The Graylog Extended Log Format (GELF) is a log format that avoids the shortcomings of classic plain syslog:

• Limited to length of 1024 bytes. Inadequate space for payloads like backtraces.
• No data types in structured syslog. Numbers and strings are indistinguishable.
• The RFCs are strict enough, but there are so many syslog dialects out there that you cannot possibly parse all of them.
• No compression.

Syslog is sufficient for logging system messages of machines or network gear, while GELF is a strong choice for logging from within applications. There are libraries and appenders for many programming languages and logging frameworks, so it is easy to implement. GELF can send every exception as a log message to your Graylog cluster without complications from timeouts, connection problems, or anything that may break your application from within your logging class because GELF can be sent via UDP.

GELF via UDP

Chunking

UDP datagrams are limited to a size of 65536 bytes. Some Graylog components are limited to processing up to 8192 bytes. Substantial compressed information fits within the size limit, but you may have more information to send; this is why Graylog supports chunked GELF.

You can define chunks of messages by prepending a byte header to a GELF message, including a message ID and sequence number to reassemble the message later. Most GELF libraries support chunking transparently and will detect if a message is too big to be sent in one datagram.

TCP would solve this problem on a transport layer, but it has other problems that are even harder to tackle: slow connections, timeouts, and other network problems.

Messages can be lost with UDP, and TCP can dismantle the whole application when not designed carefully.

Of course, especially in high-volume environments, TCP is sensible. Many GELF libraries support both TCP and UDP as transport, and some also support https.

Prepend the following structure to your GELF message to make it chunked:

• Chunked GELF magic bytes - 2 bytes: 0x1e 0x0f
• Message ID - 8 bytes: Must be the same for every chunk of this message. Identifies the whole message and is used to reassemble the chunks later. Generate from millisecond timestamp + hostname, for example.
• Sequence number - 1 byte: The sequence number of this chunk starts at 0 and is always less than the sequence count.
• Sequence count - 1 byte: Total number of chunks this message has.

All chunks MUST arrive within 5 seconds or the server will discard all chunks that have arrived or are in the process of arriving. A message MUST NOT consist of more than 128 chunks.

Compression

When using UDP as transport layer, GELF messages can be sent uncompressed or compressed with either GZIP or ZLIB.
Graylog nodes automatically detect the compression type in the GELF magic byte header.

Decide if you want to trade a bit more CPU load for saving network bandwidth. GZIP is the protocol default.

GELF via TCP

At the current time, GELF TCP only supports uncompressed and non-chunked payloads. Each message needs to be delimited with a null byte (\0) when sent in the same TCP connection.

GELF Payload Specification

Version 1.1 (11/2013)
A GELF message is a JSON string with the following fields:

• version string (UTF-8)

  • GELF spec version – “1.1”; MUST be set by the client library.

• host string (UTF-8)

  • the name of the host, source or application that sent this message; MUST be set by the client library.
    

• short_message string (UTF-8)

  • a short, descriptive message; MUST be set by the client library.

• full_message string (UTF-8)

  • a long message that can contain a backtrace; optional.

• timestamp number

  • seconds since UNIX epoch with optional decimal places for milliseconds; SHOULD be set by the client library. If absent, the timestamp will be set to the current time (now).

• level number

  • the level equal to the standard syslog levels; optional. Default is 1 (ALERT).

• facility string (UTF-8)

  • optional, deprecated. Send as additional field instead.

• line number

  • the line in a file that caused the error (decimal); optional, deprecated. Send as an additional field instead.

• file string (UTF-8) an

  • the file (with path, if you want) that caused the error (string); optional, deprecated. Send as an additional field instead.

• _[additional field] string (UTF-8) or number

  • every field you send and prefix with an underscore ( _) will be treated as an additional field. Allowed characters in field names are any word character (letter, number, underscore), dashes and dots. The , verifying regular expression is: ^[\\w\\.\\-]*$. Libraries SHOULD not allow to send id as additional field ( _id). Graylog server nodes omit this field automatically.

Example Payload

This is an example GELF message payload. Any Graylog-server node accepts and stores this as a message when GZIP/ZLIB is compressed or even when sent uncompressed over a plain socket without new lines.

{
  "version": "1.1",
  "host": "example.org",
  "short_message": "A short message that helps you identify what is going on",
  "full_message": "Backtrace here\n\nmore stuff",
  "timestamp": 1385053862.3072,
  "level": 1,
  "_user_id": 9001,
  "_some_info": "foo",
  "_some_env_var": "bar"
}

Sending GELF Messages via UDP Using Netcat

Sending an example message to a GELF UDP input (running on host graylog.example.com on port 12201):

echo -n '{ "version": "1.1", "host": "example.org", "short_message": "A short message", "level": 5, "_some_info": "foo" }' | nc -w0 -u graylog.example.com 12201

Sending GELF Messages via TCP Using Netcat

Sending an example message to a GELF TCP input (running on host graylog.example.com on port 12201):

echo -n -e '{ "version": "1.1", "host": "example.org", "short_message": "A short message", "level": 5, "_some_info": "foo" }'"\0" | nc -w0 graylog.example.com 12201

Sending GELF Messages Using Curl

Sending an example message to a GELF input (running on https://graylog.example.com:12201/gelf):

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{ "version": "1.1", "host": "example.org", "short_message": "A short message", "level": 5, "_some_info": "foo" }' 'http://graylog.example.com:12201/gelf'