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Remote Syslog Notifications

Overview

Remote Syslog is a way for network devices to send event messages to a logging server – usually known as a Syslog server. The Syslog protocol is supported by a wide range of devices and can be used to log different types of events.

Valid syntax is as follows:

  • rsyslog://{host}
  • rsyslog://{host}:{port}
  • rsyslog://{host}/{facility}
  • rsyslog://{host}:{port}/{facility}

One might change the facility on a remote syslog (rsyslog) server from it’s default like so:

  • syslog://localhost/local5
VariableRequiredDescription
hostNoQuery a remote Syslog server (rsyslog) by optionally specifying the hostname
portNoThe remote port associated with your rsyslog server provided. By default if this value isn’t sent port 514 is used by default.
facilityNoThe facility to use, by default it is user. Valid options are kern, user, mail, daemon, auth, syslog, lpr, news, uucp, cron, local0, local1, local2, local3, local4, local5, local6, and local7
logpidYesInclude PID as part of the log output.
VariableDescription
overflowThis parameter can be set to either split, truncate, or upstream. This determines how Apprise delivers the message you pass it. By default this is set to upstream
👉 upstream: Do nothing at all; pass the message exactly as you received it to the service.
👉 truncate: Ensure that the message will fit within the service’s documented upstream message limit. If more information was passed then the defined limit, the overhead information is truncated.
👉 split: similar to truncate except if the message doesn’t fit within the service’s documented upstream message limit, it is split into smaller chunks and they are all delivered sequentially there-after.
formatThis parameter can be set to either text, html, or markdown. Some services support the ability to post content by several different means. The default of this varies (it can be one of the 3 mentioned at any time depending on which service you choose). You can optionally force this setting to stray from the defaults if you wish. If the service doesn’t support different types of transmission formats, then this field is ignored.
verifyExternal requests made to secure locations (such as through the use of https) will have certificates associated with them. By default, Apprise will verify that these certificates are valid; if they are not then no notification will be sent to the source. In some occasions, a user might not have a certificate authority to verify the key against or they trust the source; in this case you will want to set this flag to no. By default it is set to yes.
ctoThis stands for Socket Connect Timeout. This is the number of seconds Requests will wait for your client to establish a connection to a remote machine (corresponding to the connect()) call on the socket. The default value is 4.0 seconds.
rtoThis stands for Socket Read Timeout. This is the number of seconds the client will wait for the server to send a response. The default value is 4.0 seconds.
emojisEnable Emoji support (such as providing :+1: would translate to 👍). By default this is set to no.
Note: Depending on server side settings, the administrator has the power to disable emoji support at a global level; but default this is not the case.
tzIdentify the IANA Time Zone Database you wish to operate as. By default this is detected based on the configuration the server hosting Apprise is running on. You can set this to things like America/Toronto, or any other properly formated Timezone describing your area.

Send a Remote Syslog notification

Terminal window
# The following sends a syslog notification to the `user` facility
apprise -vv -t "Test Message Title" -b "Test Message Body" \
rsyslog://localhost
Terminal window
# Setup a simple docker file that will run our our rsyslog server for us:
cat << _EOF > dockerfile.syslog
FROM ubuntu
RUN apt update && apt install rsyslog -y
RUN echo '\$ModLoad imudp\n \\
\$UDPServerRun 514\n \\
\$ModLoad imtcp\n \\
\$InputTCPServerRun 514\n \\
\$template RemoteStore, "/var/log/remote/%\$year%-%\$Month%-%\$Day%.log"\n \\
:source, !isequal, "localhost" -?RemoteStore\n \\
:source, isequal, "last" ~ ' > /etc/rsyslog.conf
ENTRYPOINT ["rsyslogd", "-n"]
_EOF
# build it:
docker build -t mysyslog -f dockerfile.syslog .
# Now run it:
docker run --cap-add SYSLOG --restart always \
-v $(pwd)/log:/var/log \
-p 514:514 -p 514:514/udp --name rsyslog mysyslog
# In another terminal window, you can look into a directory
# relative to the location you ran the above command for a directory
# called `log`
You may need to adjust it's permissions, the log file will only get
created after you send an apprise notification.