Syslog and Cortex Integration

Input and output integration overview

<p>The Syslog plugin enables the collection of syslog messages from various sources using standard networking protocols. This functionality is critical for environments where systems need to be monitored and logged efficiently.</p>

<p>This plugin enables Telegraf to send metrics to Cortex using the Prometheus remote write protocol, allowing seamless ingestion into Cortex’s scalable, multi-tenant time series storage.</p>

Integration details

Syslog

<p>The Syslog plugin for Telegraf captures syslog messages transmitted over various protocols such as TCP, UDP, and TLS. It supports both RFC 5424 (the newer syslog protocol) and the older RFC 3164 (BSD syslog protocol). This plugin operates as a service input, effectively starting a service that listens for incoming syslog messages. Unlike traditional plugins, service inputs may not function with standard interval settings or CLI options like <code>--once</code>. It includes options for setting network configurations, socket permissions, message handling, and connection handling. Furthermore, the integration with Rsyslog allows forwarding of logging messages, making it a powerful tool for collecting and relaying system logs in real-time, thus seamlessly integrating into monitoring and logging systems.</p>

Cortex

<p>With Telegraf’s HTTP output plugin and the <code>prometheusremotewrite</code> data format you can send metrics directly to Cortex, a horizontally scalable, long-term storage backend for Prometheus. Cortex supports multi-tenancy and accepts remote write requests using the Prometheus protobuf format. By using Telegraf as the collection agent and Remote Write as the transport mechanism, organizations can extend observability into sources not natively supported by Prometheus—such as Windows hosts, SNMP-enabled devices, or custom application metrics—while leveraging Cortex’s high-availability and long-retention capabilities.</p>

Configuration

Syslog

Cortex

Input and output integration examples

Syslog

<ol> <li> <p><strong>Centralized Log Management</strong>: Use the Syslog plugin to aggregate log messages from multiple servers into a central logging system. This setup can help in monitoring overall system health, troubleshooting issues effectively, and maintaining audit trails by collecting syslog data from different sources.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Real-Time Alerting</strong>: Integrate the Syslog plugin with alerting tools to trigger real-time notifications when specific log patterns or errors are detected. For example, if a critical system error appears in the logs, an alert can be sent to the operations team, minimizing downtime and performing proactive maintenance.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Security Monitoring</strong>: Leverage the Syslog plugin for security monitoring by capturing logs from firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and other security devices. This logging capability enhances security visibility and helps in investigating potentially malicious activities by analyzing the captured syslog data.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Application Performance Tracking</strong>: Utilize the Syslog plugin to monitor application performance by collecting logs from various applications. This integration helps in analyzing the application’s behavior and performance trends, thus aiding in optimizing application processes and ensuring smoother operation.</p> </li> </ol>

Cortex

<ol> <li> <p><strong>Unified Multi-Tenant Monitoring</strong>: Use Telegraf to collect metrics from different teams or environments and push them to Cortex with separate <code>X-Scope-OrgID</code> headers. This enables isolated data ingestion and querying per tenant, ideal for managed services and platform teams.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Extending Prometheus Coverage to Edge Devices</strong>: Deploy Telegraf on edge or IoT devices to collect system metrics and send them to a centralized Cortex cluster. This approach ensures consistent observability even for environments without local Prometheus scrapers.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Global Service Observability with Federated Tenants</strong>: Aggregate metrics from global infrastructure by configuring Telegraf agents to push data into regional Cortex clusters, each tagged with tenant identifiers. Cortex handles deduplication and centralized access across regions.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Custom App Telemetry Pipeline</strong>: Collect app-specific telemetry via Telegraf’s <code>exec</code> or <code>http</code> input plugins and forward it to Cortex. This allows DevOps teams to monitor app-specific KPIs in a scalable, query-efficient format while keeping metrics logically grouped by tenant or service.</p> </li> </ol>

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