Tail and Sumo Logic Integration

Powerful performance with an easy integration, powered by Telegraf, the open source data connector built by InfluxData.

info

This is not the recommended configuration for real-time query at scale. For query and compression optimization, high-speed ingest, and high availability, you may want to consider Tail and InfluxDB.

5B+

Telegraf downloads

#1

Time series database
Source: DB Engines

1B+

Downloads of InfluxDB

2,800+

Contributors

Table of Contents

Powerful Performance, Limitless Scale

Collect, organize, and act on massive volumes of high-velocity data. Any data is more valuable when you think of it as time series data. with InfluxDB, the #1 time series platform built to scale with Telegraf.

See Ways to Get Started

Input and output integration overview

The Tail Telegraf plugin collects metrics by tailing specified log files, capturing new log entries in real-time for further analysis.

The Sumo Logic plugin is designed to facilitate the sending of metrics from Telegraf to Sumo Logic’s HTTP Source. By utilizing this plugin, users can analyze their metric data in the Sumo Logic platform, leveraging various output data formats.

Integration details

Tail

The tail plugin is designed to continuously monitor and parse log files, making it ideal for real-time log analysis and monitoring. It mimics the functionality of the Unix tail command, allowing users to specify a file or pattern and begin reading new lines as they are added. Key features include the ability to follow log-rotated files, start reading from the end of a file, and support various parsing formats for the log messages. Users can customize the plugin through various configuration options, such as specifying file encoding, the method for watching file updates, and filter settings for processing log data. This plugin is particularly valuable in environments where log data is critical for monitoring application performance and diagnosing issues.

Sumo Logic

This plugin facilitates the transmission of metrics to Sumo Logic’s HTTP Source, employing specified data formats for HTTP messages. Telegraf, which must be version 1.16.0 or higher, can send metrics encoded in several formats, including graphite, carbon2, and prometheus. These formats correspond to different content types recognized by Sumo Logic, ensuring that the metrics are correctly interpreted for analysis. Integration with Sumo Logic allows users to leverage a comprehensive analytics platform, enabling rich visualizations and insights from their metric data. The plugin provides configuration options such as setting URLs for the HTTP Metrics Source, choosing the data format, and specifying additional parameters like timeout and request size, which enhance flexibility and control in data monitoring workflows.

Configuration

Tail

[[inputs.tail]]
  ## File names or a pattern to tail.
  ## These accept standard unix glob matching rules, but with the addition of
  ## ** as a "super asterisk". ie:
  ##   "/var/log/**.log"  -> recursively find all .log files in /var/log
  ##   "/var/log/*/*.log" -> find all .log files with a parent dir in /var/log
  ##   "/var/log/apache.log" -> just tail the apache log file
  ##   "/var/log/log[!1-2]*  -> tail files without 1-2
  ##   "/var/log/log[^1-2]*  -> identical behavior as above
  ## See https://github.com/gobwas/glob for more examples
  ##
  files = ["/var/mymetrics.out"]

  ## Read file from beginning.
  # from_beginning = false

  ## Whether file is a named pipe
  # pipe = false

  ## Method used to watch for file updates.  Can be either "inotify" or "poll".
  ## inotify is supported on linux, *bsd, and macOS, while Windows requires
  ## using poll. Poll checks for changes every 250ms.
  # watch_method = "inotify"

  ## Maximum lines of the file to process that have not yet be written by the
  ## output.  For best throughput set based on the number of metrics on each
  ## line and the size of the output's metric_batch_size.
  # max_undelivered_lines = 1000

  ## Character encoding to use when interpreting the file contents.  Invalid
  ## characters are replaced using the unicode replacement character.  When set
  ## to the empty string the data is not decoded to text.
  ##   ex: character_encoding = "utf-8"
  ##       character_encoding = "utf-16le"
  ##       character_encoding = "utf-16be"
  ##       character_encoding = ""
  # character_encoding = ""

  ## Data format to consume.
  ## Each data format has its own unique set of configuration options, read
  ## more about them here:
  ## https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/blob/master/docs/DATA_FORMATS_INPUT.md
  data_format = "influx"

  ## Set the tag that will contain the path of the tailed file. If you don't want this tag, set it to an empty string.
  # path_tag = "path"

  ## Filters to apply to files before generating metrics
  ## "ansi_color" removes ANSI colors
  # filters = []

  ## multiline parser/codec
  ## https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/2.4/plugins-filters-multiline.html
  #[inputs.tail.multiline]
    ## The pattern should be a regexp which matches what you believe to be an indicator that the field is part of an event consisting of multiple lines of log data.
    #pattern = "^\s"

    ## The field's value must be previous or next and indicates the relation to the
    ## multi-line event.
    #match_which_line = "previous"

    ## The invert_match can be true or false (defaults to false).
    ## If true, a message not matching the pattern will constitute a match of the multiline filter and the what will be applied. (vice-versa is also true)
    #invert_match = false

    ## The handling method for quoted text (defaults to 'ignore').
    ## The following methods are available:
    ##   ignore  -- do not consider quotation (default)
    ##   single-quotes -- consider text quoted by single quotes (')
    ##   double-quotes -- consider text quoted by double quotes (")
    ##   backticks     -- consider text quoted by backticks (`)
    ## When handling quotes, escaped quotes (e.g. \") are handled correctly.
    #quotation = "ignore"

    ## The preserve_newline option can be true or false (defaults to false).
    ## If true, the newline character is preserved for multiline elements,
    ## this is useful to preserve message-structure e.g. for logging outputs.
    #preserve_newline = false

    #After the specified timeout, this plugin sends the multiline event even if no new pattern is found to start a new event. The default is 5s.
    #timeout = 5s

Sumo Logic

[[outputs.sumologic]]
  ## Unique URL generated for your HTTP Metrics Source.
  ## This is the address to send metrics to.
  # url = "https://events.sumologic.net/receiver/v1/http/"

  ## Data format to be used for sending metrics.
  ## This will set the "Content-Type" header accordingly.
  ## Currently supported formats:
  ## * graphite - for Content-Type of application/vnd.sumologic.graphite
  ## * carbon2 - for Content-Type of application/vnd.sumologic.carbon2
  ## * prometheus - for Content-Type of application/vnd.sumologic.prometheus
  ##
  ## More information can be found at:
  ## https://help.sumologic.com/03Send-Data/Sources/02Sources-for-Hosted-Collectors/HTTP-Source/Upload-Metrics-to-an-HTTP-Source#content-type-headers-for-metrics
  ##
  ## NOTE:
  ## When unset, telegraf will by default use the influx serializer which is currently unsupported
  ## in HTTP Source.
  data_format = "carbon2"

  ## Timeout used for HTTP request
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## Max HTTP request body size in bytes before compression (if applied).
  ## By default 1MB is recommended.
  ## NOTE:
  ## Bear in mind that in some serializer a metric even though serialized to multiple
  ## lines cannot be split any further so setting this very low might not work
  ## as expected.
  # max_request_body_size = 1000000

  ## Additional, Sumo specific options.
  ## Full list can be found here:
  ## https://help.sumologic.com/03Send-Data/Sources/02Sources-for-Hosted-Collectors/HTTP-Source/Upload-Metrics-to-an-HTTP-Source#supported-http-headers

  ## Desired source name.
  ## Useful if you want to override the source name configured for the source.
  # source_name = ""

  ## Desired host name.
  ## Useful if you want to override the source host configured for the source.
  # source_host = ""

  ## Desired source category.
  ## Useful if you want to override the source category configured for the source.
  # source_category = ""

  ## Comma-separated key=value list of dimensions to apply to every metric.
  ## Custom dimensions will allow you to query your metrics at a more granular level.
  # dimensions = ""
</code></pre>

Input and output integration examples

Tail

  1. Real-Time Server Health Monitoring: Implement the Tail plugin to parse web server access logs in real-time, providing immediate visibility into user activity, error rates, and performance metrics. By visualizing this log data, operations teams can quickly identify and respond to spikes in traffic or errors, enhancing system reliability and user experience.

  2. Centralized Log Management: Utilize the Tail plugin to aggregate logs from multiple sources across a distributed system. By configuring each service to send its logs to a centralized location via the Tail plugin, teams can simplify log analysis and ensure that all relevant data is accessible from a single interface, streamlining troubleshooting processes.

  3. Security Incident Detection: Use this plugin to monitor authentication logs for unauthorized access attempts or suspicious activity. By setting up alerts on certain log messages, teams can leverage this plugin to enhance security postures and respond promptly to potential security threats, reducing the risk of breaches and increasing overall system integrity.

  4. Dynamic Application Performance Insights: Integrate with analytics tools to create real-time dashboards that display application performance metrics based on log data. This setup not only helps developers diagnose bottlenecks and inefficiencies but also allows for proactive performance tuning and resource allocation, optimizing application behavior under varying loads.

Sumo Logic

  1. Real-Time System Monitoring Dashboard: Utilize the Sumo Logic plugin to continuously feed performance metrics from your servers into a Sumo Logic dashboard. This setup allows tech teams to visualize system health and load in real-time, enabling quicker identification of any performance bottlenecks or system failures through detailed graphs and metrics.

  2. Automated Alerting System: Configure the plugin to send metrics that trigger alerts in Sumo Logic for specific thresholds such as CPU usage or memory consumption. By setting up automated alerts, teams can proactively address issues before they escalate into critical failures, significantly improving response times and overall system reliability.

  3. Cross-System Metrics Aggregation: Integrate multiple Telegraf instances across different environments (development, testing, production) and funnel all metrics to a central Sumo Logic instance using this plugin. This aggregation enables comprehensive analysis across environments, facilitating better monitoring and informed decision-making across the software development lifecycle.

  4. Custom Metrics with Dimensions Tracking: Use the Sumo Logic plugin to send customized metrics that include dimensions identifying various aspects of your infrastructure (e.g., environment, service type). This granular tracking allows for more tailored analytics, enabling your team to dissect performance across different application layers or business functions.

Feedback

Thank you for being part of our community! If you have any general feedback or found any bugs on these pages, we welcome and encourage your input. Please submit your feedback in the InfluxDB community Slack.

Powerful Performance, Limitless Scale

Collect, organize, and act on massive volumes of high-velocity data. Any data is more valuable when you think of it as time series data. with InfluxDB, the #1 time series platform built to scale with Telegraf.

See Ways to Get Started

Related Integrations

HTTP and InfluxDB Integration

The HTTP plugin collects metrics from one or more HTTP(S) endpoints. It supports various authentication methods and configuration options for data formats.

View Integration

Kafka and InfluxDB Integration

This plugin reads messages from Kafka and allows the creation of metrics based on those messages. It supports various configurations including different Kafka settings and message processing options.

View Integration

Kinesis and InfluxDB Integration

The Kinesis plugin allows for reading metrics from AWS Kinesis streams. It supports multiple input data formats and offers checkpointing features with DynamoDB for reliable message processing.

View Integration