Fluentd plugin for log forwarding

New Relic offers a Fluentd output plugin to connect your Fluentd monitored log data to New Relic. Read on to learn how to enable this feature.

Compatibility and requirements

To forward logs to New Relic using Fluentd, ensure your configuration meets the following requirements:

• Insert API key (recommended) or New Relic license key
• Fluentd 1.0 or higher

Enable Fluentd for New Relic log management

To enable log management with Fluentd:

1. Install the Fluentd plugin.
2. Configure the Fluentd plugin.
3. Test the Fluentd plugin.
4. Optional: Configure additional plugin attributes.
5. Generate some traffic and wait a few minutes, then check your account for data.

Install the Fluentd plugin

To install the Fluentd plugin:

fluent-gem install fluent-plugin-newrelic

td-agent-gem install fluent-plugin-newrelic

Configure the Fluentd plugin

NOTE: If you're configuring Fluentd for the first time, you may find it helpful to review our collection of pre-built configuration files addressing common use cases.

To configure your Fluentd plugin:

1. In your fluent.conf file, or td-agent.conf if using the td-agent, add the following block of data, replacing the placeholder text with your Insert API key (recommended) or New Relic license key.

   Configure with the New Relic Insert API key (recommended)

   Configure with the New Relic Insert API key:

   #Tail one or more log files 
   <source>
     @type tail
     <parse>
       @type none
     </parse>
     path /path/to/file
     tag example.service
   </source>
   
   #Add hostname and service_name to all events with "example.service" tag
   <filter example.service>
     @type record_transformer
     <record>
       service_name ${tag}
       hostname "#{Socket.gethostname}"
     </record>
   </filter>
   
   #Forward all events to New Relic
   <match **>
     @type newrelic
     api_key YOUR_API_INSERT_KEY
   </match>

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   Configure with the New Relic license key

   Configure with the New Relic license key:

   #Tail one or more log files 
   <source>
     @type tail
     <parse>
       @type none
     </parse>
     path /path/to/file
     tag example.service
   </source>
   
   #Add hostname and service_name to all events with "example.service" tag
   <filter example.service>
     @type record_transformer
     <record>
       service_name ${tag}
       hostname "#{Socket.gethostname}"
     </record>
   </filter>
   
   #Forward all events to New Relic
   <match **>
     @type newrelic
     license_key YOUR_LICENSE_KEY
   </match>

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2. Restart the Fluentd service to ensure your changes are applied.

Test the Fluentd plugin

To test if your Fluentd plugin is receiving input from a log file:

1. Run the following command to append a test log message to your log file:

   echo "test message" >> /PATH/TO/YOUR/LOG/FILE

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2. Search New Relic Logs UI for test message.

Optional configuration

Once you have installed and configured the Fluentd plugin, you can use the following attributes to configure how the plugin sends data to New Relic:

For more information and examples, see Example Configurations for Fluentd.

View log data

If everything is configured correctly and your data is being collected, you should see data logs in both of these places:

• New Relic Logs UI

• New Relic tools for running NRQL queries. For example, you can execute a query like this:

  SELECT * FROM Log

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What's next?

Now that you've enabled Logs, here are some potential next steps:

• Explore your data using the Logs UI.
• Configure your agent to see contextual log data, such as distributed tracing, stack traces, application logs, and more.
• Query your data and create custom dashboards or alerts.

If no data appears after you enable New Relic Logs, follow the troubleshooting procedures.