Install syslog-ng with AxoSyslog

• 1: Install AxoSyslog with Docker
• 2: Install AxoSyslog with Podman
• 3: Install AxoSyslog with Helm
• 3.1: Parameters of the AxoSyslog collector Helm chart

1 - Install AxoSyslog with Docker

AxoSyslog provides cloud-ready syslog-ng images. These images differ from the upstream syslog-ng images, because:

• They’re based on Alpine Linux, instead of Debian testing for reliability and smaller size (thus smaller attack surface).
• They incorporate cloud-native features and settings, such as the Kubernetes source.
• They incorporate container-level optimizations for better performance and improved security. For example, they use an alternative malloc library.
• They support the ARM architecture.

The AxoSyslog images support the following architectures:

• amd64
• arm/v7
• arm64

Install the AxoSyslog images

You can find the list of tagged versions at https://github.com/axoflow/axosyslog-docker/pkgs/container/axosyslog.

To install the latest stable version, run:

docker pull ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:latest

You can also use it as a base image in your Dockerfile:

FROM ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:latest

If you want to test a development version, you can use the nightly builds:

docker pull ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:nightly

Note: These named packages are automatically updated when a new package is released. To install a specific version, run docker pull ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:<version-number>, for example:

docker pull ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:4.2.0

Customize the configuration

The AxoSyslog container image stores the configuration file at /etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf. By default, AxoSyslog collects the local system logs and logs received from the network into the /var/log/messages and /var/log/messages-kv.log files using this configuration file from the syslog-ng repository.

To customize the configuration, create your own configuration file and override the file in the container image with it, for example:

docker run --rm --volume <path-to-your/syslog-ng.conf>:/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:latest

Contribute

If you have fixed a bug or would like to contribute your improvements to these images, open a pull request. We truly appreciate your help.

2 - Install AxoSyslog with Podman

AxoSyslog provides cloud-ready syslog-ng images. These images differ from the upstream syslog-ng images, because:

• They’re based on Alpine Linux, instead of Debian testing for reliability and smaller size (thus smaller attack surface).
• They incorporate cloud-native features and settings, such as the Kubernetes source.
• They incorporate container-level optimizations for better performance and improved security. For example, they use an alternative malloc library.
• They support the ARM architecture.

The AxoSyslog images support the following architectures:

• amd64
• arm/v7
• arm64

Install the AxoSyslog images

You can find the list of tagged versions at https://github.com/axoflow/axosyslog-docker/pkgs/container/axosyslog.

To install the latest stable version, run:

podman pull ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:latest

You can also use it as a base image in your Dockerfile:

FROM ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:latest

If you want to test a development version, you can use the nightly builds:

podman pull ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:nightly

Note: These named packages are automatically updated when a new package is released. To install a specific version, run podman pull ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:<version-number>, for example:

podman pull ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:4.2.0

Customize the configuration

The AxoSyslog container image stores the configuration file at /etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf. By default, AxoSyslog collects the local system logs and logs received from the network into the /var/log/messages and /var/log/messages-kv.log files using this configuration file from the syslog-ng repository.

To customize the configuration, create your own configuration file and override the file in the container image with it, for example:

podman run --rm --volume <path-to-your/syslog-ng.conf>:/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf ghcr.io/axoflow/axosyslog:latest

Contribute

If you have fixed a bug or would like to contribute your improvements to these images, open a pull request. We truly appreciate your help.

3 - Install AxoSyslog with Helm

AxoSyslog provides Helm charts for syslog-ng. You can use these charts to install cloud-ready syslog-ng images created and maintained by Axoflow.

Prerequisites

You must have Helm 3.0 or newer installed to use these charts. Refer to the official Helm documentation for details.

Limitations

The chart provides parameters that make it easy to:

• collect logs using the kubernetes() source, and
• forward the logs using the network() and opensearch() destinations.

To use other sources and destinations, use the config.raw parameter. For the list of configurable parameters and their default values, see Parameters of the AxoSyslog collector Helm chart.

Install

To install the axosyslog-collector charts, complete the following steps.

1. Clone the chart repository.

   helm repo add axosyslog https://axoflow.github.io/axosyslog-charts
   helm repo update
   

2. Install the chart. The following command installs axosyslog-collector into the default namespace. For the list of configurable parameters and their default values, see Parameters of the AxoSyslog collector Helm chart.

   helm install --generate-name axosyslog/axosyslog-collector
   

   NAME: axosyslog-collector-1683469360
   LAST DEPLOYED: Sun May  7 16:22:40 2023
   NAMESPACE: default
   STATUS: deployed
   REVISION: 1
   TEST SUITE: None
   NOTES:
   1. Watch the axosyslog-collector-1683469360 container start.
     $ kubectl get pods --namespace=default -l app=axosyslog-collector-1683469360 -w
   

3. Check that the pod is running.

   kubectl get pods
   

   The output should look like:

   NAME                                   READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   axosyslog-collector-1683469360-tptfb   1/1     Running   0          28s
   

Uninstall

Tip: List all installed releases using helm list.

To uninstall a chart release, run:

helm delete <name-of-the-release-to-delete>

Contribute

If you have fixed a bug or would like to contribute your improvements to these charts, open a pull request. We truly appreciate your help.

3.1 - Parameters of the AxoSyslog collector Helm chart

The following table lists the configurable parameters of the AxoSyslog collector chart and their default values. For details on installing the chart, see Install AxoSyslog with Helm.

Parameters for syslog-ng configuration

The following example uses the config.raw parameter to configure a custom destination:

config:
  raw: |
    @version: 4.3
    @include "scl.conf"

    log {
      source {
        syslog(port(12345));
      };

      destination {
        logscale(
          token("your-secret-humio-ingest-token")
        );
      };

      flags(flow-control);
    };

daemonset:
  hostNetworking: true

Network destination

Send logs over the network, conforming to RFC3164 using the network() destination.

For example:

config:
  destinations:
    network:
      - transport: tcp
        address: localhost
        port: 12345
        template: "$(format-json .*)"

OpenSearch destination

Send logs to OpenSearch over HTTP or HTTPS.

For example:

config:
  destinations:
    opensearch:
      - address: 10.104.232.94
        index: "test-axoflow-index"
        tls:
          CAFile: "/path/to/CAFile.pem"
          CADir: "/path/to/CADir/"
          Cert: "/path/to/Cert.pem"
          Key: "/path/to/Key.pem"
          peerVerify: true
          template: "$(format-json .*)"

Generic parameters