Build and Install

Fluent Bit uses CMake as it build system. The suggested procedure to prepare the build system consists on the following steps:

Prepare environment

In the following steps you can find exact commands to build and install the project with the default options. If you already know how CMake works you can skip this part and look at the build options available.

Change to the build/ directory inside the Fluent Bit sources:

$ cd build/

Let CMake configure the project specifying where the root path is located:

$ cmake ../
-- The C compiler identification is GNU 4.9.2
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/cc
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/cc -- works
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
-- The CXX compiler identification is GNU 4.9.2
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++ -- works
...
-- Could NOT find Doxygen (missing:  DOXYGEN_EXECUTABLE)
-- Looking for accept4
-- Looking for accept4 - not found
-- Configuring done
-- Generating done
-- Build files have been written to: /home/edsiper/coding/fluent-bit/build

Now you are ready to start the compilation process through the simple make command:

$ make
Scanning dependencies of target msgpack
[  2%] Building C object lib/msgpack-1.1.0/CMakeFiles/msgpack.dir/src/unpack.c.o
[  4%] Building C object lib/msgpack-1.1.0/CMakeFiles/msgpack.dir/src/objectc.c.o
[  7%] Building C object lib/msgpack-1.1.0/CMakeFiles/msgpack.dir/src/version.c.o
...
[ 19%] Building C object lib/monkey/mk_core/CMakeFiles/mk_core.dir/mk_file.c.o
[ 21%] Building C object lib/monkey/mk_core/CMakeFiles/mk_core.dir/mk_rconf.c.o
[ 23%] Building C object lib/monkey/mk_core/CMakeFiles/mk_core.dir/mk_string.c.o
...
Scanning dependencies of target fluent-bit-static
[ 66%] Building C object src/CMakeFiles/fluent-bit-static.dir/flb_pack.c.o
[ 69%] Building C object src/CMakeFiles/fluent-bit-static.dir/flb_input.c.o
[ 71%] Building C object src/CMakeFiles/fluent-bit-static.dir/flb_output.c.o
...
Linking C executable ../bin/fluent-bit
[100%] Built target fluent-bit-bin

to continue installing the binary on the system just do:

$ make install

it's likely you may need root privileges so you can try to prefixing the command with sudo.

Build Options

Fluent Bit provides certain options to CMake that can be enabled or disabled when configuring, please refer to the following tables under the General Options, Input Plugins and Output Plugins sections.

General Options

option	description	default
FLB_ALL	Enable all features available	No
FLB_DEBUG	Build binaries with debug symbols	No
FLB_JEMALLOC	Use Jemalloc as default memory allocator	No
FLB_TLS	Builds with SSL/TLS support	No
FLB_BINARY	Build executable	Yes
FLB_EXAMPLES	Build examples	Yes
FLB_SHARED_LIB	Build shared library	Yes
FLB_VALGRIND	Enable Valgrind support	No
FLB_TRACE	Enable trace mode	No
FLB_TESTS_RUNTIME	Enable runtime tests	No
FLB_TESTS_INTERNAL	Enable internal tests	No
FLB_TESTS	Enable tests	No
FLB_MTRACE	Enable mtrace support	No
FLB_INOTIFY	Enable Inotify support	Yes
FLB_POSIX_TLS	Force POSIX thread storage	No
FLB_SQLDB	Enable SQL embedded database support	No
FLB_HTTP_SERVER	Enable HTTP Server	No
FLB_BACKTRACE	Enable backtrace/stacktrace support	Yes
FLB_LUAJIT	Enable Lua scripting support	Yes
FLB_STATIC_CONF	Build binary using static configuration files. The value of this option must be a directory containing configuration files.

Input Plugins

The input plugins provides certain features to gather information from a specific source type which can be a network interface, some built-in metric or through a specific input device, the following input plugins are available:

option	description	default
FLB_IN_CPU	Enable CPU input plugin	On
FLB_IN_FORWARD	Enable Forward input plugin	On
FLB_IN_HEAD	Enable Head input plugin	On
FLB_IN_HEALTH	Enable Health input plugin	On
FLB_IN_KMSG	Enable Kernel log input plugin	On
FLB_IN_MEM	Enable Memory input plugin	On
FLB_IN_RANDOM	Enable Random input plugin	On
FLB_IN_SERIAL	Enable Serial input plugin	On
FLB_IN_STDIN	Enable Standard input plugin	On
FLB_IN_TCP	Enable TCP input plugin	On
FLB_IN_MQTT	Enable MQTT input plugin	On
FLB_IN_XBEE	Enable Xbee input plugin	Off

Output Plugins

The output plugins gives the capacity to flush the information to some external interface, service or terminal, the following table describes the output plugins available as of this version:

option	description	default
FLB_OUT_ES	Enable Elastic Search output plugin	On
FLB_OUT_FORWARD	Enable Fluentd output plugin	On
FLB_OUT_HTTP	Enable HTTP output plugin	On
FLB_OUT_NATS	Enable NATS output plugin	Off
FLB_OUT_PLOT	Enable Plot output plugin	On
FLB_OUT_STDOUT	Enable STDOUT output plugin	On
FLB_OUT_TD	Enable Treasure Data output plugin	On
FLB_OUT_NULL	Enable /dev/null output plugin	On