# Fluentd logging driver The `fluentd` logging driver sends container logs to the [Fluentd](http://www.fluentd.org/) collector as structured log data. Then, users can use any of the [various output plugins of Fluentd](http://www.fluentd.org/plugins) to write these logs to various destinations. In addition to the log message itself, the `fluentd` log driver sends the following metadata in the structured log message: | Field | Description | -------------------|-------------------------------------| | `container_id` | The full 64-character container ID. | | `container_name` | The container name at the time it was started. If you use `docker rename` to rename a container, the new name is not reflected in the journal entries. | | `source` | `stdout` or `stderr` | The `docker logs` command is not available for this logging driver. ## Usage Some options are supported by specifying `--log-opt` as many times as needed: - `fluentd-address`: specify `host:port` to connect `localhost:24224` - `tag`: specify tag for fluentd message, which interpret some markup, ex `{{.ID}}`, `{{.FullID}}` or `{{.Name}}` `docker.{{.ID}}` - `fail-on-startup-error`: true/false; Should the logging driver fail container startup in case of connect error during startup. Default: true (backwards compatible) - `buffer-limit`: Size limit (bytes) for the buffer which is used to buffer messages in case of connection outages. Default: 1M Configure the default logging driver by passing the `--log-driver` option to the Docker daemon: docker daemon --log-driver=fluentd To set the logging driver for a specific container, pass the `--log-driver` option to `docker run`: docker run --log-driver=fluentd ... Before using this logging driver, launch a Fluentd daemon. The logging driver connects to this daemon through `localhost:24224` by default. Use the `fluentd-address` option to connect to a different address. docker run --log-driver=fluentd --log-opt fluentd-address=myhost.local:24224 If container cannot connect to the Fluentd daemon, the container stops immediately. ## Options Users can use the `--log-opt NAME=VALUE` flag to specify additional Fluentd logging driver options. ### fluentd-address By default, the logging driver connects to `localhost:24224`. Supply the `fluentd-address` option to connect to a different address. docker run --log-driver=fluentd --log-opt fluentd-address=myhost.local:24224 ### tag By default, Docker uses the first 12 characters of the container ID to tag log messages. Refer to the [log tag option documentation](log_tags.md) for customizing the log tag format. ### labels and env The `labels` and `env` options each take a comma-separated list of keys. If there is collision between `label` and `env` keys, the value of the `env` takes precedence. Both options add additional fields to the extra attributes of a logging message. ### fail-on-startup-error By default, if the logging driver cannot connect to the backend it will fail the entire startup of the container. If you wish to ignore potential connect error during container startup supply the `fail-on-startup-error` flag. docker run --log-driver=fluentd --log-opt fail-on-startup-error=false ### buffer-limit When fluent driver loses connection, or cannot connect at container startup, it will buffer the log events locally for re-transmission. Buffer limit option controls how much data will be buffered locally, **per container**. Specified in bytes. docker run --log-driver=fluentd --log-opt buffer-limit=5242880 The above would result to use 5M buffer locally. Keep in mind that during possible connection errors all your containers will start buffering locally and thus might result in considerable memory usage. ## Fluentd daemon management with Docker About `Fluentd` itself, see [the project webpage](http://www.fluentd.org) and [its documents](http://docs.fluentd.org/). To use this logging driver, start the `fluentd` daemon on a host. We recommend that you use [the Fluentd docker image](https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/fluent/fluentd/). This image is especially useful if you want to aggregate multiple container logs on a each host then, later, transfer the logs to another Fluentd node to create an aggregate store. ### Testing container loggers 1. Write a configuration file (`test.conf`) to dump input logs: @type forward @type stdout 2. Launch Fluentd container with this configuration file: $ docker run -it -p 24224:24224 -v /path/to/conf/test.conf:/fluentd/etc -e FLUENTD_CONF=test.conf fluent/fluentd:latest 3. Start one or more containers with the `fluentd` logging driver: $ docker run --log-driver=fluentd your/application