HAProxy

Ship logs from HAProxy to Logstash

Configure Filebeat to ship logs from HAProxy to Logstash and Elasticsearch.

Install Integration

Please click on the Install Integration button to configure your stack for this source.

Install Filebeat

To get started you will need to install filebeat. To do this you have two main options:

Choose the AMD / Intel file (x86_64) or
Choose the ARM file (arm64)

You can tell if you have a Linux PC with an AMD / Intel CPU (kernel) architecture by opening a terminal and running the uname -m command. If it displays x86_64 you have AMD / Intel architecture.

To successfully install filebeat you will need to have root access.

If you have an x86_64 system download and extract the contents of the file using the following commands:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats/filebeat/filebeat-8.15.2-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xzvf filebeat-8.15.2-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

If you have an arm64 system download and extract the contents of the file using the following commands:

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats/filebeat/filebeat-8.15.2-linux-arm64.tar.gz
tar xzvf filebeat-8.15.2-linux-arm64.tar.gz

Setup HAProxy Configuration

DEB (Debian/Ubuntu)

HAProxy generates logs in syslog format, on debian and ubuntu the haproxy package contains the required syslog configuration to generate a haproxy.log file which we will then monitor using filebeat. Confirm the existence of /etc/rsyslog.d/49-haproxy.conf and /var/log/haproxy.log If you've recently installed haproxy you may need to restart rsyslog to get additional haproxy config file loaded.

RPM (Centos/RHEL)

The RPM haproxy default configuration sends it's logs to a syslog daemon listening on localhost via UDP. We need to configure rsyslog to listen on localhost and write a haproxy.log file which we will then monitor using filebeat. Run the following lines of command and then restart rsyslog.

echo '#Rsyslog configuration to listen on localhost for HAProxy log messages 
#and write them to /var/log/haproxy.log
$ModLoad imudp
$UDPServerRun 514
$UDPServerAddress 127.0.0.1
local2.*    /var/log/haproxy.log' | sudo tee /etc/rsyslog.d/haproxy.conf
 
sudo systemctl restart rsyslog

Enable the Haproxy module

sudo filebeat modules list sudo filebeat modules enable haproxy

In the module config under modules.d, change the module settings to match your environment. You must enable at least one fileset in the module. 
 
___Filesets are disabled by default___.
 
Copy the snippet below and replace the contents of the haproxy.yml module file:
 
```cmd copy
# Module: haproxy
# Docs: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/8.12/filebeat-module-haproxy.html
 
- module: haproxy
# All logs
log:
    enabled: true
 
    # Set which input to use between syslog (default) or file.
    #var.input:
 
    # Set custom paths for the log files. If left empty,
    # Filebeat will choose the paths depending on your OS.
    #var.paths:

Additional module configuration can be done using the per module config files located in the modules.d folder, for haproxy we want to configure the haproxy module to read from file, uncomment and edit the var.input line to say

var.input: file

Update Your Configuration File

The configuration file below is pre-configured to send data to your Logit.io Stack via Logstash.

Copy the configuration file below and overwrite the contents of filebeat.yml.

# ============================== Filebeat modules ==============================
filebeat.config.modules:
    path: ${path.config}/modules.d/*.yml
    reload.enabled: false
    #reload.period: 10s
 
# ================================== Outputs ===================================
# ------------------------------ Logstash Output -------------------------------
output.logstash:
    hosts: ["@logstash.host:@logstash.sslPort"]
    loadbalance: true
    ssl.enabled: true
 
# ================================= Processors =================================
processors:
    - add_host_metadata:
        when.not.contains.tags: forwarded
    - add_cloud_metadata: ~
    - add_docker_metadata: ~
    - add_kubernetes_metadata: ~

If you're running Filebeat 7 add this code block to the end. Otherwise, you can leave it out.

# ... For Filebeat 7 only ...
filebeat.registry.path: /var/lib/filebeat

If you're running Filebeat 6 add this code block to the end. Otherwise, you can leave it out.

# ... For Filebeat 6 only ...
registry_file: /var/lib/filebeat/registry

Validate your YAML

It's a good idea to run the configuration file through a YAML validator to rule out indentation errors, clean up extra characters, and check if your YAML file is valid. Yamllint.com (opens in a new tab) is a great choice.

Validate Configuration

In the directory where Filebeat is installed, run the following command to validate the installation:

.\@beatname.exe test config -c @beatname.yml

If the yml file is invalid, @beatname will print a description of the error. For example, if the output.logstash section was missing, @beatname would print no outputs are defined, please define one under the output section

Start filebeat

To start Filebeat, run:

sudo chown root filebeat.yml 
sudo chown root modules.d/{modulename}.yml 
sudo ./filebeat -e

You'll be running filebeat as root, so you need to change ownership of the configuration file and any configurations enabled in the modules.d directory, or run filebeat with --strict.perms=false as shown above.

Read more about how to change ownership (opens in a new tab).

Check Logit.io for your logs

Data should now have been sent to your Stack.

View My Data

If you don't see take a look at How to diagnose no data in Stack below for how to diagnose common issues.

How to diagnose no data in Stack

If you don't see data appearing in your stack after following this integration, take a look at the troubleshooting guide for steps to diagnose and resolve the problem or contact our support team and we'll be happy to assist.

HAProxy dashboard

Predefined kibana dashboard screenshot

HAProxy Logs Overview

HAProxy (High Availability Proxy) is an open-source software load balancer for proxying HTTP & TCP based applications. As the tool offers high availability by default it is well suited for high traffic websites. HAProxy is the de-facto proxy server powering many of the web's most popular sites & is often the default deployment in most cloud platforms.

For most Linux distributions it is the reference load-balancer recommended for container orchestration (E.G Kubernetes). HAProxy logs hold data on HTTP queries, error codes & how long the request took to send, if it was queued and how long for, how long the TCP connection took to establish, as well as information on response size and cookies, among other valuable insights for reporting & security. These logs can be difficult to process for analysis at scale & so a log analyser will likely be required to process HAProxy logs efficiently.

Requests & traffic for HTTP & TCP based applications are spread across multiple servers when HAProxy is used. The proxy is well known for its flexibility & the tool's logs can be used in a log management solution such as Logit.io for easy identification of critical issues within an application. The Logit.io platform offers a complete solution for centralising your log files from multiple applications and servers and provides a HAProxy log analyser as standard. You can also use our Kibana integrations to visualise key server metrics from both frontend and backend applications for fast error resolution & troubleshooting. Followed our HAProxy log configuration guide and are still encountering issues? We're here to help you get started. Feel free to reach out by contacting our support team by visiting our dedicated Help Centre or via live chat & we'll be happy to assist.

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