Category: log4r

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log4r Rails splunk

Configuring Rails and Splunk (Part 1)

To increase our application intelligence, I’ve started installing Splunk. However, what was not clear to me was the best way of getting my Web/App Rails logs into Splunk. The Web server is on a different box (as is the DB server) so I wanted to know the best way of getting the log data to the Splunk host.

Posts like this imply that Syslog-ng is a good way of getting data to Splunk, but the hidden detail is that if the Splunk server is down, the data is lost. A better way (thanks to the helpful folk on IRC) is to set up a Splunk forwarder on the Web/App/DB hosts and go from there. I went initially with setting them up as (free licenced) Standard Forwarders, so that the web interface is still running for configuration. Remember that any firewall (iptables) will need to be opened for the management ports (8000, 8089 ) and the forward port (9997).

Something else I discovered (but can no longer find in the docs) is that if you configure data sources using the web interface on a Forwarder, but subsequently change the instance to a LightForwarder, you also have to move the configuration files from $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/apps/search/local/ to $SPLUNK_HOME/etc/system/local/

Categories
log4r Rails

Integrating Log4r and Ruby on Rails

Aaaaaaaages ago, I wrote a message on the mailing list (before it moved to Google Groups!) about how to integrate Rails and Log4r. Since then a little bit has changed and that way may or may not entirely work any more. Since then, aaaaages ago Jason Rimmer asked me to update so that it’s all new and fresh, but I completely forgot in the move to the UK (very sorry Jason!). So here it is.

I’ve got a few outputters. One that acts like the default outputter, that writes “development.log” and so on. Then another that outputs to standard error for console lovin’ (in dev mode). Then another that uses a date file outputter to automatically roll over logs every day (for production mode), and finally an Email outputter that only runs in production and sends an email of the log for ERROR and FATAL log levels.

Log4r Rails configuration files

The first bit is the configuration YAML file, which is used to configure the loggers. Then there is logger.rb, which turns on and off the outputters as required. The final part is to include this logger.rb into the application configuration.

It is VERY IMPORTANT that you include the file before the call to the Rails::Initializer.run do block. This is because in this section of code the RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER is initialised, and if we don’t get in before that, we won’t get our logger injected into the Rails framework stack. So, configure it like this:

require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'boot')

require File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__) + "/logger")

Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
...

Just drop the require line in there and it will load logger.rb, which loads log4r.yaml, and everything is up and going. You’ll see friendly [DEBUG] lines in your console and everthing! Of course, I prefer verbose logging on the console in development; you may not, customise by reading the log4r manual. Of course, if you expect your error mails to be delivered, change the SMTP server settings at the bottom of the yaml file.

Sorry for the delay Jason!