Blog

One of the many ways members of a team collaborate is to use Slack. From syslog-ng version 3.19, you can send log messages to Slack. You can receive critical log messages in real-time in your Slack client on your mobile or desktop. Learn how to set u...

Dear syslog-ng users, This is the 71st issue of syslog-ng Insider, a monthly newsletter that brings you syslog-ng-related news. NEWS Version 3.19 of syslog-ng released Version 3.19 of syslog-ng has been released with plenty of new features and bugf...

As a follow-up to my RPM blog last week, here are instructions installing syslog-ng Open Source Edition (syslog-ng OSE) on the Debian / Ubuntu version. If you read my previous blog, skip to the installation part at the end, otherwise: read on. Update...

The syslog-ng application is included in all major Linux distributions, and you can usually install syslog-ng from the official repositories. If the core functionality of syslog-ng meets your needs, use the package in your distribution repository (yu...

Learn how to use less resources for better performance in Splunk! Many people have been using syslog-ng for decades without knowing that it receives new features as well as bugfixes. While many Linux utilities are practically in maintenance mode, sys...

As we learned at the Splunk .conf18 this October, forwarding SNMP traps to Splunk can be a challenging task. Luckily, using syslog-ng can simplify it for us. All we need to make sure about is that snmptrapd logs traps to a file. The syslog-ng applica...

Last week I presented syslog-ng at SuriCon 2018 in Vancouver. In this blog post you can read a slightly modified version of that talk: a bit less emphasis on the introduction and a bit more on the explanation of the syslog-ng configuration part. The ...

Using syslog-ng 3.18 and newer releases, you can write new source drivers for syslog-ng in Python. While performance is not as good as C, you gain flexibility and ease of implementation. There are quite a few log sources without a ready to use C API,...

Dear syslog-ng users, This is the 70th issue of syslog-ng Insider, a monthly newsletter that brings you syslog-ng-related news. NEWS Version 3.18 of syslog-ng released Version 3.18 of syslog-ng has been released with plenty of new features and bugf...

Learn how to send log messages in bulk mode to your Elasticsearch server with syslog-ng. Bulk mode offers better performance, because it sends multiple log messages in a single POST request. A few years back I wrote that any time a new language bind...

Each syslog-ng release comes with one or more larger features that steal the show from very useful but smaller features. Now I collect these small features and explain how they can make your life easier. Learn what is coming up in syslog-ng version 3...

The Python parser of syslog-ng not only enables you to parse any type of log message, but you can also use it to enrich messages. From this blog you will learn how to extract information from a specially formatted log message, and how to create new n...

In my past two Python blogs I introduced you to the basics of the syslog-ng Python destination. In this blog I show you a working example of how you can publish your logs to MQTT using the Python destination of syslog-ng. If you are new to the Python...

Dear syslog-ng users, This is the 69th issue of syslog-ng Insider, a monthly newsletter that brings you syslog-ng-related news. NEWS Creating your first block for the syslog-ng configuration library (SCL) The syslog-ng configuration library (SCL) is...

Last week you learned the very basics of the syslog-ng Python destination. This time, you will move a bit further and learn about a few more configuration options and optional methods. If you are new to the Python destination and want to get started ...

You can store your log messages to many different destinations using syslog-ng, but of course not everywhere. This is where the Python destination of syslog-ng can come handy. You can extend syslog-ng easily with your own code written in Python and s...

Dear syslog-ng users, This is the 68th issue of syslog-ng Insider, a monthly newsletter that brings you syslog-ng-related news. syslog-ng 3.16 & 3.17 are released Version 3.16 & 3.17 of syslog-ng are now available. Support to send log messag...

Writing an extra zero at the wrong place in a configuration file can result in a filled-up partition and data loss. This is where human readable numbers in syslog-ng can help: using kilo / mega / giga instead of writing many-digit numbers can save y...

When you have multiple syslog servers collecting logs, syslog-ng on the client side can fail over to secondary servers if the primary one becomes unavailable. It can also fail back to the primary server soon after it is back on-line – if config...

When a user reports a problem with syslog-ng, developers create code to fix it. The fix is called a patch or a pull request (PR) in Git terminology. Often this code does not enter the main source code automatically but developers ask the user to test...

The syslog-ng configuration library (SCL) is a collection of ready-to-use configuration snippets that hide away the complexity of the specifics of your log processing pipeline. If you already reuse parts of your configuration on different machines, i...

One of the main advantages of syslog-ng is that it is high performance and low on resource usage. Why throttle the messages then? There are three main reasons – licensing, performance, and bandwidth – all outside of syslog-ng. From this b...

The hook-commands() option of syslog-ng makes it easy to execute external commands when a driver is started or stopped. For example, you can open a port in the firewall when a network source is started and close it once syslog-ng is shut down. Or you...

Getting started with the Telegram destination of syslog-ng is not an easy and straightforward process, but it is well worth the efforts. If you do not know Telegram yet, Telegram is a cloud-based messaging application known for its security...

Last week SANS published a brand new white paper about the Internet of Things: “Stopping IoT-based Attacks on Enterprise Networks”. IoT devices have been around in the networks of enterprises for many years, just think about network-conne...