How can you learn syslog-ng? There are many possibilities, depending on your time and budget. Possibilities range from tutorial series through reading the documentation to instructor-led training. Find out which one is for you!
Getting started: tutorial series
I am a reading kind of person, so YouTube tutorials drive me mad. However, there was a huge demand for a syslog-ng tutorial video series, so I did it: https://peter.czanik.hu/posts/syslog-ng-tutorial-toc/ This table of contents gives you short descriptions for each video. You also prefer reading? All parts of the tutorial are also available as blogs.
This tutorial series introduces you to the fundamentals of log management and syslog-ng. It is good enough to put together your first syslog-ng server, but not enough for complex configurations.
The hard way: documentation
Talking to some of our power users, there was a trend: documentation was a major factor choosing syslog-ng over its competitors. It has all the information to learn syslog-ng. However, if it was printed, it was over a thousand pages long. It is very useful when you need to find a specific detail about a syslog-ng feature, however it can be overwhelming when you are getting started.
You can find the syslog-ng open-source documentation at https://syslog-ng.github.io/
Use cases: Blogs
While the syslog-ng documentation focuses on the details of various syslog-ng features, most of the syslog-ng blogs focus on various use cases: “Storing parsed Apache access logs with syslog-ng into Elasticsearch.” “Compiling syslog-ng on old, Intel-based Macs.” “Performance tuning syslog-ng.” And so on. Some of these might be in the documentation, but simplified and focused configuration examples make solving these problems a lot easier. Once you read the use case in the blog, finding the missing information in the documentation is a lot easier.
You can find the syslog-ng blogs at https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/
Instructor-led training
Working in an enterprise environment, you often do not have the time to view tutorial videos and read extensive documentation. This is where instructor-led training by One Identity can help you: https://support.oneidentity.com/essentials/oneidentity-university/
There are three trainings available on demand:
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syslog-ng PE (the commercial variant of syslog-ng)
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SSB (an appliance version of syslog-ng)
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Log Management Foundations (combining the two)
Even if you use syslog-ng open source for your job, the syslog-ng PE course provides you with valuable knowledge. Doing the training course gives you enough knowledge to create complex configurations. Information on some open-source features is of course missing from the training, while you also learn about some features exclusive to syslog-ng PE. However, the majority of the course is applicable to syslog-ng OSE as well, as syslog-ng PE uses open-source syslog-ng edition at its core.
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If you have questions or comments related to syslog-ng, do not hesitate to contact us. You can reach us by email or even chat with us. For a list of possibilities, check our GitHub page under the “Community” section at https://github.com/syslog-ng/syslog-ng. On Twitter, I am available as @PCzanik, on Mastodon as @Pczanik@fosstodon.org.