Python Syslog

Loggly provides the infrastructure to aggregate and normalize log events so they are available to explore interactively, build visualizations, or create threshold-based alerting. In general, any method to send logs from a system or application to an external source can be adapted to send logs to Loggly. The following instructions provide one scenario for sending logs to Loggly.

You can send Python logs over syslog using the SyslogHandler. Your syslog daemon such as rsyslog will receive these events and then forward them to Loggly. The advantage of Rsyslog is that it can send TCP events without blocking your application, can optionally encrypt the data, and even queue data to add robustness to network failure. Use this approach for the best reliability and performance on server-side apps. We will automactically parse the JSON formatted logs as JSON fields.

Python Syslog Setup

1. Configure Syslog Daemon

If you haven’t already, run our automatic Configure-Syslog script below to setup rsyslog. Alternatively, you can Manually Configure Rsyslog or Syslog-ng.

curl -O https://www.loggly.com/install/configure-linux.sh
sudo bash configure-linux.sh -a SUBDOMAIN -u USERNAME

Replace:

SUBDOMAIN: your account subdomain that you created when you signed up for Loggly
USERNAME: your Loggly username

2. Configure Syslog Daemon for UDP Input

Open rsyslog’s configuration file

sudo vim /etc/rsyslog.conf

Uncomment these lines to accept UDP messages on the default port 514.

$ModLoad imudp
$UDPServerRun 514

Python Logs

Restart the rsyslog service so the changes take effect

sudo service rsyslog restart

3. Configure SyslogHandler

Add SyslogHandler to your source file

import logging
import logging.handlers

logger = logging.getLogger('myLogger')
logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)

#add handler to the logger
handler = logging.handlers.SysLogHandler('/dev/log')

#add formatter to the handler
formatter = logging.Formatter('Python: { "loggerName":"%(name)s", "timestamp":"%(asctime)s", "pathName":"%(pathname)s", "logRecordCreationTime":"%(created)f", "functionName":"%(funcName)s", "levelNo":"%(levelno)s", "lineNo":"%(lineno)d", "time":"%(msecs)d", "levelName":"%(levelname)s", "message":"%(message)s"}')

handler.formatter = formatter
logger.addHandler(handler)

logger.info("Test Message")

Run application and send some logs.

4. Verify Syslog Events

Search Loggly for events with the logtype as syslog over the past hour. It may take few minutes to index the event. If if doesn’t work, see the troubleshooting section below.

syslog.appName:Python

Advanced Python Syslog Options

Python Logging HTTPS Handler – Use our python handler for HTTPS events
Syslog Handler – Standard python docs for SyslogHandler
See here for general Python questions.
JSON logging using python-json-logger.

Troubleshooting Python Syslog Logs

Wait a few minutes in case indexing needs to catch up.
Check if the SyslogHandler configuration is correct
Run "sudo tcpdump -i lo -A udp and port 514″ to verify UDP events are being sent to localhost
Search or post your own Python logging syslog question in the community forum.

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