This guide provides basic information about the Cloud Logging agent, an application based on fluentd that runs on your virtual machine (VM) instances.
In its default configuration, the Logging agent streams logs from common third-party applications and system software to Logging; review the list of default logs. You can configure the agent to stream additional logs; go to Configuring the Logging agent for details on agent configuration and operation.
It is a best practice to run the Logging agent on all your VM instances. The agent runs under both Linux and Windows. To install the Logging agent, go to Installing the agent.
Supported operating systems
You can run the Logging agent on the following operating systems on compatible virtual machine (VM) instances:
- CentOS 6, 7, and 8
- Debian 9 "Stretch" and 10 "Buster"
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, and 8
- Ubuntu LTS 16.04 (Xenial Xerus), LTS 18.04 (Bionic Beaver), and 19.10 (Eoan Ermine)
- Ubuntu Minimal LTS 16.04 (Xenial Xerus), LTS 18.04 (Bionic Beaver), and 19.10 (Eoan Ermine)
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3, 12 SP2 for SAP, 12 SP3 for SAP, 15, 15 for SAP, and 15 SP1 for SAP
- Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, 2016, and 2019
- Amazon Linux AMI (except Amazon Linux 2.0 AMI)
Supported environments
The Logging agent is compatible with the following environments:
Compute Engine instances. The Logging agent sends the logs to the project associated with each VM instance.
For instances without external IP addresses, you must enable Private Google Access to allow the Logging agent to send logs.
Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud (AWS EC2) instances. The Logging agent sends the logs to the AWS connector project for your Workspace. Monitoring creates this project for you when you connect your AWS account to a Workspace.
For the Logging agent to function correctly, the Amazon EC2 instance it runs on must be able to communicate with Google Cloud APIs, particularly the Logging API. This requires either an external IP address or a VPC internet gateway.
For these VM instances, a minimum of 250 MiB of resident (RSS) memory is required to run the Logging agent, but 1 GiB is recommended. For example, at a rate of 100 1-KB-sized log entries per second, the Logging agent with default configurations consumes 5% CPU on one core and 150 MiB memory. At a peak rate of 3,000 1-KB-sized log entries per second, the Logging agent, uses 80% CPU on one core and 250 MiB memory.
The following VM instances support Logging using their own software, so manually installing the Logging agent on them is not supported:
App Engine standard environment instances. App Engine includes built-in support for Logging. For more information, go to Writing application logs.
App Engine flexible environment instances. Apps running in the App Engine flexible environment can write logs that are in addition to what is included in the App Engine standard environment. For more information, go to Writing application logs.
Google Kubernetes Engine node instances. You can enable Kubernetes Engine Monitoring, an integrated monitoring and logging solution, for your new or existing container clusters.
For instances running on GKE on-prem, the agent collects system logs but doesn't collect application logs.
Cloud Run container instances. Cloud Run includes built-in support for Logging. For more information, go to Logging and viewing logs.
Cloud Functions HTTP and background functions. Cloud Functions includes built-in support for Logging. For more information, go to Writing, Viewing, and Responding to Logs.
Support for on-premise and hybrid clouds
Google Cloud partners with Blue Medora to provide logging services for on-premise and hybrid cloud platforms in a consistent and predictable way. Using Blue Medora, you can collect your own data and send it to Logging for analysis. Blue Medora's Bindplane integrates with Cloud Logging to capture data from your infrastructure and is included with your project at no additional cost.
For more information about Blue Medora, go to About Blue Medora.
Agent access requirements
Running the agent requires access to the following DNS names:
OAuth2 token server:
oauth2.googleapis.comOlder versions of the agent may require access to
www.googleapis.com(full URL:https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v3/token).If you're using an older version of the agent, it's recommended that you upgrade your agent to the latest version.
Logging APIs:
logging.googleapis.com
Installing the agent requires access to the following DNS names:
(Linux) Google Cloud package repository:
packages.cloud.google.com(Windows) Google download server:
dl.google.com
Logging agent source code
You don't need the information in this section unless you want to understand the source code or you have other special needs. The Logging agent is installed by the script described in the installation instructions.
The Logging agent, google-fluentd, is a modified version of the
fluentd log data collector.
google-fluentd is distributed in two separate packages. The source code is
available from the associated GitHub repositories:
- The GitHub repository named
google-fluentdwhich includes the corefluentdprogram, the custom packaging scripts, and the output plugin for the Cloud Logging API.- The output plugin is packaged as a Ruby gem and is included in the
google-fluentdpackage. It is also available separately at the Ruby gem hosting service at fluent-plugin-google-cloud.
- The output plugin is packaged as a Ruby gem and is included in the
- The GitHub repository named
google-fluentd-catch-all-configwhich includes the configuration files for the Logging agent for ingesting the logs from various third-party software packages.
Deprecation policy
The Logging agent is subject to the Google Cloud's operations suite agents deprecation policy.