romuloceccon / syslog-viewer Goto Github PK

syslog-viewer is a tail-like command line tool to list events from a MySQL database populated with rsyslog.

When administering anything larger than a small server administrators benefit greatly from a centralized log solution. In the open source world syslog/rsyslog is the usual answer, and a database backend like MySQL an important performance consideration.

Such a setup brings out the problem of presenting the data. There are dozens of solutions around, both free and commercial, but they either are expensive, or are difficult to configure, or have a disappointing usability.

And yet, many times, the administrator only wants to have the power of tail again. syslog-viewer is just that, with the ability to poll the database continuously (like tail's -f) and filter events by a variety of conditions.

syslog-viewer is a single Ruby script. To use it make sure your system has Ruby 1.9 installed, copy syslog-viewer.rb anywhere you like and run:

    $ ruby syslog-viewer.rb -h

Connect to database Syslog at example.org, using username joe and password 123, and list last 10 events:

    $ ruby syslog-viewer.rb -c joe:[email protected]/Syslog

Filter last 100 events with severity warning or greater, and then follow new events:

    $ ruby syslog-viewer.rb -c joe:[email protected]/Syslog -s WAR -n 100 -f

Filter events happened between 2013-01-01 0:00:00 and 2013-01-01 2:30:00:

    $ ruby syslog-viewer.rb -c joe:[email protected]/Syslog -p "2013-01-01 0:00:00,2013-01-01 2:30:00"

Filter the last 20 events happened before 2013-02-04 0:00:00:

    $ ruby syslog-viewer.rb -c joe:[email protected]/Syslog -p "20,2013-02-04 0:00:00"

It's possible to store common options in ~/.syslog-viewer: it's a YAML file. The syntax is exactly the same as in the command line:

    example:
      connection:
        host: example.org
        port: 3306
        username: joe
        password: '123'
        database: Syslog
      count: 100
      severity: WARNING

You can then invoke those options by the corresponding label (each label can have its own group of options):

    $ ruby syslog-viewer.rb -f example

Note: if you specifiy a label in the command line it must be the last option!

Check the Wiki.

syslog-viewer is released under the MIT License.