Overview

You can pipe system and application logs from a DC/OS cluster to your existing Splunk server. This document describes how to configure a Splunk universal forwarder to send output from each node to a Splunk installation. This document does not explain how to set up and configure a Splunk server.

These instructions are based on CoreOS and might differ substantially from other Linux distributions.

IMPORTANT: The agent node Splunk forwarder configuration expects tasks to write logs to stdout and stderr. Some DC/OS services, including Cassandra and Kafka, do not write logs to stdout and stderr. If you want to log these services, you must customize your agent node Splunk forwarder configuration.

Prerequisites

• An existing Splunk installation that can ingest data for indexing
• All DC/OS nodes must be able to connect to your Splunk indexer via HTTP or HTTPS
• The ulimit of open files must be set to unlimited for your user with root access.

Step 1: All nodes

For all nodes in your DC/OS cluster:

1. Install Splunk’s universal forwarder.
2. Make sure the forwarder has the credentials it needs to send data to the indexer.
3. Start the forwarder.

Step 2: Master nodes

For each master node in your DC/OS cluster:

1. Create a script $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/scripts/journald-master.sh that will obtain the Mesos master logs from journald. This script can be used with DC/OS and DC/OS Enterprise. Log entries that do not apply are ignored.

   #!/bin/sh
   
   exec journalctl --since=now -f     \
   -u dcos-diagnostics.service        \
   -u dcos-diagnostics.socket         \
   -u dcos-adminrouter-reload.service \
   -u dcos-adminrouter-reload.timer   \
   -u dcos-adminrouter.service        \
   -u dcos-bouncer.service            \
   -u dcos-ca.service                 \
   -u dcos-cfn-signal.service         \
   -u dcos-cosmos.service             \
   -u dcos-download.service           \
   -u dcos-epmd.service               \
   -u dcos-exhibitor.service          \
   -u dcos-gen-resolvconf.service     \
   -u dcos-gen-resolvconf.timer       \
   -u dcos-history.service            \
   -u dcos-link-env.service           \
   -u dcos-logrotate-master.timer     \
   -u dcos-marathon.service           \
   -u dcos-mesos-dns.service          \
   -u dcos-mesos-master.service       \
   -u dcos-metronome.service          \
   -u dcos-minuteman.service          \
   -u dcos-navstar.service            \
   -u dcos-networking_api.service     \
   -u dcos-secrets.service            \
   -u dcos-setup.service              \
   -u dcos-signal.service             \
   -u dcos-signal.timer               \
   -u dcos-spartan-watchdog.service   \
   -u dcos-spartan-watchdog.timer     \
   -u dcos-spartan.service            \
   -u dcos-vault.service              \
   -u dcos-logrotate-master.service
   

2. Make the script executable:

   chmod +x "$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/scripts/journald-master.sh"
   

3. Add the script as an input to the forwarder:

   "$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk" add exec \
       -source "$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/scripts/journald-master.sh" \
       -interval 0
   

Step 3: Agent nodes

For each agent node in your DC/OS cluster:

1. Create a script $SPLUNK_HOME/bin/scripts/journald-agent.sh that will obtain the Mesos agent logs from journald. This script can be used with DC/OS and DC/OS Enterprise. Log entries that do not apply are ignored.

   #!/bin/sh
   
   journalctl --since="now" -f              \
   -u dcos-diagnostics.service              \
   -u dcos-logrotate-agent.timer            \
   -u dcos-diagnostics.socket               \
   -u dcos-mesos-slave.service              \
   -u dcos-adminrouter-agent.service        \
   -udcos-minuteman.service                \
   -udcos-adminrouter-reload.service       \
   -udcos-navstar.service                  \
   -udcos-adminrouter-reload.timer         \
   -udcos-rexray.service                   \
   -udcos-cfn-signal.service               \
   -udcos-setup.service                    \
   -udcos-download.service                 \
   -udcos-signal.timer                     \
   -udcos-epmd.service                     \
   -udcos-spartan-watchdog.service         \
   -udcos-gen-resolvconf.service           \
   -udcos-spartan-watchdog.timer           \
   -udcos-gen-resolvconf.timer             \
   -udcos-spartan.service                  \
   -udcos-link-env.service                 \
   -udcos-vol-discovery-priv-agent.service \
   -udcos-logrotate-agent.service
   

2. Make the script executable:

   chmod +x "$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/scripts/journald-agent.sh"
   

3. Add the script as an input to the forwarder:

   "$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk" add exec \
       -source "$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/scripts/journald-agent.sh" \
       -interval 0
   

4. Add the task logs as inputs to the forwarder:

       "$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk" add monitor '/var/lib/mesos/slave' \
           -whitelist '/stdout$|/stderr$'
   

What’s next

For details on how to filter your logs with Splunk, see Filtering logs with Splunk.