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Fluent Bit might optionally use a configuration file to define how the service will behave.
Before proceeding we need to understand how the configuration schema works.
The schema is defined by three concepts:
Sections
Entries: Key/Value
Indented Configuration Mode
A simple example of a configuration file is as follows:
A section is defined by a name or title inside brackets. Looking at the example above, a Service section has been set using [SERVICE] definition. Section rules:
All section content must be indented (4 spaces ideally).
Multiple sections can exist on the same file.
A section is expected to have comments and entries, it cannot be empty.
Any commented line under a section, must be indented too.
End-of-line comments are not supported, only full-line comments.
A section may contain Entries, an entry is defined by a line of text that contains a Key and a Value, using the above example, the [SERVICE] section contains two entries, one is the key Daemon with value off and the other is the key Log_Level with the value debug. Entries rules:
An entry is defined by a key and a value.
A key must be indented.
A key must contain a value which ends in the breakline.
Multiple keys with the same name can exist.
Also commented lines are set prefixing the # character, those lines are not processed but they must be indented too.
Fluent Bit configuration files are based in a strict Indented Mode, that means that each configuration file must follow the same pattern of alignment from left to right when writing text. By default an indentation level of four spaces from left to right is suggested. Example:
As you can see there are two sections with multiple entries and comments, note also that empty lines are allowed and they do not need to be indented.
Currently, Fluent Bit supports two configuration formats:
Yaml. (YAML configuration is production ready since Fluent Bit 2.0.)
Fluent Bit also supports a CLI interface with various flags matching up to the configuration options available.
Fluent Bit supports the usage of environment variables in any value associated to a key when using a configuration file.
The variables are case sensitive and can be used in the following format:
When Fluent Bit starts, the configuration reader will detect any request for ${MY_VARIABLE} and will try to resolve its value.
When Fluent Bit is running under systemd (using the official packages), environment variables can be set in the following files:
/etc/default/fluent-bit (Debian based system)
/etc/sysconfig/fluent-bit (Others)
These files are ignored if they do not exist.
Create the following configuration file (fluent-bit.conf):
Open a terminal and set the environment variable:
The above command set the 'stdout' value to the variable
MY_OUTPUT.
Run Fluent Bit with the recently created configuration file:
As you can see the service worked properly as the configuration was valid.
YAML configuration feature was introduced since FLuent Bit version 1.9 as experimental, and it is production ready since Fluent Bit 2.0.
Configuration files must be flexible enough for any deployment need, but they must keep a clean and readable format.
Fluent Bit Commands extends a configuration file with specific built-in features. The list of commands available as of Fluent Bit 0.12 series are:
| Command | Prototype | Description |
|---|---|---|
Configuring a logging pipeline might lead to an extensive configuration file. In order to maintain a human-readable configuration, it's suggested to split the configuration in multiple files.
The @INCLUDE command allows the configuration reader to include an external configuration file, e.g:
The above example defines the main service configuration file and also include two files to continue the configuration:
Note that despites the order of inclusion, Fluent Bit will ALWAYS respect the following order:
Service
Inputs
Filters
Outputs
Fluent Bit supports configuration variables, one way to expose this variables to Fluent Bit is through setting a Shell environment variable, the other is through the @SET command.
The @SET command can only be used at root level of each line, meaning it cannot be used inside a section, e.g:
It's common that Fluent Bit output plugins aims to connect to external services to deliver the logs over the network, this is the case of HTTP, Elasticsearch and Forward within others. Being able to connect to one node (host) is normal and enough for more of the use cases, but there are other scenarios where balancing across different nodes is required. The Upstream feature provides such capability.
An Upstream defines a set of nodes that will be targeted by an output plugin, by the nature of the implementation an output plugin must support the Upstream feature. The following plugin(s) have Upstream support:
The current balancing mode implemented is round-robin.
To define an Upstream it's required to create an specific configuration file that contains an UPSTREAM and one or multiple NODE sections. The following table describe the properties associated to each section. Note that all of them are mandatory:
| Section | Key | Description |
|---|---|---|
A Node might contain additional configuration keys required by the plugin, on that way we provide enough flexibility for the output plugin, a common use case is Forward output where if TLS is enabled, it requires a shared key (more details in the example below).
In addition to the properties defined in the table above, the network operations against a defined node can optionally be done through the use of TLS for further encryption and certificates use.
The TLS options available are described in the TLS/SSL section and can be added to the any Node section.
The following example defines an Upstream called forward-balancing which aims to be used by Forward output plugin, it register three Nodes:
node-1: connects to 127.0.0.1:43000
node-2: connects to 127.0.0.1:44000
node-3: connects to 127.0.0.1:45000 using TLS without verification. It also defines a specific configuration option required by Forward output called shared_key.
Note that every Upstream definition must exists on it own configuration file in the file system. Adding multiple Upstreams in the same file or different files is not allowed.
This page describes the main configuration file used by Fluent Bit
One of the ways to configure Fluent Bit is using a main configuration file. Fluent Bit allows to use one configuration file which works at a global scope and uses the Format and Schema defined previously.
The main configuration file supports four types of sections:
Service
Input
Filter
Output
In addition, it's also possible to split the main configuration file in multiple files using the feature to include external files:
Include File
The Service section defines global properties of the service, the keys available as of this version are described in the following table:
| Key | Description | Default Value |
|---|---|---|
The following is an example of a SERVICE section:
For scheduler and retry details, please check there: scheduling and retries
An INPUT section defines a source (related to an input plugin), here we will describe the base configuration for each INPUT section. Note that each input plugin may add it own configuration keys:
The Name is mandatory and it let Fluent Bit know which input plugin should be loaded. The Tag is mandatory for all plugins except for the input forward plugin (as it provides dynamic tags).
The following is an example of an INPUT section:
A FILTER section defines a filter (related to an filter plugin), here we will describe the base configuration for each FILTER section. Note that each filter plugin may add it own configuration keys:
The Name is mandatory and it let Fluent Bit know which filter plugin should be loaded. The Match or Match_Regex is mandatory for all plugins. If both are specified, Match_Regex takes precedence.
The following is an example of an FILTER section:
The OUTPUT section specify a destination that certain records should follow after a Tag match. Currently, Fluent Bit can route up to 256 OUTPUT plugins. The configuration support the following keys:
The following is an example of an OUTPUT section:
The following configuration file example demonstrates how to collect CPU metrics and flush the results every five seconds to the standard output:
To avoid complicated long configuration files is better to split specific parts in different files and call them (include) from one main file.
Starting from Fluent Bit 0.12 the new configuration command @INCLUDE has been added and can be used in the following way:
The configuration reader will try to open the path somefile.conf, if not found, it will assume it's a relative path based on the path of the base configuration file, e.g:
Main configuration file path: /tmp/main.conf
Included file: somefile.conf
Fluent Bit will try to open somefile.conf, if it fails it will try /tmp/somefile.conf.
The @INCLUDE command only works at top-left level of the configuration line, it cannot be used inside sections.
Wildcard character (*) is supported to include multiple files, e.g:
Note files matching the wildcard character are included unsorted. If plugins ordering between files need to be preserved, the files should be included explicitly.
Certain configuration directives in Fluent Bit refer to unit sizes such as when defining the size of a buffer or specific limits, we can find these in plugins like Tail Input, Forward Input or in generic properties like Mem_Buf_Limit.
Starting from Fluent Bit v0.11.10, all unit sizes have been standardized across the core and plugins, the following table describes the options that can be used and what they mean:
| Suffix | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
A full feature set to access content of your records
Fluent Bit works internally with structured records and it can be composed of an unlimited number of keys and values. Values can be anything like a number, string, array, or a map.
Having a way to select a specific part of the record is critical for certain core functionalities or plugins, this feature is called Record Accessor.
consider Record Accessor a simple grammar to specify record content and other miscellaneous values.
A record accessor rule starts with the character $. Using the structured content above as an example the following table describes how to access a record:
The following table describe some accessing rules and the expected returned value:
| Format | Accessed Value |
|---|---|
If the accessor key does not exist in the record like the last example $labels['undefined'] , the operation is simply omitted, no exception will occur.
The feature is enabled on a per plugin basis, not all plugins enable this feature. As an example consider a configuration that aims to filter records using grep that only matches where labels have a color blue:
The file content to process in test.log is the following:
Running Fluent Bit with the configuration above the output will be:
The Fluent Bit record_accessor library has a limitation in the characters that can separate template variables- only dots and commas (. and ,) can come after a template variable. This is because the templating library must parse the template and determine the end of a variable.
The following would be invalid templates because the two template variables are not separated by commas or dots:
$TaskID-$ECSContainerName
$TaskID/$ECSContainerName
$TaskID_$ECSContainerName
$TaskIDfooo$ECSContainerName
However, the following are valid:
$TaskID.$ECSContainerName
$TaskID.ecs_resource.$ECSContainerName
$TaskID.fooo.$ECSContainerName
And the following are valid since they only contain one template variable with nothing after it:
fooo$TaskID
fooo____$TaskID
fooo/bar$TaskID
This page describes the yaml configuration file used by Fluent Bit
One of the ways to configure Fluent Bit is using a YAML configuration file that works at a global scope.
The YAML configuration file supports the following sections:
Env
Includes
Service
Pipeline
Inputs
Filters
Outputs
The YAML configuration file does not support the following sections yet:
Parsers
YAML configuration is used in the smoke tests for containers, so an always-correct up-to-date example is here: .
The env section allows the definition of configuration variables that will be used later in the configuration file.
Example:
The includes section allows the files to be merged into the YAML configuration to be identified as a list of filenames. If no path is provided, then the file is assumed to be in a folder relative to the file referencing it.
Example:
The service section defines the global properties of the service. The Service keys available as of this version are described in the following table:
The following is an example of a service section:
A pipeline section will define a complete pipeline configuration, including inputs, filters and outputs subsections.
Each of the subsections for inputs, filters and outputs constitutes an array of maps that has the parameters for each. Most properties are either simple strings or numbers so can be define directly, ie:
This pipeline consists of two inputs; a tail plugin and an http server plugin. Each plugin has its own map in the array of inputs consisting of simple properties. To use more advanced properties that consist of multiple values the property itself can be defined using an array, ie: the record and allowlist_key properties for the record_modifier filter:
In the cases where each value in a list requires two values they must be separated by a space, such as in the record property for the record_modifier filter.
An input section defines a source (related to an input plugin). Here we will describe the base configuration for each input section. Note that each input plugin may add it own configuration keys:
The Name is mandatory and it lets Fluent Bit know which input plugin should be loaded. The Tag is mandatory for all plugins except for the input forward plugin (as it provides dynamic tags).
Example input
The following is an example of an input section for the cpu plugin.
A filter section defines a filter (related to a filter plugin). Here we will describe the base configuration for each filter section. Note that each filter plugin may add its own configuration keys:
The Name is mandatory and it lets Fluent Bit know which filter plugin should be loaded. The Match or Match_Regex is mandatory for all plugins. If both are specified, Match_Regex takes precedence.
Example filter
The following is an example of a filter section for the grep plugin:
The outputs section specify a destination that certain records should follow after a Tag match. Currently, Fluent Bit can route up to 256 OUTPUT plugins. The configuration supports the following keys:
Example output
The following is an example of an output section:
Example: collecting CPU metrics
The following configuration file example demonstrates how to collect CPU metrics and flush the results every five seconds to the standard output:
In recent versions of Fluent-Bit, the input and output plugins can run in separate threads. In Fluent-Bit 2.1.2, we have implemented a new interface called "processor" to extend the processing capabilities in input and output plugins directly without routing the data. This interface allows users to apply data transformations and filtering to incoming data records before they are processed further in the pipeline.
This functionality is only exposed in YAML configuration and not in classic configuration mode due to the restriction of nested levels of configuration.
The following configuration file example demonstrates the use of processors to change the log record in the input plugin section by adding a new key "hostname" with the value "monox", and we use lua to append the tag to the log record. Also in the ouput plugin section we added a new key named "output" with the value "new data". All these without the need of routing the logs further in the pipeline.
In an ideal world, applications might log their messages within a single line, but in reality applications generate multiple log messages that sometimes belong to the same context. But when is time to process such information it gets really complex. Consider application stack traces which always have multiple log lines.
Starting from Fluent Bit v1.8, we have implemented a unified Multiline core functionality to solve all the user corner cases. In this section, you will learn about the features and configuration options available.
The Multiline parser engine exposes two ways to configure and use the functionality:
Built-in multiline parser
Configurable multiline parser
Without any extra configuration, Fluent Bit exposes certain pre-configured parsers (built-in) to solve specific multiline parser cases, e.g:
| Parser | Description |
|---|
Besides the built-in parsers listed above, through the configuration files is possible to define your own Multiline parsers with their own rules.
A multiline parser is defined in a parsers configuration file by using a [MULTILINE_PARSER] section definition. The Multiline parser must have a unique name and a type plus other configured properties associated with each type.
To understand which Multiline parser type is required for your use case you have to know beforehand what are the conditions in the content that determines the beginning of a multiline message and the continuation of subsequent lines. We provide a regex based configuration that supports states to handle from the most simple to difficult cases.
Before start configuring your parser you need to know the answer to the following questions:
What is the regular expression (regex) that matches the first line of a multiline message ?
What are the regular expressions (regex) that match the continuation lines of a multiline message ?
When matching regex, we have to define states, some states define the start of a multiline message while others are states for the continuation of multiline messages. You can have multiple continuation states definitions to solve complex cases.
The first regex that matches the start of a multiline message is called start_state, then other regexes continuation lines can have different state names.
A rule specifies how to match a multiline pattern and perform the concatenation. A rule is defined by 3 specific components:
state name
regular expression pattern
next state
A rule might be defined as follows (comments added to simplify the definition) :
In the example above, we have defined two rules, each one has its own state name, regex patterns, and the next state name. Every field that composes a rule must be inside double quotes.
The first rule of state name must always be start_state, and the regex pattern must match the first line of a multiline message, also a next state must be set to specify how the possible continuation lines would look like.
The following example provides a full Fluent Bit configuration file for multiline parsing by using the definition explained above.
Example files content:
This is the primary Fluent Bit configuration file. It includes the parsers_multiline.conf and tails the file test.log by applying the multiline parser multiline-regex-test. Then it sends the processing to the standard output.
This second file defines a multiline parser for the example.
An example file with multiline content:
By running Fluent Bit with the given configuration file you will obtain:
The lines that did not match a pattern are not considered as part of the multiline message, while the ones that matched the rules were concatenated properly.
The multiline parser is a very powerful feature, but it has some limitations that you should be aware of:
The multiline parser is not affected by the buffer_max_size configuration option, allowing the composed log record to grow beyond this size. Hence, the skip_long_lines option will not be applied to multiline messages.
It is not possible to get the time key from the body of the multiline message. However, it can be extracted and set as a new key by using a filter.
Fluent-bit supports /pat/m option. It allows . matches a new line. It is useful to parse multiline log.
The following example is to get date and message from concatenated log.
Example files content:
This is the primary Fluent Bit configuration file. It includes the parsers_multiline.conf and tails the file test.log by applying the multiline parser multiline-regex-test. It also parses concatenated log by applying parser named-capture-test. Then it sends the processing to the standard output.
This second file defines a multiline parser for the example.
An example file with multiline content:
By running Fluent Bit with the given configuration file you will obtain:
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| Key | Description | Default Value |
|---|
For scheduler and retry details, please check there:
| Key | Description |
|---|
| Key | Description |
|---|
| Key | Description |
|---|
| Property | Description | Default |
|---|
To simplify the configuration of regular expressions, you can use the Rubular web site. We have posted an example by using the regex described above plus a log line that matches the pattern:
The following example files can be located at:
@INCLUDE FILE
Include a configuration file
@SET KEY=VAL
Set a configuration variable
UPSTREAM
name
Defines a name for the Upstream in question.
NODE
name
Defines a name for the Node in question.
host
IP address or hostname of the target host.
port
TCP port of the target service.
Name
Name of the input plugin.
Tag
Tag name associated to all records coming from this plugin.
Log_Level
Set the plugin's logging verbosity level. Allowed values are: off, error, warn, info, debug and trace. Defaults to the SERVICE section's Log_Level.
Name
Name of the filter plugin.
Match
A pattern to match against the tags of incoming records. It's case sensitive and support the star (*) character as a wildcard.
Match_Regex
A regular expression to match against the tags of incoming records. Use this option if you want to use the full regex syntax.
Log_Level
Set the plugin's logging verbosity level. Allowed values are: off, error, warn, info, debug and trace. Defaults to the SERVICE section's Log_Level.
Name
Name of the output plugin.
Match
A pattern to match against the tags of incoming records. It's case sensitive and support the star (*) character as a wildcard.
Match_Regex
A regular expression to match against the tags of incoming records. Use this option if you want to use the full regex syntax.
Log_Level
Set the plugin's logging verbosity level. Allowed values are: off, error, warn, info, debug and trace. Defaults to the SERVICE section's Log_Level.
When a suffix is not specified, it's assumed that the value given is a bytes representation.
Specifying a value of 32000, means 32000 bytes
k, K, KB, kb
Kilobyte: a unit of memory equal to 1,000 bytes.
32k means 32000 bytes.
m, M, MB, mb
Megabyte: a unit of memory equal to 1,000,000 bytes
1M means 1000000 bytes
g, G, GB, gb
Gigabyte: a unit of memory equal to 1,000,000,000 bytes
1G means 1000000000 bytes
$log
"some message"
$labels['color']
"blue"
$labels['project']['env']
"production"
$labels['unset']
null
$labels['undefined']
Name | Name of the input plugin. Defined as subsection of the inputs section. |
Tag | Tag name associated to all records coming from this plugin. |
Log_Level | Set the plugin's logging verbosity level. Allowed values are: off, error, warn, info, debug and trace. Defaults to the SERVICE section's Log_Level. |
Name | Name of the filter plugin. Defined as a subsection of the filters section. |
Match | A pattern to match against the tags of incoming records. It's case-sensitive and supports the star (*) character as a wildcard. |
Match_Regex | A regular expression to match against the tags of incoming records. Use this option if you want to use the full regex syntax. |
Log_Level | Set the plugin's logging verbosity level. Allowed values are: off, error, warn, info, debug and trace. Defaults to the SERVICE section's Log_Level. |
Name | Name of the output plugin. Defined as a subsection of the outputs section. |
Match | A pattern to match against the tags of incoming records. It's case-sensitive and supports the star (*) character as a wildcard. |
Match_Regex | A regular expression to match against the tags of incoming records. Use this option if you want to use the full regex syntax. |
Log_Level | Set the plugin's logging verbosity level. Allowed values are: off, error, warn, info, debug and trace. The output log level defaults to the SERVICE section's Log_Level. |
name | Specify a unique name for the Multiline Parser definition. A good practice is to prefix the name with the word |
type | Set the multiline mode, for now, we support the type |
parser | Name of a pre-defined parser that must be applied to the incoming content before applying the regex rule. If no parser is defined, it's assumed that's a raw text and not a structured message. Note: when a parser is applied to a raw text, then the regex is applied against a specific key of the structured message by using the |
key_content | For an incoming structured message, specify the key that contains the data that should be processed by the regular expression and possibly concatenated. |
flush_timeout | Timeout in milliseconds to flush a non-terminated multiline buffer. Default is set to 5 seconds. | 5s |
rule | Configure a rule to match a multiline pattern. The rule has a specific format described below. Multiple rules can be defined. |
flush
Set the flush time in seconds.nanoseconds. The engine loop uses a Flush timeout to define when is required to flush the records ingested by input plugins through the defined output plugins.
1
grace
Set the grace time in seconds as Integer value. The engine loop uses a Grace timeout to define wait time on exit
5
daemon
Boolean value to set if Fluent Bit should run as a Daemon (background) or not. Allowed values are: yes, no, on and off. note: If you are using a Systemd based unit as the one we provide in our packages, do not turn on this option.
Off
dns.mode
Set the primary transport layer protocol used by the asynchronous DNS resolver which can be overridden on a per plugin basis
UDP
log_file
Absolute path for an optional log file. By default all logs are redirected to the standard error interface (stderr).
log_level
Set the logging verbosity level. Allowed values are: off, error, warn, info, debug and trace. Values are accumulative, e.g: if 'debug' is set, it will include error, warning, info and debug. Note that trace mode is only available if Fluent Bit was built with the WITH_TRACE option enabled.
info
parsers_file
Path for a parsers configuration file. Multiple Parsers_File entries can be defined within the section.
plugins_file
Path for a plugins configuration file. A plugins configuration file allows to define paths for external plugins, for an example see here.
streams_file
Path for the Stream Processor configuration file. To learn more about Stream Processing configuration go here.
http_server
Enable built-in HTTP Server
Off
http_listen
Set listening interface for HTTP Server when it's enabled
0.0.0.0
http_port
Set TCP Port for the HTTP Server
2020
coro_stack_size
Set the coroutines stack size in bytes. The value must be greater than the page size of the running system. Don't set too small value (say 4096), or coroutine threads can overrun the stack buffer. Do not change the default value of this parameter unless you know what you are doing.
24576
scheduler.cap
Set a maximum retry time in second. The property is supported from v1.8.7.
2000
scheduler.base
Set a base of exponential backoff. The property is supported from v1.8.7.
5
json.convert_nan_to_null
If enabled, NaN is converted to null when fluent-bit converts msgpack to json.
false
sp.convert_from_str_to_num
If enabled, Stream processor converts from number string to number type.
true
flush | Set the flush time in | 5 |
grace | Set the grace time in | 5 |
daemon | Boolean value to set if Fluent Bit should run as a Daemon (background) or not. Allowed values are: yes, no, on, and off. note: If you are using a Systemd based unit like the one we provide in our packages, do not turn on this option. | Off |
dns.mode | Sets the primary transport layer protocol used by the asynchronous DNS resolver, which can be overridden on a per plugin basis | UDP |
log_file | Absolute path for an optional log file. By default, all logs are redirected to the standard error interface (stderr). |
log_level | Set the logging verbosity level. Allowed values are: off, error, warn, info, debug and trace. Values are accumulative, e.g., if 'debug' is set, it will include error, warning, info, and debug. Note that trace mode is only available if Fluent Bit was built with the WITH_TRACE option enabled. | info |
parsers_file | Path for a |
plugins_file |
streams_file |
http_server | Enable built-in HTTP Server | Off |
http_listen | Set listening interface for HTTP Server when it's enabled | 0.0.0.0 |
http_port | Set TCP Port for the HTTP Server | 2020 |
coro_stack_size | Set the coroutines stack size in bytes. The value must be greater than the page size of the running system. Don't set too small a value (say 4096), or coroutine threads can overrun the stack buffer. Do not change the default value of this parameter unless you know what you are doing. | 24576 |
scheduler.cap | Set a maximum retry time in seconds. The property is supported from v1.8.7. | 2000 |
scheduler.base | Sets the base of exponential backoff. The property is supported from v1.8.7. | 5 |
json.convert_nan_to_null | If enabled, NaN is converted to null when fluent-bit converts msgpack to json. | false |
sp.convert_from_str_to_num | If enabled, Stream processor converts from number string to number type. | true |
docker | Process a log entry generated by a Docker container engine. This parser supports the concatenation of log entries split by Docker. |
cri | Process a log entry generated by CRI-O container engine. Same as the docker parser, it supports concatenation of log entries |
go | Process log entries generated by a Go based language application and perform concatenation if multiline messages are detected. |
python | Process log entries generated by a Python based language application and perform concatenation if multiline messages are detected. |
java | Process log entries generated by a Google Cloud Java language application and perform concatenation if multiline messages are detected. |
Path for a plugins configuration file. A plugins configuration file allows the definition of paths for external plugins; for an example, .
Path for the Stream Processor configuration file. To learn more about Stream Processing configuration go .
