lnav/docs/source/formats.rst

.. _log-formats:

Log Formats
===========

Log files loaded into **lnav** are parsed based on formats defined in
configuration files.  Many
formats are already built in to the **lnav** binary and you can define your own
using a JSON file.  When loading files, each format is checked to see if it can
parse the first few lines in the file.  Once a match is found, that format will
be considered that files format and used to parse the remaining lines in the
file.  If no match is found, the file is considered to be plain text and can
be viewed in the "text" view that is accessed with the **t** key.

The following log formats are built into **lnav**:

.. csv-table::
   :header: "Name", "Table Name", "Description"
   :widths: 8 5 20
   :file: format-table.csv

The
`Bro Network Security Monitor <https://www.bro.org/sphinx/script-reference/log-files.html>`_
TSV log format is also supported in versions
v0.8.3+.  The Bro log format is self-describing, so **lnav** will read the
header to determine the shape of the file.


Defining a New Format
---------------------

New log formats can be defined by placing JSON configuration files in
subdirectories of the :file:`~/.lnav/formats/` directory.  The directories and
files can be named anything you like, but the files must have the '.json' suffix.  A
sample file containing the builtin configuration will be written to this
directory when **lnav** starts up.  You can consult that file when writing your
own formats or if you need to modify existing ones.  Format directories can
also contain '.sql' and '.lnav' script files that can be used automate log file
analysis.

The contents of the format configuration should be a JSON object with a field
for each format defined by the file.  Each field name should be the symbolic
name of the format.  This value will also be used as the SQL table name for
the log.  The value for each field should be another object with the following
fields:

  :title: The short and human-readable name for the format.
  :description: A longer description of the format.
  :url: A URL to the definition of the format.

  :file-pattern: A regular expression used to match log file paths.  Typically,
    every file format will be tried during the detection process.  This field
    can be used to limit which files a format is applied to in case there is
    a potential for conflicts.

  :regex: This object contains sub-objects that describe the message formats
    to match in a plain log file.  Log files that contain JSON messages should
    not specify this field.

    :pattern: The regular expression that should be used to match log messages.
      The `PCRE <http://www.pcre.org>`_ library is used by **lnav** to do all
      regular expression matching.

    :module-format: If true, this regex will only be used to parse message
      bodies for formats that can act as containers, such as syslog.  Default:
      false.

  :json: True if each log line is JSON-encoded.

  :line-format: An array that specifies the text format for JSON-encoded
    log messages.  Log files that are JSON-encoded will have each message
    converted from the raw JSON encoding into this format.  Each element
    is either an object that defines which fields should be inserted into
    the final message string and or a string constant that should be
    inserted.  For example, the following configuration will tranform each
    log message object into a string that contains the timestamp, followed
    by a space, and then the message body::

    [ { "field": "ts" }, " ", { "field": "msg" } ]

    :field: The name of the message field that should be inserted at this
      point in the message.  The special "__timestamp__" field name can be
      used to insert a human-readable timestamp.  The "__level__" field can
      be used to insert the level name as defined by lnav.
    :min-width: The minimum width for the field.  If the value for the field
      in a given log message is shorter, padding will be added as needed to
      meet the minimum-width requirement. (v0.8.2+)
    :max-width: The maximum width for the field.  If the value for the field
      in a given log message is longer, the overflow algorithm will be applied
      to try and shorten the field. (v0.8.2+)
    :align: Specifies the alignment for the field, either "left" or "right".
      If "left", padding to meet the minimum-width will be added on the right.
      If "right", padding will be added on the left. (v0.8.2+)
    :overflow: The algorithm used to shorten a field that is longer than
      "max-width".  The following algorithms are supported:

        :abbrev: Removes all but the first letter in dotted text.  For example,
          "com.example.foo" would be shortened to "c.e.foo".
        :truncate: Truncates any text past the maximum width.
        :dot-dot: Cuts out the middle of the text and replaces it with two
          dots (i.e. '..').

      (v0.8.2+)
    :timestamp-format: The timestamp format to use when displaying the time
      for this log message. (v0.8.2+)
    :default-value: The default value to use if the field could not be found
      in the current log message.  The built-in default is "-".
    :text-transform: Transform the text in the field.  Supported options are:
      none, uppercase, lowercase, capitalize

  :timestamp-field: The name of the field that contains the log message
    timestamp.  Defaults to "timestamp".

  :timestamp-format: An array of timestamp formats using a subset of the
    strftime conversion specification.  The following conversions are
    supported: %a, %b, %L, %M, %H, %I, %d, %e, %k, %l, %m, %p, %y, %Y, %S, %s,
    %Z, %z.  In addition, you can also use the following:

    :%L: Milliseconds as a decimal number (range 000 to 999).
    :%f: Microseconds as a decimal number (range 000000 to 999999).
    :%N: Nanoseconds as a decimal number (range 000000000 to 999999999).
    :%i: Milliseconds from the epoch.
    :%6: Microseconds from the epoch.

  :timestamp-divisor: For JSON logs with numeric timestamps, this value is used
    to divide the timestamp by to get the number of seconds and fractional
    seconds.

  :ordered-by-time: (v0.8.3+) Indicates that the order of messages in the file
    is time-based.  Files that are not naturally ordered by time will be sorted
    in order to display them in the correct order.  Note that this sorting can
    incur a performance penalty when tailing logs.

  :level-field: The name of the regex capture group that contains the log
    message level.  Defaults to "level".

  :body-field: The name of the field that contains the main body of the
    message.  Defaults to "body".

  :opid-field: The name of the field that contains the "operation ID" of the
    message.  An "operation ID" establishes a thread of messages that might
    correspond to a particular operation/request/transaction.  The user can
    press the 'o' or 'Shift+O' hotkeys to move forward/backward through the
    list of messages that have the same operation ID.  Note: For JSON-encoded
    logs, the opid field can be a path (e.g. "foo/bar/opid") if the field is
    nested in an object and it MUST be included in the "line-format" for the
    'o' hotkeys to work.

  :module-field: The name of the field that contains the module identifier
    that distinguishes messages from one log source from another.  This field
    should be used if this message format can act as a container for other
    types of log messages.  For example, an Apache access log can be sent to
    syslog instead of written to a file.  In this case, **lnav** will parse
    the syslog message and then separately parse the body of the message to
    determine the "sub" format.  This module identifier is used to help
    **lnav** quickly identify the format to use when parsing message bodies.

  :hide-extra: A boolean for JSON logs that indicates whether fields not
    present in the line-format should be displayed on their own lines.

  :level: A mapping of error levels to regular expressions.  During scanning
    the contents of the capture group specified by *level-field* will be
    checked against each of these regexes.  Once a match is found, the log
    message level will set to the corresponding level.  The available levels,
    in order of severity, are: **fatal**, **critical**, **error**,
    **warning**, **stats**, **info**, **debug**, **debug2-5**, **trace**.
    For JSON logs with exact numeric levels, the number for the corresponding
    level can be supplied.  If the JSON log format uses numeric ranges instead
    of exact numbers, you can supply a pattern and the number found in the log
    will be converted to a string for pattern-matching.

  :multiline: If false, **lnav** will consider any log lines that do not
    match one of the message patterns to be in error when checking files with
    the '-C' option.  This flag will not affect normal viewing operation.
    Default: true.

  :value: This object contains the definitions for the values captured by the
    regexes.

    :kind: The type of data that was captured **string**, **integer**,
      **float**, **json**, **quoted**.
    :collate: The collation function for this value.
    :identifier: A boolean that indicates whether or not this field represents
      an identifier and should be syntax colored.
    :foreign-key: A boolean that indicates that this field is a key and should
      not be graphed.  This should only need to be set for integer fields.
    :hidden: A boolean for log fields that indicates whether they should
      be displayed.  The behavior is slightly different for JSON logs and text
      logs.  For a JSON log, this property determines whether an extra line
      will be added with the key/value pair.  For text logs, this property
      controls whether the value should be displayed by default or replaced
      with an ellipsis.
    :rewriter: A command to rewrite this field when pretty-printing log
      messages containing this value.  The command must start with ':', ';',
      or '|' to signify whether it is a regular command, SQL query, or a script
      to be executed.  The other fields in the line are accessible in SQL by
      using the ':' prefix.  The text value of this field will then be replaced
      with the result of the command when pretty-printing.  For example, the
      HTTP access log format will rewrite the status code field to include the
      textual version (e.g. 200 (OK)) using the following SQL query::

         ;SELECT :sc_status || ' (' || (SELECT message FROM http_status_codes WHERE status = :sc_status) || ') '

  :sample: A list of objects that contain sample log messages.  All formats
    must include at least one sample and it must be matched by one of the
    included regexes.  Each object must contain the following field:

    :line: The sample message.
    :level: The expected error level.  An error will be raised if this level
      does not match the level parsed by lnav for this sample message.

  :highlights: This object contains the definitions for patterns to be
      highlighted in a log message.  Each entry should have a name and a
      definition with the following fields:
    :pattern: The regular expression to match in the log message body.
    :color: The foreground color to use when highlighting the part of the
      message that matched the pattern.  If no color is specified, one will be
      picked automatically.  Colors can be specified using hexadecimal notation
      by starting with a hash (e.g. #aabbcc) or using a color name as found
      at http://jonasjacek.github.io/colors/.
    :background-color: The background color to use when highlighting the part
      of the message that matched the pattern.  If no background color is
      specified, black will be used.  The background color is only considered
      if a foreground color is specified.
    :underline: If true, underline the part of the message that matched the
      pattern.
    :blink: If true, blink the part of the message that matched the pattern.

Example format::

    {
        "example_log" : {
            "title" : "Example Log Format",
            "description" : "Log format used in the documentation example.",
            "url" : "http://example.com/log-format.html",
            "regex" : {
                "basic" : {
                    "pattern" : "^(?<timestamp>\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2}T\\d{2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}\\.\\d{3}Z)>>(?<level>\\w+)>>(?<component>\\w+)>>(?<body>.*)$"
                }
            },
            "level-field" : "level",
            "level" : {
                "error" : "ERROR",
                "warning" : "WARNING"
            },
            "value" : {
                "component" : {
                    "kind" : "string",
                    "identifier" : true
                }
            },
            "sample" : [
                {
                    "line" : "2011-04-01T15:14:34.203Z>>ERROR>>core>>Shit's on fire yo!"
                }
            ]
        }
    }

Modifying an Existing Format
----------------------------

When loading log formats from files, **lnav** will overlay any new data over
previously loaded data.  This feature allows you to override existing value or
append new ones to the format configurations.  For example, you can separately
add a new regex to the example log format given above by creating another file
with the following contents::

    {
        "example_log" : {
            "regex" : {
                "custom1" : {
                    "pattern" : "^(?<timestamp>\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2}T\\d{2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}\\.\\d{3}Z)<<(?<level>\\w+)--(?<component>\\w+)>>(?<body>.*)$"
                }
            },
            "sample" : [
                {
                    "line" : "2011-04-01T15:14:34.203Z<<ERROR--core>>Shit's on fire yo!"
                }
            ]
        }
    }


Scripts
-------

Format directories may also contain '.sql' and '.lnav' files to help automate
log file analysis.  The SQL files are executed on startup to create any helper
tables or views and the '.lnav' script files can be executed using the pipe
hotkey (|).  For example, **lnav** includes a "partition-by-boot" script that
partitions the log view based on boot messages from the Linux kernel.  A script
can have a mix of SQL and **lnav** commands, as well as include other scripts.
The type of statement to execute is determined by the leading character on a
line: a semi-colon begins a SQL statement; a colon starts an **lnav** command;
and a pipe (|) denotes another script to be executed.  Lines beginning with a
hash are treated as comments.  Any arguments passed to a script can be
referenced using '$N' where 'N' is the index of the argument.  Remember that
you need to use the ':eval' command (see :ref:`misc-cmd`) when referencing
variables in most **lnav** commands.  Scripts can provide help text to be
displayed during interactive usage by adding the following tags in a comment
header:

  :@synopsis: The synopsis should contain the name of the script and any
    parameters to be passed.  For example::

    # @synopsis: hello-world <name1> [<name2> ... <nameN>]

  :@description: A one-line description of what the script does.  For example::

    # @description: Say hello to the given names.


Installing Formats
------------------

File formats are loaded from subdirectories in :file:`/etc/lnav/formats` and
:file:`~/.lnav/formats/`.  You can manually create these subdirectories and
copy the format files into there.  Or, you can pass the '-i' option to **lnav**
to automatically install formats from the command-line.  For example::

    $ lnav -i myformat.json
    info: installed: /home/example/.lnav/formats/installed/myformat_log.json

Format files installed using this method will be placed in the :file:`installed`
subdirectory and named based on the first format name found in the file.

You can also install formats from git repositories by passing the repository's
clone URL.  A standard set of repositories is maintained at
(https://github.com/tstack/lnav-config) and can be installed by passing 'extra'
on the command line, like so:

    $ lnav -i extra

These repositories can be updated by running **lnav** with the '-u' flag.

Format files can also be made executable by adding a shebang (#!) line to the
top of the file, like so::

    #! /usr/bin/env lnav -i
    {
        "myformat_log" : ...
    }

Executing the format file should then install it automatically::

    $ chmod ugo+rx myformat.json
    $ ./myformat.json
    info: installed: /home/example/.lnav/formats/installed/myformat_log.json


Format Order When Scanning a File
---------------------------------

When **lnav** loads a file, it tries each log format against the first ~1000
lines of the file trying to find a match.  When a match is found, that log
format will be locked in and used for the rest of the lines in that file.
Since there may be overlap between formats, **lnav** performs a test on
startup to determine which formats match each others sample lines.  Using
this information it will create an ordering of the formats so that the more
specific formats are tried before the more generic ones.  For example, a
format that matches certain syslog messages will match its own sample lines,
but not the ones in the syslog samples.  On the other hand, the syslog format
will match its own samples and those in the more specific format.  You can
see the order of the format by enabling debugging and checking the **lnav**
log file for the "Format order" message::

    $ lnav -d /tmp/lnav.log