For the best user experience, we recommend logging into the LogDNA web app and following the account-tailored add a log source instructions. You may also follow the more generic instructions below

TCP+TLS (recommended)

To configure rsyslog to send logs to LogDNA via TCP secured with TLS, follow the steps below.

1. Download the LogDNA Root CA Certificate to /etc/ld-root-ca.crt

2. Add the contents below to /etc/rsyslog.d/22-logdna.conf on your host machine. Be sure to insert your LogDNA Ingestion Key.

### START LogDNA rsyslog logging directives ###

## TCP TLS only ##
global(
DefaultNetstreamDriver="gtls"
DefaultNetstreamDriverCAFile="/etc/ld-root-ca.crt"
)

template(
name="LogDNAFormat"
type="string"
string="<%PRI%>%protocol-version% %timestamp:::date-rfc3339% %HOSTNAME% %app-name% %procid% %msgid% [[email protected] key=\"YOUR-INGESTION-KEY-HERE\"] %msg%"
)

action(
type="omfwd"
template="LogDNAFormat"
target="syslog-a.logdna.com"
protocol="tcp"
port="6514"
StreamDriver="gtls"
StreamDriverMode="1" # run driver in TLS-only mode
StreamDriverAuthMode="x509/name"
StreamDriverPermittedPeers="*.logdna.com"
)
### END LogDNA rsyslog logging directives ###

3. Install rsyslog-gnutls using your package manager

4. Restart syslog: sudo /etc/init.d/rsyslog restart

TCP

To configure rsyslog to send logs to LogDNA via TCP, follow the steps below.

1. Add the contents below to /etc/rsyslog.d/22-logdna.conf on your host machine. Be sure to insert your LogDNA Ingestion key.

### START LogDNA rsyslog logging directives ###
template(
name="LogDNAFormat"
type="string"
string="<%PRI%>%protocol-version% %timestamp:::date-rfc3339% %HOSTNAME% %app-name% %procid% %msgid% [[email protected] key=\"YOUR-INGESTION-KEY-HERE\"] %msg%"
)

action(
type="omfwd"
template="LogDNAFormat"
target="syslog-a.logdna.com"
protocol="tcp"
port="514"
)
### END LogDNA rsyslog logging directives ###

2. Restart syslog: sudo /etc/init.d/rsyslog restart

UDP

Warning: UDP does not guarantee log line order. More information is available in this section of RFC 5426

To configure rsyslog to send logs to LogDNA via UDP, follow the steps below.

1. Add the contents below to /etc/rsyslog.d/22-logdna.conf on your host machine. Be sure to insert your LogDNA Ingestion Key.

### START LogDNA rsyslog logging directives ###
template(
name="LogDNAFormat"
type="string"
string="<%PRI%>%protocol-version% %timestamp:::date-rfc3339% %HOSTNAME% %app-name% %procid% %msgid% [[email protected] key=\"YOUR-INGESTION-KEY-HERE\"] %msg%"
)

action(
type="omfwd"
template="LogDNAFormat"
target="syslog-u.logdna.com"
protocol="udp"
port="514"
)
### END LogDNA rsyslog logging directives ###

2. Restart syslog: sudo /etc/init.d/rsyslog restart

Custom port

If you are unable to change the message template for rsyslog, you may provision a custom port by logging into the LogDNA web app and following the account-tailored add a log source instructions

Host tags

Host tags allow you to group hosts automatically without having to explicitly assign a host to a group within the LogDNA web app.

Host tags follow the syslog RFC-defined STRUCTURED-DATA format and requires configuring the template line in /etc/rsyslog.d/22-logdna.conf to include the IANA-approved LogDNA Private Enterprise Number (PEN), 48950. For example:

template(
name="LogDNAFormat"
type="string"
string="<%PRI%>%protocol-version% %timestamp:::date-rfc3339% %HOSTNAME% %app-name% %procid% %msgid% [[email protected] key=\"YOUR-INGESTION-KEY-HERE\" tags=\"prod,web\"] %msg%"
)

This would send up log lines from with the host tags prod and web, which would add this host to the prod and web tags.

Log Level Parsing

We'll attempt to parse the log level from the log line itself if rsyslog emits the log line with the log level of "err" or "info". We'll preserve the original rsyslog level in the _original_level property of a log line and store the parsed log level in the level property.

Additional options

If possible, we highly recommend setting up a keepalive inside your rsyslog forwarding configuration. This ensures that bad connections are properly terminated and re-initiated and increases the reliability of log delivery. You can learn about rsyslog keepalive options here.