Syslog and CrateDB Integration

Input and output integration overview

The Syslog plugin enables the collection of syslog messages from various sources using standard networking protocols. This functionality is critical for environments where systems need to be monitored and logged efficiently.

The CrateDB plugin facilitates the writing of metrics to a CrateDB database, leveraging its PostgreSQL-compatible protocol to ensure a seamless experience for users.

Integration details

Syslog

The Syslog plugin for Telegraf captures syslog messages transmitted over various protocols such as TCP, UDP, and TLS. It supports both RFC 5424 (the newer syslog protocol) and the older RFC 3164 (BSD syslog protocol). This plugin operates as a service input, effectively starting a service that listens for incoming syslog messages. Unlike traditional plugins, service inputs may not function with standard interval settings or CLI options like --once. It includes options for setting network configurations, socket permissions, message handling, and connection handling. Furthermore, the integration with Rsyslog allows forwarding of logging messages, making it a powerful tool for collecting and relaying system logs in real-time, thus seamlessly integrating into monitoring and logging systems.

CrateDB

This plugin writes to CrateDB via its PostgreSQL protocol, allowing for metrics to be efficiently stored in a scalable database. CrateDB is designed for high-speed analytics, supporting time-series data and complicated queries, making it ideal for applications that require fast ingestion and analysis of large datasets. By utilizing the PostgreSQL protocol, the CrateDB output plugin ensures compatibility with existing PostgreSQL client libraries and tools, enabling a smooth integration for users who are already familiar with PostgreSQL’s ecosystem. The plugin provides options such as automatic table creation, connection parameters, and query timeouts, offering flexibility in how metrics are handled and stored within the database.

Configuration

Syslog

[[inputs.syslog]]
  ## Protocol, address and port to host the syslog receiver.
  ## If no host is specified, then localhost is used.
  ## If no port is specified, 6514 is used (RFC5425#section-4.1).
  ##   ex: server = "tcp://localhost:6514"
  ##       server = "udp://:6514"
  ##       server = "unix:///var/run/telegraf-syslog.sock"
  ## When using tcp, consider using 'tcp4' or 'tcp6' to force the usage of IPv4
  ## or IPV6 respectively. There are cases, where when not specified, a system
  ## may force an IPv4 mapped IPv6 address.
  server = "tcp://127.0.0.1:6514"

  ## Permission for unix sockets (only available on unix sockets)
  ## This setting may not be respected by some platforms. To safely restrict
  ## permissions it is recommended to place the socket into a previously
  ## created directory with the desired permissions.
  ##   ex: socket_mode = "777"
  # socket_mode = ""

  ## Maximum number of concurrent connections (only available on stream sockets like TCP)
  ## Zero means unlimited.
  # max_connections = 0

  ## Read timeout (only available on stream sockets like TCP)
  ## Zero means unlimited.
  # read_timeout = "0s"

  ## Optional TLS configuration (only available on stream sockets like TCP)
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key  = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  ## Enables client authentication if set.
  # tls_allowed_cacerts = ["/etc/telegraf/clientca.pem"]

  ## Maximum socket buffer size (in bytes when no unit specified)
  ## For stream sockets, once the buffer fills up, the sender will start
  ## backing up. For datagram sockets, once the buffer fills up, metrics will
  ## start dropping. Defaults to the OS default.
  # read_buffer_size = "64KiB"

  ## Period between keep alive probes (only applies to TCP sockets)
  ## Zero disables keep alive probes. Defaults to the OS configuration.
  # keep_alive_period = "5m"

  ## Content encoding for message payloads
  ## Can be set to "gzip" for compressed payloads or "identity" for no encoding.
  # content_encoding = "identity"

  ## Maximum size of decoded packet (in bytes when no unit specified)
  # max_decompression_size = "500MB"

  ## Framing technique used for messages transport
  ## Available settings are:
  ##   octet-counting  -- see RFC5425#section-4.3.1 and RFC6587#section-3.4.1
  ##   non-transparent -- see RFC6587#section-3.4.2
  # framing = "octet-counting"

  ## The trailer to be expected in case of non-transparent framing (default = "LF").
  ## Must be one of "LF", or "NUL".
  # trailer = "LF"

  ## Whether to parse in best effort mode or not (default = false).
  ## By default best effort parsing is off.
  # best_effort = false

  ## The RFC standard to use for message parsing
  ## By default RFC5424 is used. RFC3164 only supports UDP transport (no streaming support)
  ## Must be one of "RFC5424", or "RFC3164".
  # syslog_standard = "RFC5424"

  ## Character to prepend to SD-PARAMs (default = "_").
  ## A syslog message can contain multiple parameters and multiple identifiers within structured data section.
  ## Eg., [id1 name1="val1" name2="val2"][id2 name1="val1" nameA="valA"]
  ## For each combination a field is created.
  ## Its name is created concatenating identifier, sdparam_separator, and parameter name.
  # sdparam_separator = "_"

CrateDB

[[outputs.cratedb]]
  ## Connection parameters for accessing the database see
  ##   https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/jackc/pgx/v4#ParseConfig
  ## for available options
  url = "postgres://user:password@localhost/schema?sslmode=disable"

  ## Timeout for all CrateDB queries.
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## Name of the table to store metrics in.
  # table = "metrics"

  ## If true, and the metrics table does not exist, create it automatically.
  # table_create = false

  ## The character(s) to replace any '.' in an object key with
  # key_separator = "_"

Input and output integration examples

Syslog

1. Centralized Log Management: Use the Syslog plugin to aggregate log messages from multiple servers into a central logging system. This setup can help in monitoring overall system health, troubleshooting issues effectively, and maintaining audit trails by collecting syslog data from different sources.

2. Real-Time Alerting: Integrate the Syslog plugin with alerting tools to trigger real-time notifications when specific log patterns or errors are detected. For example, if a critical system error appears in the logs, an alert can be sent to the operations team, minimizing downtime and performing proactive maintenance.

3. Security Monitoring: Leverage the Syslog plugin for security monitoring by capturing logs from firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and other security devices. This logging capability enhances security visibility and helps in investigating potentially malicious activities by analyzing the captured syslog data.

4. Application Performance Tracking: Utilize the Syslog plugin to monitor application performance by collecting logs from various applications. This integration helps in analyzing the application’s behavior and performance trends, thus aiding in optimizing application processes and ensuring smoother operation.

CrateDB

1. Real-Time Analytics for IoT Devices: Collect and store metrics from thousands of IoT devices. By setting up a dynamic metrics table for each device, users can perform real-time analytics on the collected data, enabling quick insights into device performance, patterns, and potential failures. This setup benefits from CrateDB’s ability to handle high-throughput data ingestion while providing the necessary analytics capabilities to derive actionable insights.

2. Website Performance Monitoring: Track key performance metrics from web applications, such as request latency and user activity. By storing metrics in CrateDB, teams can leverage the power of SQL-like queries to analyze traffic patterns, user engagement, and server performance over time, leading to optimized application performance and enhanced user experiences.

3. Financial Transaction Analysis: Manage large volumes of financial transaction data for real-time fraud detection and analysis. With CrateDB’s scalable infrastructure, users can store, query, and analyze transaction metrics efficiently, allowing for the detection of anomalies and illicit activities based on transaction patterns and trends.

Feedback

Thank you for being part of our community! If you have any general feedback or found any bugs on these pages, we welcome and encourage your input. Please submit your feedback in the InfluxDB community Slack.