community distribution of Fluentd, called td-agent. The differences between Fluentd and td-agent can be found here.

Step0: Before Installation

Please follow the Preinstallation Guide to configure your OS properly. This will prevent many unnecessary problems.

Step1 (Ubuntu): Install from Apt Repository

“Ubuntu 12.04 LTS / Precise” and “Ubuntu 10.04 LTS / Lucid” are currently supported.

Ubuntu Precise

Executing install-ubuntu-precise.sh will automatically install td-agent on your machine. This shell script registers a new apt repository at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/treasure-data.list and installs the td-agent deb package.

$ curl -L https://toolbelt.treasuredata.com/sh/install-ubuntu-precise.sh | sh

Ubuntu Lucid

Executing install-ubuntu-lucid.sh will automatically install td-agent on your machine. This shell script registers a new apt repository at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/treasure-data.list and installs the td-agent deb package.

$ curl -L https://toolbelt.treasuredata.com/sh/install-ubuntu-lucid.sh | sh

It’s HIGHLY recommended that you set up ntpd on the node to prevent invalid timestamps in your logs. Please check the Preinstallation Guide.

Step2: Launch Daemon

The /etc/init.d/td-agent script is provided to start, stop, or restart the agent.

$ /etc/init.d/td-agent restart
$ /etc/init.d/td-agent status
td-agent (pid  21678) is running...

The following commands are supported:

$ /etc/init.d/td-agent start
$ /etc/init.d/td-agent stop
$ /etc/init.d/td-agent restart
$ /etc/init.d/td-agent status

Please make sure your configuration file is located at /etc/td-agent/td-agent.conf.

Step3: Post Sample Logs via HTTP

By default, /etc/td-agent/td-agent.conf is configured to take logs from HTTP and route them to stdout (/var/log/td-agent/td-agent.log). You can post sample log records using the curl command.

$ curl -X POST -d 'json={"json":"message"}' http://localhost:8888/debug.test

Next Steps

You’re now ready to collect your real logs using Fluentd. Please see the following tutorials to learn how to collect your data from various data 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

Please refer to the resources below for further steps.

• ChangeLog of td-agent
• Chef Cookbook

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