Install AxoSyslog on RHEL/Fedora/AlmaLinux

You can install AxoSyslog 4.8 and newer on your RPM-based system from Axoflow’s RPM repository. AxoSyslog is a drop in replacement for the syslog-ng RPM package, all the AxoSyslog binaries and configuration files are stored at the same place on your system.

The following x86-64 distributions are supported:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 / AlmaLinux 9
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 / AlmaLinux 8
• Fedora 41
• Fedora 40
• Fedora 39

(The packages for AlmaLinux probably work for Rocky Linux as well, but we haven’t tested it.)

Which package to install?

AxoSyslog supports many features. Some of these, like specific sources and destinations require additional packages that you need only if you’re actually using the specific destination. Therefore, AxoSyslog has a number of modules that you can install as a separate package if you need the particular feature. For example, to use the gRPC-based destinations (like loki() or opentelemetry()), install the axosyslog-grpc-* package. For HTTP-based destinations like elasticsearch-http() or sumologic-http(), you need the axosyslog-http-* package.

Usually, you install the base package axosyslog-<version-number>.<distro>.x86_64.rpm, and the packages of specific modules that you want to use. We also provide debuginfo packages for every module, but you only need these in certain troubleshooting scenarios.

Steps

To install AxoSyslog on RedHat Enterprise Linux 9 or AlmaLinux 9, complete the following steps. The instructions for AlmaLinux probably work for Rocky Linux 9 as well, but we haven’t tested it.

1. Run the following commands to enable the EPEL repositories for your distribution. This is needed to install some dependencies of AxoSyslog. (For RHEL 8 and compatible distributions, use these instructions.)

   • RHEL 9:

     sudo subscription-manager repos --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-9-$(arch)-rpms
     sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm
     

   • AlmaLinux 9:

     sudo dnf install epel-release
     sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled crb
     

   • Fedora:

     sudo dnf install epel-release
     

2. Add the AxoSyslog repository of your distribution:

   • Distribution:
   • RHEL / AlmaLinux 9
   • RHEL / AlmaLinux 8
   • Fedora 41
   • Fedora 40
   • Fedora 39
   sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/axosyslog.repo <<< '[axosyslog]
   name=AxoSyslog
   baseurl=https://pkg.axoflow.io/rpm/stable/almalinux-9/$basearch
   enabled=1
   gpgcheck=1
   repo_gpgcheck=1
   gpgkey=https://pkg.axoflow.io/axoflow-code-signing-pub.asc' > /dev/null
   

   sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/axosyslog.repo <<< '[axosyslog]
   name=AxoSyslog
   baseurl=https://pkg.axoflow.io/rpm/stable/almalinux-8/$basearch
   enabled=1
   gpgcheck=1
   repo_gpgcheck=1
   gpgkey=https://pkg.axoflow.io/axoflow-code-signing-pub.asc' > /dev/null
   

   sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/axosyslog.repo <<< '[axosyslog]
   name=AxoSyslog
   baseurl=https://pkg.axoflow.io/rpm/stable/fedora-41/$basearch
   enabled=1
   gpgcheck=1
   repo_gpgcheck=1
   gpgkey=https://pkg.axoflow.io/axoflow-code-signing-pub.asc' > /dev/null
   

   sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/axosyslog.repo <<< '[axosyslog]
   name=AxoSyslog
   baseurl=https://pkg.axoflow.io/rpm/stable/fedora-40/$basearch
   enabled=1
   gpgcheck=1
   repo_gpgcheck=1
   gpgkey=https://pkg.axoflow.io/axoflow-code-signing-pub.asc' > /dev/null
   

   sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/axosyslog.repo <<< '[axosyslog]
   name=AxoSyslog
   baseurl=https://pkg.axoflow.io/rpm/stable/fedora-39/$basearch
   enabled=1
   gpgcheck=1
   repo_gpgcheck=1
   gpgkey=https://pkg.axoflow.io/axoflow-code-signing-pub.asc' > /dev/null
   

3. Update the packages list.

   sudo yum update -y
   

   Expected output:

   AxoSyslog                                                                                                           544  B/s | 488  B     00:00    
   AxoSyslog                                                                                                           5.2 kB/s | 3.2 kB     00:00    
   Importing GPG key 0x5F25E107:
   Userid     : "Axoflow Code Signing Key <support@axoflow.com>"
   Fingerprint: 365A 4340 FA76 89B4 78ED 617C 3605 FFAD 5F25 E107
   From       : https://pkg.axoflow.io/axoflow-code-signing-pub.asc
   AxoSyslog                                                                                                            68 kB/s |  56 kB     00:00    
   Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 9 - x86_64                                                                      8.2 MB/s |  23 MB     00:02    
   Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 9 openh264 (From Cisco) - x86_64                                                1.1 kB/s | 2.5 kB     00:02    
   Dependencies resolved.
   Nothing to do.
   Complete!
   

4. Install AxoSyslog.

   • To install AxoSyslog with every available module, run:

     sudo yum install axosyslog-*
     

   • To install only the base package, run:

     sudo yum install axosyslog
     

     Then install other packages for the modules you want to use as needed. For example, to use the gRPC-based destinations (like loki() or opentelemetry()), install the axosyslog-grpc-* package. For HTTP-based destinations like elasticsearch-http() or sumologic-http(), you need the axosyslog-http-* package.

5. Enable syslog-ng.

   sudo systemctl enable syslog-ng
   sudo systemctl start syslog-ng
   

6. (Optional) If you don’t want to run other log collectors on the host, you can delete the existing one (which is rsyslog by default):

   sudo yum remove rsyslog.x86_64
   

Using AxoSyslog

After you’ve installed AxoSyslog, you can configure it just like syslog-ng, using the same configurations files (/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf by default). For details, see the Quick-start guide.

Getting help

If you run into any issues while installing or configuring AxoSyslog, or you have any questions, you can find us on our Discord server.