The Syslog Protocol
RFC 5424
| Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(March 2009; Errata)
Obsoletes RFC 3164
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Last updated | 2015-10-14 | ||
| Stream | IETF | ||
| Formats | plain text pdf html bibtex | ||
| Stream | WG state | (None) | |
| Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
| IESG | IESG state | RFC 5424 (Proposed Standard) | |
| Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| Telechat date | |||
| Responsible AD | Sam Hartman | ||
| Send notices to | (None) | ||
Network Working Group R. Gerhards
Request for Comments: 5424 Adiscon GmbH
Obsoletes: 3164 March 2009
Category: Standards Track
The Syslog Protocol
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents in effect on the date of
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
Contributions published or made publicly available before November
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material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
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not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
than English.
Gerhards Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 5424 The Syslog Protocol March 2009
Abstract
This document describes the syslog protocol, which is used to convey
event notification messages. This protocol utilizes a layered
architecture, which allows the use of any number of transport
protocols for transmission of syslog messages. It also provides a
message format that allows vendor-specific extensions to be provided
in a structured way.
This document has been written with the original design goals for
traditional syslog in mind. The need for a new layered specification
has arisen because standardization efforts for reliable and secure
syslog extensions suffer from the lack of a Standards-Track and
transport-independent RFC. Without this document, each other
standard needs to define its own syslog packet format and transport
mechanism, which over time will introduce subtle compatibility
issues. This document tries to provide a foundation that syslog
extensions can build on. This layered architecture approach also
provides a solid basis that allows code to be written once for each
syslog feature rather than once for each transport.
This document obsoletes RFC 3164.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................4
2. Conventions Used in This Document ...............................4
3. Definitions .....................................................4
4. Basic Principles ................................................5
4.1. Example Deployment Scenarios ...............................6
5. Transport Layer Protocol ........................................7
5.1. Minimum Required Transport Mapping .........................7
6. Syslog Message Format ...........................................8
6.1. Message Length .............................................9
6.2. HEADER .....................................................9
6.2.1. PRI .................................................9
6.2.2. VERSION ............................................11
6.2.3. TIMESTAMP ..........................................11
6.2.4. HOSTNAME ...........................................13
6.2.5. APP-NAME ...........................................14
6.2.6. PROCID .............................................14
6.2.7. MSGID ..............................................14
6.3. STRUCTURED-DATA ...........................................15
6.3.1. SD-ELEMENT .........................................15
6.3.2. SD-ID ..............................................15
6.3.3. SD-PARAM ...........................................16
6.3.4. Change Control .....................................17
6.3.5. Examples ...........................................17
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