network: Send messages to a remote log server using the RFC3164 protocol (network() driver)

The network() destination driver can send syslog messages conforming to RFC3164 from the network using the TCP, TLS, and UDP networking protocols.

• UDP is a simple datagram oriented protocol, which provides “best effort service” to transfer messages between hosts. It may lose messages, and no attempt is made to retransmit lost messages. The BSD-syslog protocol traditionally uses UDP.

  Use UDP only if you have no other choice.

• TCP provides connection-oriented service: the client and the server establish a connection, each message is acknowledged, and lost packets are resent. TCP can detect lost connections, and messages are lost, only if the TCP connection breaks. When a TCP connection is broken, messages that the client has sent but were not yet received on the server are lost.

• The AxoSyslog application supports TLS (Transport Layer Security, also known as SSL) over TCP. For details, see Encrypting log messages with TLS.

Declaration:

   network("<destination-address>" [options]);

The network() destination has a single required parameter that specifies the destination host address where messages should be sent. If name resolution is configured, you can use the hostname of the target server. By default, AxoSyslog sends messages using the TCP protocol to port 514.

Example: Using the network() driver

TCP destination that sends messages to 10.1.2.3, port 1999:

   destination d_tcp { network("10.1.2.3" port(1999)); };

If name resolution is configured, you can use the hostname of the target server as well.

   destination d_tcp { network("target_host" port(1999)); };

TCP destination that sends messages to the ::1 IPv6 address, port 2222.

   destination d_tcp6 {
        network(
            "::1"
            port(2222)
            transport(tcp)
            ip-protocol(6)
            );
    };

To send messages using the IETF-syslog message format without using the IETF-syslog protocol, enable the syslog-protocol flag. (For details on how to use the IETF-syslog protocol, see syslog() destination options.)

   destination d_tcp { network("10.1.2.3" port(1999) flags(syslog-protocol) ); };