experity/nlog.targets.networkjson

NLog.Targets.NetworkJson

NLog.Targets.NetworkJson is an NLog target implementation to push log messages to logstash via its TCP input plugin (or UDP for unreliable communications).

Since this implements a simple JSON packet communication mechanism it isn't exclusively for use with logstash but since NLog.Targets.Gelf and the Gelf input plugin in logstash didn't have reliable TCP based communication I implemented this target to communicate with the tcp input plugin instead.

This target implements a newline seperated JSON packet communication in TCP mode with a single reconnect on error of the TCP socket during target communication. If reconnection fails it throws an exception currently.

In UDP mode it sends a single JSON packet in each UDP communication.

History

Code forked from https://github.com/2020Legal/NLog.Targets.Gelf which is a fork from https://github.com/akurdyukov/Gelf4NLog which is a fork from https://github.com/RickyKeane/Gelf4NLog who forked the origonal code from https://github.com/seymen/Gelf4NLog

Although this code was originally forked from a Gelf target intended to communicate with a Graylog2 all protocol specific code has been removed and a TCP communication mechanism has been added as teh target used to support only UDP.

TODO

Features to be implemented in the near future are:

• In TCP mode if the TCP communication fails and reconnection fails the packet will be written to file for retransmission later by filebeats or another mechanism.
• TLS based socket encryption with mutual authentication support will be added so that the TCP input plugin in logstash will be able to communicate with this target when both ssl_enable and ssl_verify are true.
• Convert over the Test and Console Runner projects to be used by this new target.

Solution

Solution is comprised of 1 projects: Target is the actual NLog target implementation.

Configuration

Here is a sample nlog configuration snippet:

<configSections>
  <section name="nlog" type="NLog.Config.ConfigSectionHandler, NLog" />
</configSections>

<nlog xmlns="http://www.nlog-project.org/schemas/NLog.xsd"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

	<extensions>
	  <add assembly="NLog.Targets.NetworkJson"/>
	</extensions>

	<targets>
	  <!-- Other targets (e.g. console) -->
	
	  <target name="NetworkLog" 
			  xsi:type="NetworkJson" 
			  endpoint="tcp://logs.wherever.com:8888">
		<!-- Optional parameters -->
		<parameter name="param1" layout="${longdate}"/>
		<parameter name="param2" layout="${callsite}"/>
	  </target>
	</targets>

	<rules>
	  <logger name="*" minlevel="Debug" writeTo="NetworkLog" />
	</rules>

</nlog>

Options are the following:

• name: arbitrary name given to the target
• xsi:type: set this to "NetworkJson"
• endpoint: the uri pointing to the tcp input plugin of the logstash service in the format {tcp or udp}://{IP or host name}:{port}

JSON Packet Description

The Base JSON defined in a log message will be comprised of the following:

• logLevel: The nlog LogEventInfo’s Level property.
• message: The nlog LogEventInfo’s FormattedMessage property.
• messageType: The type of message, set from LogEventInfo’s LoggerName property.
• logSequenceId: The LogEventInfo’s SequenceID as set by nlog as a unique incrementing number for the life of the process.
• clientTimestamp: A high precision representation of the LogEventInfo’s TimeStamp property, written by NewtonSoft.Json as yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.fffffffzzzz.
• If UserStackFrame information is available in the LogEventInfo:
  • line: The file line number.
  • file: The file full path info.
• If Exception information is available in the LogEventInfo:
  • exceptionSource: The exception source for the main exception.
  • exceptionMessage: The messages of the exceptions, up to 10 levels deep.
  • stackTrace: The stack traces of the exceptions, up to 10 levels deep.

Also included will be:

• Any key/value pair defined in the LogEventInfo's Properties collection.
• Any name/layout Parameter defined in the nlog configuration.

###Code

var eventInfo = new LogEventInfo
				{
					Message = comic.Title,
					Level = LogLevel.Info,
				};
eventInfo.Properties.Add("Publisher", comic.Publisher);
eventInfo.Properties.Add("ReleaseDate", comic.ReleaseDate);
Logger.Log(eventInfo);

or alternatively for simple log messages

Logger.Info("Simple message {0}", value);