File Monitor

RSyslog Windows Agent 7.1 Released

Release Date: 2021-07-14

Build-IDs: Service 7.1.0.214, Client 7.1.0.300

Features

  • EventLog Monitor V2: Add support to monitor Analytic and Debug Channels. These channels will only work in polling mode and detection of the last record is limited due the nature of analytic / debug channels.
  • EventLog Monitor V2: Added new “Copy Messageformat into property” option to copy a second output format into a custom property.
  • File Monitor: Added support for batched processing which is a huge improvement regarding processing speed.

Bugfixes

  • EventLog Monitor v2: Removed unnecessary spaces within LOGSIEM JSON format.
  • File Monitor: Fixed a race condition saving the correct file position on action failure.
  • Status Actions: Fixed an issue calculating wrong values when multiple compute status actions were executed at the same time.

You can download Free Trial Version of RSyslog Windows Agent.

RSyslog Windows Agent 5.0 Released

Release Date: 2018-04-11

Build-IDs: Service 5.0.0.185, Client 5.0.0.263

Features

  • File Monitor: Added new options “Process rest of file as one message” and Read  Filebuffer size for better regex message separator handling.
  • Syslog Action: Added support for multiple syslog servers (Load balancing)
  • Syslog Action: Backup Syslog Server is now tried on connect as well. Before, the backup server was only used when an existing connection to the primary server interrupted.
  • Core Engine: Enhanced debug output for network errors.
  • LogNorm Action: Updated Action to support liblognorm v2 rulebases.

Bugfixes

  • Property Engine: Fixed daylight handling when using RFC3339 string conversion. Daylight was incorrectly always applied.
  • Property Engine: Fixed dynamic properties conversion when using xml output. This bug caused some properties to be missing when sending them by SETP protocol or using Syslog Cache mode.
  • Configuration reload: Fixed missing SNMP Mibtree after configuration reload.

You can download Free Trial Version of RSyslog Windows Agent.

RSyslog Windows Agent 3.2 Released

Adiscon is proud to announce the 3.2 release of RSyslog Windows Agent.

This is a maintenenance release for RSyslog Windows Agent, which includes Features and bugfixes.

There is a huge list of changes, but the most important is the enhanced support for file based configurations.

Also inbuild components like OpenSSL and NetSNMP have been updated to the latest versions.

Detailed information can be found in the version history below.

Build-IDs: Service 3.2.143, Client 3.2.0.230

Features

  • Components:
    • Updated OpenSSL 1.0.2e.
  • Engine:
    • When using TLS Mode x509/Name, permitted peers will also checked against the certificate Subject Alternative Name (SAN) now.
  • EventLog Monitor V2:
    • Added new Option “Wait time after action failure” which specifies the wait time after an action error occurred. Without the wait time, the subscription would immediately hit again. It is most likely that the action failure was caused by network problems, so a wait time of (default value) 15 seconds is a reasonable default.
  • File Monitor:
    • Added regular expressions support for Message Separators. Also added Options to prepend or append message separators to the message. When using regex message separators, it might be necessary to include the message separator into the message.
  • Syslog Action:
    • Added wait time doubling option for the Diskqueue feature. When enabled, the configured wait time will be doubled until the doubling limit is reached.
    • Added random wait time delay option for the Diskqueue feature. When enabled, a random wait time (up to the configured maximum) will be added to the configured wait time.
    • Added Overrun prevention delay option for the Diskqueue feature. When enabled, the action will sleep for the configured delay between each syslog message.
  • Services TestMode:
    • Added a testmode for Services, currently EventLog Monitor V1 & V2 and File Monitor are supported. When enabling the testmode for a certain service, it will process it’s Events/Files over and over again. So only use this setting for testing purpose.
  • File Based Configuration:
    • Added support for file includes. The feature can be enabled by setting one or both options in the Client Options called “Create individual configuration files for Services” and “Create individual configuration files for RuleSets”. When enabled, the configuration client will split Services and/or Rulesets into separated files. The main configuration file will include these files by a pattern. The Service itself is able to read includes within includes up to a depth level to 10. When using custom (hand written) configuration with includes, the configuration client will only be able to read them. However the client will not be able to maintain (Save) the custom configuration structure.
  • Command line:
    • Added handler for CTRL+C when running the Service in console mode

Bugfixes

  • Syslog Server:
    • Fixed a problem receiving RFC3195RAW messages.
    • Fixed message timeout handling when no message separator was enabled in Syslog TCP mode.
  • Syslog Action:
    • Fixed an issue when diskqueue files were corrupt. Now corrupted entries are skipped properly.
    • In some cases when the Action was in diskqueue mode, it could happen that the internal retry failed. Cached syslog messages wouldn’t be sent until the service restart.
  • SSL/TLS:
    • Actions with support for SSL/TLS (like Send Syslog Action) could fail to send messages if the recipient closed the connection during meantime. The handling of closed connections has been hardened now when TLS/SSL is enabled.
  • Command line:
    • Fixed handling when using more than one command line option
  • File Based Configuration:
    • Fixed a bug reading general options from File configuration.
    • Fixed an issue reading and writing into correct data directories when using custom locations.
    • Fixed an issue detecting if data state files need to be reloaded.
    • Better error handling when configfile is missing or not accessible.
  • Configuration client:
    • When deleting an item in a datagrid, the Confirm/reset Button become clickable now to save or reset the changes.
    • Fixed timestamp for “EventLog Legacy Format” INSERT
    • Fixed invisible encryption checkbox for password fields (Like ODBC Action)
    • Fixed an issue of unwanted LastRecord saving when changing eventlog channels settings.
    • The little “Save” Button has been changed to a “Confirm” which is more precisely.
    • Corrected Min/Max values for General->Queue Limit Setting.
    • Removed invisible click areas for all checkboxes and radio buttons.
    • Fixed loading of “Processed Files” in File Monitor when running in file config format.
    • Changed error handling when exporting configuration in file format.
    • Fixed incorrect trimming of spaces at the end of text variables (problem only affected file based configurations)

Version 3.2 is a free download. Customers with existing 2.x keys can contact our Sales department for upgrade prices. If you have a valid Upgrade Insurance ID, you can request a free new key by sending your Upgrade Insurance ID to sales@adiscon.com. Please note that the download enables the free 30-day trial version if used without a key – so you can right now go ahead and evaluate it.

RSyslog Windows Agent 3.1 Released

Adiscon is proud to announce the 3.1 release of RSyslog Windows Agent.

This is a maintenenance release for RSyslog Windows Agent. It includes some bugfixes as well as a new rule date condition which can be used to process events starting from a certain date. A few new options have been added into the Syslog Service as well.

Detailed information can be found in the version history below.

Build-IDs: Service 3.1.0.134, Client 3.1.0.213

Features

  • All internal errors are now logged into the EventLog when “Event Warnings” are enabled in general options.
  • Added Rule Date Conditions. By default a rule will always be processed. It can be set to only process messages generated since the installation or custom date.
  • Syslog Server: Added new Option to save original source into custom property when using “Take Source system from Syslog message” option.
  • File Monitor: Files are now opened with FILE_SHARE_DELETE flag which enables other applications to delete them (like logrotation tools do).

Bugfixes

  • SSL Connections: Fixed an issue not using custom configured certificates when TLS anon mod was used.
  • FileConfig Mode: Fixed a bug loading filters properly. Also added support for reloading data variables automatically.
  • Core Engine: Fixed an internal processing bug caused when rebuilding Messages from cache files.
  • Syslog Server: RFC 5424 header parsing fixed, a timestamp can be a NILVALUE now.
  • Syslog Server: Fixed bug ignoring “Take Source system from Syslog message” option when UDP was used.

Version 3.1 is a free download. Customers with existing 2.x keys can contact our Sales department for upgrade prices. If you have a valid Upgrade Insurance ID, you can request a free new key by sending your Upgrade Insurance ID to sales@adiscon.com. Please note that the download enables the free 30-day trial version if used without a key – so you can right now go ahead and evaluate it.

Using RSyslog Windows Agent to forward log files

in this article we describe how to use the RSyslog Windows Agent to forward log messages that are stored in plain text files. The article itself will be made of two larger steps. Both steps contain some substeps which will be shown in detail in one of the smaller articles. We assume, that no basic configuration is currently available.

This time, we want to use textfiles as log sources. Many programs for Windows do not use the EventLog system. They use simple and plain text files to store their log messages. Though, the information that is logged there could be as important as EventLogs.

Basically, the configuration of RSyslog Windows Agent consists of 3 parts.

1. A so-called service which generates the log data to be processed by, for example, a file monitor.

2. Rules with Filters. Filters give you the power to decide which log messages are important enough to be kept or not.

3. The action that has to be taken. In our case, forwarding the syslog messages.

Step 1: Setting up the ruleset and action.

Usually we start by creating the ruleset, rule and action. The reason lies in the configuration structure. So we will first create the mentioned items. In the end, we will have a basic rule with no particular filter and a forward via syslog action. That means, that all messages will be forwarded to a central host.

Click here to see the steps.

Step 2: Setting up the service.

Now we will set up the service. We need to create a File Monitor Service. The File Monitor Service is able to monitor a file or a directory with files. It will check the specified file(s) periodically for new lines (which would be new log messages) and use them for further processing.

File Monitor Steps

That’s it, you are already finished. Easy wasn’t it? Now you should be able to poll log files and forward the log messages to your central syslog server.

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