This article will present to you all the configuration needed to remotely save access logs of an Nginx web server. All the configuration from the client and server sides is included. The client and the server use CentOS 7 Linux distribution and the configuration could be used under different Linux distribution. Probably only Selinux rules are kind of specific to the CentOS 7 and the firewalld rules are specific for those who use it as a firewall replacing the iptables. Here is the summary of what to expect:
- Client-side – nginx configuration
- Server-side – rsyslog configuration to accept UDP connections
- Server-side – selinux and firewall configuration
The JSON formatted logs may be sent to a Elasticsearch server, for example. Here is how to do it – send access logs in json to Elasticsearch using rsyslog
STEP 1) Client-side – the Nginx configuration.
Nginx configuration is pretty simple just a single line with the log template and the IP (and port if not default 514) of the rsyslog server. For the record, this is the official documentation https://nginx.org/en/docs/syslog.html. In addition it worth mentioning there could be multiple access_log directives in a single section to log simultaneously on different targets (and the templates may be different or the same). So you can set the access log output of a section locally and remotely.
Nginx configuration (probably /etc/nginx/nginx.conf or whatever is the organization of your Nginx configuration files.)
server {
.....
access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com_access.log main;
access_log syslog:server=10.10.10.2:514,facility=local7,tag=nginx,severity=info main3;
.....
}
The “main” and “main3” are just names of the logging templates defined earlier (you may check rsyslog remote logging – prevent local messages to appear to see an interesting Nginx logging template).
The error log also could be remotely logged:
error_log syslog:server=10.10.10.3 debug;
STEP 2) Server-side – rsyslog configuration to accept UDP connections.
Of course, if you have not installed the rsyslog it’s high time you installed it with (for CentOS 7):
yum install -y rsyslog
To enable rsyslog to listen for UDP connections your rsyslog configuration file (/etc/rsyslog.conf) must include the following:
$ModLoad imudp $UDPServerRun 514
Most of the Linux distributions have these two lines commented so you just need to uncomment them by removing the “#” from the beginning of the lines. If the lines are missing just add them under section “MODULES” (it should be near the first lines of the rsyslog configuration file).
Change the 514 with the number you like for the UDP listening port.
Write the client’s incoming lines of information to a different location and prevent merging with the local log messages – rsyslog remote logging – prevent local messages to appear. Include as a first rule under the rules’ section starting with “RULES” of the rsyslog configuration file (/etc/rsyslog.conf):
# Remote logging $template HostIPtemp,"/mnt/logging/%FROMHOST-IP%.log" if ($fromhost-ip != "127.0.0.1" ) then ?HostIPtemp & stop
Logs only of remote hosts are going to be saved under /mnt/logging/
Keep on reading!