INFLUXDB-LOGBACK

An InfluxDB Appender for Logback

Use this appender to log messages with logback to a influxdb server.

If you don't know what InfluxDB is, jump on the band wagon!

Installation

Simply add logback-gelf to your classpath. Either download the jar or if you're in maven land, the dependency details are below.

    <dependencies>
        ...
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.labaix.logback</groupId>
            <artifactId>influxdb-logback</artifactId>
            <version>0.42</version>
        </dependency>
        ...
    </dependencies>

Configuring Logback

Add the following to your logback.xml configuration file.

src/main/resources/logback.xml

<configuration>
    ...
   <appender name="SENSOR_TEMPERATURE" class="org.aix.logback.InfluxDbAppender">
           <source>
               <ip>192.168.59.103</ip>
               <port>8086</port>
               <user>root</user>
               <password>root</password>
               <database>testdb</database>
               <create>true</create>
           </source>
           <serie>
               <version>0.8</version>
               <name>machine.%X{machine}.type.%X{type} temperature_${byMonth}</name>
               <timeUnit>MILLISECONDS</timeUnit>
           </serie>
       </appender>
   
       <logger name="SensorTemperature" level="info">
           <appender-ref ref="SENSOR_TEMPERATURE"/>
       </logger>
    ...
</configuration>

Properties

source/ip: The ip or hostname of the influxdb server to send messages to. Defaults to "localhost"
source/port: The port of the influxdb server to send messages to. Defaults to "8086"
source/user: The login of the account to send messages to. Defaults to "root"
source/password: The password of the account to send messages to. Defaults to "root"

Additional Fields

Additional Fields can be added very easily. Let's take an example of adding the ip address of the client to every logged message. To do this we add the ip address as a key/value to the slf4j MDC (Mapped Diagnostic Context) so that the information persists for the length of the request, and then we inform logback-influxdb to look out for this mapping every time a message is logged.

Store field in MDC and exploit it.

// Somewhere in server code that wraps every request
// we catch the ip address and add it into context
...
org.slf4j.MDC.put("ipAddress", getClientIpAddress());
...

So you could use %X{ipAddress} into serie name pattern.

Gather information form environment variable (TODO)

...
<appender name="INFLUXDB" class="org.aix.logback.InfluxDbAppender">
    ...
    <additionalField>serverName.${env.serverName}</additionalField>
    ...
</appender>
...

Roadmap

TODO