[syslog-ng] Debugging Pattern Match Failures

Martin Holste mcholste at gmail.com
Wed Aug 4 16:04:56 CEST 2010


Ok, it definitely shouldn't be adding fields before the parser.  Did
you do the test destination with $MSGONLY?  That should show exactly
what Syslog-NG is passing to db-parser().  What does your t_default
look like?

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 2:08 AM, Matthew Hall <mhall at mhcomputing.net> wrote:
> Hi Martin,
>
> I think I've not explained my problem very well yet and I have to
> improve the explanation based on what you've been showing me so far. The
> part which confuses me is the header that seems to be getting prepended
> to the message:
>
> Aug 1 00:00:00 <local1.notice> 172.16.0.2
>
> I am pretty sure that syslog-ng must be adding this. I doubt it arrives
> that way off the socket based on the packet captures.
>
> If that part is prepended before the pattern DB parser is invoked. If
> it's added before the parser is invoked and is not present on the
> original messages off the socket, I'd say it's buggy behavior or should
> at least be configurable.
>
> If that part is prepended later on when it's time to send the message to
> the file writer, then I really would want a way to see exactly what's
> passed to the parser to make the proper patterns, it seems silly my
> patterns should need to reparse fields added by the daemon itself,
> especially if there could be several different output formats I'd need
> separate patterns for each even though the device only sent one type of
> message.
>
> Regards,
> Matthew.
>
> On Tue, Aug 03, 2010 at 10:18:14PM -0500, Martin Holste wrote:
>> Ok, this pattern seems to work in the pdbtest tool:
>>
>> <ruleset>
>>               <rules>
>>                       <rule class="test" id="test">
>>                               <patterns>
>>                                       <pattern>@ESTRING:month: @@NUMBER:mday:@
>> @NUMBER:hour:@:@NUMBER:minute:@:@NUMBER:second:@
>> @QSTRING:priority:&lt;&gt;@ @IPv4:host1:@ from: @IPv4:host2:@:
>> @NUMBER::@: @ESTRING:: @@NUMBER::@
>> @NUMBER::@:@NUMBER::@:@NUMBER::@. at NUMBER::@: @ESTRING:program::@
>> @ANYSTRING:message:@</pattern>
>>                               </patterns>
>>                               <examples>
>>                                       <example>
>>                                               <test_message program="">Aug 1 00:00:00 &lt;local1.notice&gt;
>> 172.16.0.2 from: 172.16.0.1: 000001: Aug 1 00:00:00.000:
>> %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet5/16,
>> changed state to up</test_message>
>>                                               <test_values>
>>                                                       <test_value name="month">Aug</test_value>
>>                                                       <test_value name="mday">1</test_value>
>>                                                       <test_value name="hour">00</test_value>
>>                                                       <test_value name="minute">00</test_value>
>>                                                       <test_value name="second">00</test_value>
>>                                                       <test_value name="priority">local1.notice</test_value>
>>                                                       <test_value name="host1">172.16.0.2</test_value>
>>                                                       <test_value name="host2">172.16.0.1</test_value>
>>                                                       <test_value name="program">%LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN</test_value>
>>                                                       <test_value name="message">Line protocol on Interface
>> FastEthernet5/16, changed state to up</test_value>
>>                                               </test_values>
>>                                       </example>
>>                               </examples>
>>                       </rule>
>>               </rules>
>>       </ruleset>
>>
>> So give that a shot with the tool and then it's just a matter of
>> getting your $MSGONLY macro to line up.
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 9:11 PM, Martin Holste <mcholste at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > No worries, happy to help.
>> >
>> > Ok, try this destination:
>> >
>> > template t_test { template("$MSGONLY\n"); };
>> >
>> > destination d_test {
>> >  file("/logs/raw/test" dir_owner("root") owner("root") group("root")
>> > perm(0640) dir_perm(0755) create_dirs(yes)
>> >    template(t_test)
>> >  );
>> > };
>> >
>> > And don't use the "r_raw" rewriter with this destination.  I'm pretty
>> > sure this will yield what you've got already, but I want to take as
>> > many variables out of it as possible.
>> >
>> > If the messages do indeed look the same in /logs/raw/test, then it
>> > means that you need to write your patterns so that they start matching
>> > from whatever is printed.  That shouldn't be too bad as long as you
>> > can get a decent delimiter in there.  The colons look like a good
>> > anchor.
>> >
>> > On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 8:35 PM, Matthew Hall <mhall at mhcomputing.net> wrote:
>> >> I did some experimentation, using the following log setup:
>> >>
>> >> rewrite r_raw {
>> >>    set("$MSGONLY");
>> >> };
>> >>
>> >> destination d_u_raw_local1 {
>> >>    file("/logs/raw/local1"
>> >>         dir_owner("root")
>> >>         owner("root")
>> >>         group("root")
>> >>         perm(0640)
>> >>         dir_perm(0755)
>> >>         create_dirs(yes)
>> >>         template(t_default) suppress(3)
>> >>    );
>> >> };
>> >>
>> >> But I am still getting messages like this:
>> >>
>> >> Aug 1 00:00:00 <local1.notice> 172.16.0.2 from: 172.16.0.1: 000001: Aug 1 00:00:00.000: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet5/16, changed state to up
>> >>
>> >> This it seems that I am not successfully stripping all headers normally
>> >> added by the file writer off of the message using this configuration.
>> >> What did I miss here in my rewrite rule? Without some way to make sure I
>> >> have a raw file with no weird headers added it's hard to make decent
>> >> patterns.
>> >>
>> >> Thanks,
>> >> Matthew.
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Aug 03, 2010 at 05:18:10PM -0700, Matthew Hall wrote:
>> >>> On Tue, Aug 03, 2010 at 06:53:13PM -0500, Martin Holste wrote:
>> >>> > I believe the matching is done against the $MSGONLY macro, so you can
>> >>> > put another log destination in to write that out only and have a look
>> >>> > to see what the parser is seeing.  Do you have an example log you can
>> >>> > show?
>> >>>
>> >>> Here is an example of what would be appearing in the disk log file:
>> >>>
>> >>> Jul  1 00:00:00 <local1.notice> 172.16.0.1 0000001: Jul  1 00:00:00.000 UTC: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface GigabitEthernet0/1, changed state to down
>> >>>
>> >>> There are many more types of message coming from many more devices, some
>> >>> of which are BSD compliant and some of which are not, and I think that
>> >>> is part of my problem.
>> >>>
>> >>> The unclear part is how much of the front part needs to be stripped off,
>> >>> before making the patterns in the XML file. Hopefully I will be able to
>> >>> figure that out now that you have clarified how I can make a raw message
>> >>> file without extraneous strings appended.
>> >>>
>> >>> Thanks for helping me understand how this works and what I can do to get
>> >>> my patterns right. I definitely owe you a beer.
>> >>>
>> >>> Regards,
>> >>> Matthew.
>> >>>
>> >>> > On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Matthew Hall <mhall at mhcomputing.net> wrote:
>> >>> > > On Tue, Aug 03, 2010 at 02:39:38PM +0200, Balazs Scheidler wrote:
>> >>> > >> Well, if you want to look at the result of the message parsing exactly
>> >>> > >> as done by syslog-ng, you could use a noop rewrite rule and enable
>> >>> > >> debugging (though it is not recommended to be done in a production
>> >>> > >> server):
>> >>> > >>
>> >>> > >> rewrite r_noop { set("$MESSAGE"); };
>> >>> > >>
>> >>> > >> This would set $MESSAGE to $MESSAGE, but at the end of the rewrite rule,
>> >>> > >> syslog-ng would emit a debug message about the contents of the MESSAGE
>> >>> > >> name-value pair.
>> >>> > >
>> >>> > > Unfortunately I can't even get that far because the beginning of my
>> >>> > > message patterns is not matching up against whatever syslog-ng is using
>> >>> > > to do the pattern match, so I am not going to get any name value pairs
>> >>> > > out.
>> >>> > >
>> >>> > >> Alternatively, you may still be able to use "pdbtool match" which can
>> >>> > >> read a log file, parse it with syslog-ng's message parser and report the
>> >>> > >> results per name-value pair.
>> >>> > >>
>> >>> > >> $ pdbtool match -f /var/log/auth.log -p access/sshd.pdb  | head -10
>> >>> > >> HOST=bzorp
>> >>> > >> MESSAGE=pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
>> >>> > >> PROGRAM=CRON
>> >>> > >> PID=7362
>> >>> > >> LEGACY_MSGHDR=CRON[7362]:
>> >>> > >> .classifier.class=unknown
>> >>> > >>
>> >>> > >> ...
>> >>> > >>
>> >>> > >> This uses the normal BSD syslog parser to read the file (thus if you are
>> >>> > >> using no-parse flag, or RFC5424 format log files, that may differ)
>> >>> > >
>> >>> > > How do I create a file in this BSD format the pdbtool expects? Right now
>> >>> > > I am using syslog-ng output files as input to my patternizing scripts,
>> >>> > > but I think I am not stripping off the right things at the beginning of
>> >>> > > the lines in these files (either too much or too little).
>> >>> > >
>> >>> > > Is there some option I can use to store just the part it would send to
>> >>> > > the pattern matcher so that I can have input to my patternizer which
>> >>> > > looks exactly like what the daemon is going to match during the pattern
>> >>> > > match for each message?
>> >>> > >
>> >>> > >> --
>> >>> > >> Bazsi
>> >>> > >
>> >>> > > Thanks,
>> >>> > > Matthew.
>> >> ______________________________________________________________________________
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>> >> FAQ: http://www.campin.net/syslog-ng/faq.html
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> ______________________________________________________________________________
>> Member info: https://lists.balabit.hu/mailman/listinfo/syslog-ng
>> Documentation: http://www.balabit.com/support/documentation/?product=syslog-ng
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>>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
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>
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