Important

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Syslog Source Connector for Confluent Platform

You can use the Kafka Connect Syslog Source connector to consume data from network devices. Supported formats are rfc 3164, rfc 5424, and Common Event Format (CEF).

Important

This connector listens on a network port. Running more than one task or running in distributed mode can cause some undesired effects if another task already has the port open. It is recommended that you run this connector in Standalone Workers.

Install the Syslog Source Connector

You can install this connector by using the Confluent Hub client (recommended) or you can manually download the ZIP file.

Install the connector using Confluent Hub

Prerequisite
Confluent Hub Client must be installed. This is installed by default with Confluent Enterprise.

Navigate to your Confluent Platform installation directory and run the following command to install the latest (latest) connector version. The connector must be installed on every machine where Connect will run.

confluent-hub install confluentinc/kafka-connect-syslog:latest

You can install a specific version by replacing latest with a version number. For example:

confluent-hub install confluentinc/kafka-connect-syslog:5.5.15

Install the connector manually

Download and extract the ZIP file for your connector and then follow the manual connector installation instructions.

License

You can use this connector for a 30-day trial period without a license key.

After 30 days, this connector is available under a Confluent enterprise license. Confluent issues enterprise license keys to subscribers, along with providing enterprise-level support for Confluent Platform and your connectors. If you are a subscriber, please contact Confluent Support at support@confluent.io for more information.

See Confluent Platform license for license properties and License topic configuration for information about the license topic.

Configuration Properties

For a complete list of configuration properties for this connector, see Syslog Source Connector Configuration Properties.

Note

For an example of how to get Kafka Connect connected to Confluent Cloud, see Distributed Cluster in Connect Kafka Connect to Confluent Cloud.

Quick Start

Prerequisites

  1. Install the connector:

    confluent-hub install confluentinc/kafka-connect-syslog:latest

  2. Start Confluent Platform using the Confluent CLI confluent local commands.

    Tip

    The command syntax for the Confluent CLI development commands changed in 5.3.0. These commands have been moved to confluent local. For example, the syntax for confluent start is now confluent local start. For more information, see confluent local.

    confluent local start connect

  3. Create a config file with the following contents:

    name=syslog-tcp
tasks.max=1
connector.class=io.confluent.connect.syslog.SyslogSourceConnector
syslog.port=5454
syslog.listener=TCP
confluent.license=
confluent.topic.bootstrap.servers=localhost:9092
confluent.topic.replication.factor=1

  4. Load the Syslog Connector.

    Caution

    You must include a double dash (--) between the topic name and your flag. For more information, see this post.

    confluent local load syslog-tcp -- -d path/to/config.properties

    Important

    Don’t use the confluent local commands in production environments. Always run the Syslog connector in standalone mode, for example, with bin/connect-standalone.

  5. Test with sample syslog-formatted message sent via netcat:

    echo "<34>1 2003-10-11T22:14:15.003Z mymachine.example.com su - ID47 - Your refrigerator is running" | nc -v -w 0 localhost 5454

  6. Confirm that the message is logged to Apache Kafka®:

    kafka-avro-console-consumer \
    --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
    --property schema.registry.url=http://localhost:8081 \
    --topic syslog --from-beginning | jq '.'

Output Schema

The Syslog Connector accepts Syslog messages as strings, and produces structured messages as output to the configured Kafka topic.

Record Key Schema

host

Host of the Syslog message, as specified in the message body. If no host is specified, the remote address of the message will be used.

  • Type: string

Record Value Schema

Some fields are relevant for only some message types, and will be null for others.

name

String representing a human-readable and understandable description of the event. The event name should not contain information that is specifically mentioned in other fields. Used in CEF.

  • Type: string
type

Type of message received (either “RFC5424”, “RFC3164”, “CEF”, or “UNKNOWN”).

  • Type: string
message

The freeform message extracted from full message. “MSG” field of the Syslog spec.

  • Type: string
host

Extracted host from the syslog message.

  • Type: string
version

“VERSION” field of the Syslog spec.

  • Type: int
level

Level as determined by “PRIORITY” field of Syslog spec.

  • Type: int
tag

“TAG” field of Syslog spec

  • Type: string
facility

“FACILITY” as determined by the “PRIORITY” of the Syslog spec.

  • Type: int
severity

Severity of CEF messages.

  • Type: string
appName

“APP-NAME” field of the Syslog spec.

  • Type: string
remoteAddress

Remote address of the request received by the connector.

  • Type: string
rawMessage

The full, unmodified, unparsed message as received by the connector.

  • Type: string
processId

“PROCID” field of the Syslog spec.

  • Type: string
messageId

“MSGID” field of the Syslog spec.

  • Type: string
deviceVendor

Vendor identifier that is used to group products.

  • Type: string
deviceProduct

Product identifier that is used for message logging.

  • Type: string
deviceVersion

The version of the logging device product.

  • Type: string
deviceEventClassId

The device event class ID. This is a unique per event-type identifier. The device event class ID identifies the type of event reported. In the intrusion detection system (IDS) world, each signature or rule that detects certain activity has a unique device event class ID assigned. This is a requirement for other types of devices as well, and helps correlation engines process the events. Also known as Signature ID.

  • Type: string
extension

“Extension” mapping for the CEF message format.

  • Type: map<string, string>
structuredData

“STRUCTURED-DATA” field of the Syslog spec.

  • Type: Array of StructuredDatum structs:

    id: String StructuredDataElements: map<string, string>