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udplogbackapache-nifi

Can Apache NiFi configure logback.xml file to send logs to remote server over UDP?

I have an Apache NiFi instance that needs to log messages to a remote Graylog server. I want the outputs to nifi-app.log, nifi-bootstrap.log, and nifi-user.log to all be sent to this server, as well as their default local policy.

I'm trying to get the logs to the server over UDP, as the network configuration requires UDP connections.

My questions:

  1. Does logback support sending logs over UDP?
  2. If so, what does that configuration look like?
  3. Is there a better way to configure Apache NiFi to send it's logs over UDP?
Solution

  • As far as I know, Logback does not provide an out-of-the-box UDP appender so you would need to add the necessary JARs for some UDP appender, possibly the logstash one:

    https://github.com/logstash/logstash-logback-encoder

    This might work, but adding JARs to NiFi's lib directory is a bit dangerous as they end up on the classpath of all NiFi processors and could have unintended consequences.

    Other options...

    1) Use TCP

    logback already has an socket appender provided: https://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SocketAppender

    2) Use a separate NiFi instance that is used to monitor the logs of the first NiFi instance. The flow would be TailFile -> PutUDP, where TailFile points at nifi-app.log of the first NiFi.