lnav/docs/source/formats.rst
Nicolas Bock 97e8e6c87b
Fix schema reference
The schema should be `format` instead of `config`.

Signed-off-by: Nicolas Bock <nicolasbock@gmail.com>
2021-04-28 14:47:50 -06:00

455 lines
19 KiB
ReStructuredText

.. _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
In addition to the above formats, the following self-describing formats are
supported:
* The
`Bro Network Security Monitor <https://www.bro.org/sphinx/script-reference/log-files.html>`_
TSV log format is supported in lnav versions v0.8.3+. The Bro log format is
self-describing, so **lnav** will read the header to determine the shape of
the file.
* The
`W3C Extend Log File Format <https://www.w3.org/TR/WD-logfile.html>`_
is supported in lnav versions v0.9.1+. The W3C 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.
An **lnav** format file must contain a single JSON object, preferably with a
:code:`$schema` property that refers to the
`format-v1.schema <https://lnav.org/schemas/format-v1.schema.json>`_,
like so:
.. code-block:: json
{
"$schema": "https://lnav.org/schemas/format-v1.schema.json"
}
Each format to be defined in the file should a separate field in the top-level
object. The 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.
.. _format_regex:
: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:
.. code-block:: json
[ { "field": "ts" }, " ", { "field": "msg" } ]
:field: The name or `JSON-Pointer <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6901>`_
of the message field that should be inserted at this point in the
message. The special :code:`__timestamp__` field name can be used to
insert a human-readable timestamp. The :code:`__level__` field can be
used to insert the level name as defined by lnav.
.. tip::
Use a JSON-Pointer to reference nested fields. For example, to include
a "procname" property that is nested in a "details" object, you would
write the field reference as :code:`/details/procname`.
: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 name of the SQLite collation function for this value.
The standard SQLite collation functions can be used as well as the
ones defined by lnav, as described in :ref:`collators`.
: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:
.. code-block:: sql
;SELECT :sc_status || ' (' || (
SELECT message FROM http_status_codes
WHERE status = :sc_status) || ') '
.. _format_sample:
: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:
.. code-block:: json
{
"$schema": "https://lnav.org/schemas/format-v1.schema.json",
"example_log" : {
"title" : "Example Log Format",
"description" : "Log format used in the documentation example.",
"url" : "http://example.com/log-format.html",
"regex" : {
"basic" : {
"pattern" : "^(?<timestamp>\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2}T\\d{2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}\\.\\d{3}Z)>>(?<level>\\w+)>>(?<component>\\w+)>>(?<body>.*)$"
}
},
"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:
.. code-block:: json
{
"$schema": "https://lnav.org/schemas/format-v1.schema.json",
"example_log" : {
"regex" : {
"custom1" : {
"pattern" : "^(?<timestamp>\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d{2}T\\d{2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}\\.\\d{3}Z)<<(?<level>\\w+)--(?<component>\\w+)>>(?<body>.*)$"
}
},
"sample" : [
{
"line" : "2011-04-01T15:14:34.203Z<<ERROR--core>>Shit's on fire yo!"
}
]
}
}
.. _scripts:
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. The following variables are defined in a script:
.. envvar:: #
The number of arguments passed to the script.
.. envvar:: __all__
A string containing all the arguments joined by a single space.
.. envvar:: 0
The path to the script being executed.
.. envvar:: 1-N
The arguments passed to the script.
Remember that you need to use the :ref:`:eval<eval>` command 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.
.. tip::
The :ref:`:eval<eval>` command can be used to do variable substitution for
commands that do not natively support it. For example, to substitute the
variable, :code:`pattern`, in a :ref:`:filter-out<filter_out>` command:
.. code-block:: lnav
:eval :filter-out ${pattern}
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:
.. code-block:: bash
$ 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:
.. prompt:: bash
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:
.. code-block:: bash
$ chmod ugo+rx myformat.json
$ ./myformat.json
info: installed: /home/example/.lnav/formats/installed/myformat_log.json
.. _format_order:
Format Order When Scanning a File
---------------------------------
When **lnav** loads a file, it tries each log format against the first 15,000
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:
.. prompt:: bash
lnav -d /tmp/lnav.log
.. [#] The maximum number of lines to check can be configured. See the
:ref:`tuning` section for more details.