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Logs, Metrics, and Nozzles

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This topic explains how to integrate PCF services with Cloud Foundry’s logging system, the Loggregator, by writing to and reading from its Firehose endpoint.

Overview

Cloud Foundry’s Loggregator logging system collects logs and metrics from PCF apps and platform components and streams them to a single endpoint, the Firehose. Your tile can integrate its service with the Loggregator system in two ways:

• By sending your service component logs and metrics to the Firehose, to be streamed along with PCF core platform component logs and metrics.

• By installing a nozzle on the Firehose that directs Firehose data to be consumed by external services or apps. A built-in nozzle can enable a service to:

  • Drain metrics to an external dashboard product, for system operators
  • Send HTTP request details to search or analysis tools
  • Drain app logs to an external system
  • Auto-scale itself based on Firehose metrics

Firehose-to-syslog is a real world, production example of a nozzle.

Firehose Communication

PCF components publish logs and metrics to the Firehose through Metron agent processes that run locally on the component VMs. Metron agents input the data to the Loggregator system by writing it to Loggregator’s etcd key-value store via a gRPC proxy. The topic Overview of the Loggregator System shows how logs and metrics travel from PCF system components to the Firehose.

Component VMs running PCF services can publish logs and metrics the same way, by including a Metron agent that writes to etcd. In PCF v1.10 and later, components only communicate with etcd via secure, encrypted https protocol. Earlier versions of PCF allow both encrypted https and unencrypted http communications with etcd.

Secure HTTPS Protocol: PCF 1.10+

To enable a service component to supply logs and metrics to the Firehose through encrypted communications, you need to include a Metron agent in its template definitions.

For example:

name: service
label: Service
templates:
  - name: metron_agent
    release: loggregator
  - name: service
    release: service
manifest: |
  metron_agent:
    deployment: cf-my-service
    etcd:
      client_cert: (( ..cf.properties.cf_etcd_client_cert.cert_pem ))
      client_key: (( ..cf.properties.cf_etcd_client_cert.private_key_pem ))
  metron_endpoint:
    shared_secret: (( ..cf.doppler.shared_secret_credentials.password ))
  loggregator:
    etcd:
      require_ssl: true
      machines: ['cf-etcd.service.cf.internal']
      ca_cert: (( $ops_manager.ca_certificate ))

Metron versions v72 and later do not use etcd to communicate with Loggregator, but the configuration above works with any version of Metron. If the Metron agent does not need values for etcd, it safely ignores them.

HTTP Protocol: PCF 1.9 and Earlier

In PCF v1.9, service components can send logs and metrics to the Firehose encrypted or unencrypted. In v1.8 and earlier releases, components only communicate their log and metrics data unencrypted.

To enable unencrypted communications with etcd, define a Metron agent and list the addresses of the etcd servers in the template definitions as follows:

name: service
label: Service
templates:
  - name: metron_agent
    release: loggregator
  - name: service
    release: service
manifest: |
  metron_agent:
    deployment: cf-my-service
  metron_endpoint:
    shared_secret: (( ..cf.doppler.shared_secret_credentials.password ))
  loggregator:
    etcd:
      machines: (( ..cf.etcd_server.ips ))

Nozzles

A nozzle is a component dedicated to reading and processing data that streams from the Firehose. A service tile can install a nozzle as either a managed service, with package type bosh-release; or as an app pushed to Elastic Runtime, with the package type app.

Develop a Nozzle

Pivotal recommends developing a nozzle in Go, to leverage the NOAA library. NOAA does the heavy lifting of establishing an authenticated websocket connection to the logging system as well as de-serializing the protocol buffers.

Draining the logs consists of:

1. Authenticating
2. Establishing a connection to the logging system
3. Forwarding events on to their ultimate destination

Authenticate against the API (https://github.com/cloudfoundry-community/go-cfclient) with a user in the doppler.firehose group:

import "github.com/cloudfoundry-community/go-cfclient"

...

config := &cfclient.Config{
  ApiAddress:        apiUrl,
  Username:          username,
  Password:          password,
  SkipSslValidation: sslSkipVerify,
}

client, err := cfclient.NewClient(config)

Using the client’s token, create a consumer and connect to the Firehose with a subscription id. The id is important, since the Firehose looks for connections having the same id and only sends an event to one of those connections. This is how a nozzle developer can prevent message loss during upgrades an other deployments: run at least two instances.

token, err := client.GetToken()

consumer := consumer.New(config.TrafficControllerURL, &tls.Config{
  InsecureSkipVerify: config.SkipSSL,
}, nil)
events, errors := consumer.Firehose(firehoseSubscriptionID, token)

Firehose will give back two channels: one for events and a second for errors.

The events channel receives six different types of events.

• ValueMetric: Some platform metric at a point in time, emitted by platform components. For example, how many 2xx responses the router has sent out.
• CounterEvent: An incrementing counter, emitted by platform components. For example, a Diego cell’s remaining memory capacity.
• Error: An error.
• HttpStartStop: HTTP request details, including both app and platform requests.
• LogMessage: A log message for an individual app.
• ContainerMetric: Application container information. For example, memory used.

For the full details on events, see the dropsonde protocol.

The above events show how this data targets two different personae: platform operators and app developers. Keep this in mind when designing an integration.

Having doppler.firehose scope gets a nozzle data for every app as well as the platform. Any filtering based on the event payload is the nozzle implementor’s responsibility. An advanced integration could do something like combine a service broker with a nozzle to:

• Let app developers opt-in to logging (implementing filtering in the nozzle)
• Establish SSO exchange for authentication such that developers only can access logs for their space’s apps

For a full working example (suitable as an integration starting point), see firehose-nozzle.

Deploy a Nozzle

Once you’ve build a nozzle, you can deploy it as either a managed service or as an app.

As a Managed Service

Visit managed service for more details on what it means to be a managed service.

See also this example nozzle BOSH release.

As an App

You can also deploy the nozzle as an app on Elastic Runtime. Visit the Tile Generator’s section on pushed apps for more details.

Example Nozzles

There are several open source examples you could use as a reference for building your nozzle

firehose-nozzle

• Example that simply writes to standard out
• Useful starting point: scaffolding, tests, etc are in place

example-nozzle

• A single file implementation with no tests: as minimal as things can get

gcp-tools-release

• In addition to Nozzle data, it drains component syslogs and health data
• Shows how to do a BOSH add-on (for additional data outside a nozzle)
• Nozzle is managed through BOSH
• Raw logs and metrics data take different paths in the source

firehose-to-syslog

• Includes implementation code that adds additional metadata, which might be needed for an access control list (ACL)
  • App name
  • Space UUID and name
  • Org UUID and name
• logsearch-for-cloudfoundry packages this nozzle as a BOSH release

splunk-firehose-nozzle

• Source code based on firehose-to-syslog
• Packaged to run an app on PCF

datadog-firehose-nozzle

• Another real world implementation

Log Format for PCF Components

Pivotal’s standard log format adheres to the RFC-5424 syslog protocol, with log messages formatted as follows:

<${PRI}>${VERSION} ${TIMESTAMP} ${HOST_IP} ${APP_NAME} ${PROD_ID} ${MSG_ID} ${SD-ELEMENT-instance} ${MESSAGE}

The Syslog Message Elements table immediately below describes each element of the log, and the Structured Instance Data Format table describes the contents of the structured data element that carries Cloud Foundry VM instance information.

Syslog Message Elements

This table describes each element of a standard PCF syslog message.

RFC-5424 Severity Codes

PCF components generate log messages with the following severity levels. The most common severity level is 13.

Structured Instance Data Format

The RFC-5424 syslog protocol includes a structured data element that people can use as they see fit. Pivotal uses this element to carry VM instance information as follows:

Making Sense of Metrics

Monitoring Pivotal Cloud Foundry has a great rundown of the various metrics and how to make them useful.

Other Resources

• CF Summit Video Monitoring Cloud Foundry: Learning about the Firehose

• Loggregator GitHub repository

• Overview of the Loggregator System

• Loggregator’s Slack Channel