Spylunking - Splunk + Python Logging

Drill down into your logs with an integrated, colorized logger and search tools set up with the included Splunk docker sandbox.

This repository creates Splunk-ready, colorized Python loggers that work with a Splunk TCP Port or the Splunk HEC REST API. Both of these endpoints are automatically set up for use with the included docker container.

Splunk web app Python logs from the Spylunking test app

Sample Log Handlers

Depending on your application’s use case you can use one of the included Python logging handlers:

The log publishing and search tools support using existing Splunk tokens or logging in using the configured user and password arguments or from environment variables.

Sample Log Config JSON Files

Here are the sample logging config JSON files:

Travis Build Read the Docs
Travis Test Status Read the Docs Status

Getting Started

  1. Clone the repo

    git clone https://github.com/jay-johnson/spylunking.git spylunking
    cd spylunking
    
  2. Install the pip

    pip install spylunking
    

    If you want to develop use this command:

    pip install -e .
    
  3. Start the Splunk docker container

    ./run-splunk-in-docker.sh
    

Get a Splunk User Token

By default the container creates a user with the credentials:

username: trex password: 123321

get_splunk_token.py
955324da-742b-43d4-9746-bcbedf6ae7f4

Set the Splunk Environment Variables

export SPLUNK_INDEX=antinex
export SPLUNK_TOKEN=955324da-742b-43d4-9746-bcbedf6ae7f4

Please wait at least 30 seconds while the container is getting ready. You may see output like this when the splunk container is not ready yet or stops running:

get_splunk_token.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<redacted path for doc>", line 171, in _new_conn
    (self._dns_host, self.port), self.timeout, **extra_kw)
File "<redacted path for doc>", line 79, in create_connection
    raise err
File "<redacted path for doc>", line 69, in create_connection
    sock.connect(sa)
ConnectionRefusedError: [Errno 111] Connection refused

Publishing Logs to Splunk using the Spylunking Logger

Below is a video showing how to tag your application’s logs using the LOG_NAME environment variable. Doing this allows you to quickly find them in Splunk using the included sp command line tool.

Publishing Logs to Splunk using the Spylunking Logger

Commands from the video:

  1. Set an Application Log Name

    export LOG_NAME=payments
    
  2. Search for Logs in Splunk

    sp -q 'index="antinex" AND name=payments | head 5 | reverse'
    No matches for search={
        "search": "search index=\"antinex\" AND name=payments | head 5 | reverse"
    } response={
        "init_offset": 0,
        "messages": [],
        "post_process_count": 0,
        "preview": false,
        "results": []
    }
    
  3. Send Test Logs to Splunk

    test_logging.py
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,197 - helloworld - INFO - testing INFO message_id=93e33f10-ebbf-49a1-a87a-a76858448c71
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,199 - helloworld - ERROR - testing ERROR message_id=3b3f0362-f146-47b4-9fff-c6cc3b165279
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,200 - helloworld - CRITICAL - testing CRITICAL message_id=8870f39e-82b5-4071-b19a-80ce6cfefbd6
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,201 - helloworld - WARNING - testing WARNING message_id=6ab745cb-8a14-41ae-b16e-13c0c80c4963
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,201 - helloworld - ERROR - Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=26b3c421-46b7-49d2-960b-1ca2ed7b8e03
    
  4. Search for Test Logs in Splunk

    sp -q 'index="antinex" AND name=payments | head 5 | reverse'
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,197 helloworld - INFO - testing INFO message_id=93e33f10-ebbf-49a1-a87a-a76858448c71
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,199 helloworld - ERROR - testing ERROR message_id=3b3f0362-f146-47b4-9fff-c6cc3b165279
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,200 helloworld - CRITICAL - testing CRITICAL message_id=8870f39e-82b5-4071-b19a-80ce6cfefbd6
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,201 helloworld - WARNING - testing WARNING message_id=6ab745cb-8a14-41ae-b16e-13c0c80c4963
    2018-07-02 09:18:22,201 helloworld - ERROR - Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=26b3c421-46b7-49d2-960b-1ca2ed7b8e03
    

Get Splunk Logs from the Command Line Tool

Use the command line tool: sp to search for recent logs.

  1. Set environment variables:

    export SPLUNK_ADDRESS="splunkenterprise:8088"
    export SPLUNK_API_ADDRESS="splunkenterprise:8089"
    export SPLUNK_PASSWORD="123321"
    export SPLUNK_USER="trex"
    

    Note

    The remainder of this guide was recorded by running the splunk container on a remote vm and then setting the environment variables for the search tool sp and the spylunking logger to work. If you are running the container locally, either add splunkenterprise to /etc/hosts at the end of the 127.0.0.1 line or export these environment variables to work with the local splunk container: export SPLUNK_ADDRESS:localhost:8088 and export SPLUNK_API_ADDRESS=localhost:8089.

  2. Run the tool:

    sp
    

    Which will log something like:

    sp - INFO - No matches for search={
        "search": "search index=\"antinex\" | head 10"
    }
    sp - INFO - done
    

Write Splunk Logs

By default, the container creates a Splunk index called: antinex with a user token for the user trex to search the index. Once the Splunk container is running, you can use the included test_logging.py script to create sample logs to verify the Splunk logging integration is working. The default logger will send logs over TCP using the TCP Splunk Publisher. To change this, you can export the optional environment variable SHARED_LOG_CFG to the absolute path of another logging config JSON file like:

export SHARED_LOG_CFG=<absolute path to logging config JSON file>

Send logs using the command: test_logging.py

test_logging.py
2018-06-24 01:07:36,378 - testingsplunk - INFO - testing INFO message_id=ce9c91dc-3af9-484d-aeb0-fc09194bb42e
2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testingsplunk - ERROR - testing ERROR message_id=9227cc2f-f734-4b99-8448-117776ef6bff
2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testingsplunk - CRITICAL - testing CRITICAL message_id=7271a65d-d563-4231-b24a-b17364044818
2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testingsplunk - WARNING - testing WARN message_id=54063058-dba1-47ee-a0ab-d654b3140e55
2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testingsplunk - ERROR - Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=c1e100f4-202d-48ac-9803-91c4f02c9a92

Get the Test Splunk Logs using the Command Line Tool

The command line tool called sp is included with the pip on install. When you run it, it will return the most recent logs from the index (antinex by default) and print them to stdout.

sp

If you want to pull logs from splunk with user credentials (SPLUNK_USER and SPLUNK_PASSWORD as environment variables works too):

sp -u trex -p 123321 -a splunkenterprise:8089

Running sp should return something like these test logs:

sp -u trex -p 123321 -a splunkenterprise:8089

sp - ERROR - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=c1e100f4-202d-48ac-9803-91c4f02c9a92 dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=41 ex=None
sp - CRITICAL - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testing CRITICAL message_id=7271a65d-d563-4231-b24a-b17364044818 dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=31 ex=None
sp - ERROR - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testing ERROR message_id=9227cc2f-f734-4b99-8448-117776ef6bff dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=29 ex=None
sp - INFO - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:07:36,378 - testing INFO message_id=ce9c91dc-3af9-484d-aeb0-fc09194bb42e dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=27 ex=None
sp - INFO - done

Examples

Pull Logs with a Query on the Command Line

sp -q 'index="antinex" AND levelname=INFO | head 10' \
    -u trex -p 123321 -a splunkenterprise:8089
sp - INFO - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:40:18,313 - testing INFO message_id=74b8fe93-ce07-4b8f-a700-dcf4665416d3 dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=27 ex=None
sp - INFO - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:25:19,162 - testing INFO message_id=766e1408-1252-47e2-99db-e3154f5b915a dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=27 ex=None
sp - INFO - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:07:36,378 - testing INFO message_id=ce9c91dc-3af9-484d-aeb0-fc09194bb42e dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=27 ex=None
sp - INFO - done

Pull Logs with a Query on the Command Line

Get CRITICAL logs

sp -q 'index="antinex" AND levelname="CRITICAL"'

Get First 10 ERROR logs

sp -q 'index="antinex" AND levelname="ERROR" | head 10' \
    -u trex -p 123321 -a splunkenterprise:8089

Running sp also works if you want to view the full json fields:

sp -j -u trex -p 123321 -a splunkenterprise:8089

sp - ERROR - {
    "asctime": "2018-06-24 01:07:36,379",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "test_logging.py",
    "levelname": "ERROR",
    "lineno": 41,
    "logger_name": "testingsplunk",
    "message": "Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=c1e100f4-202d-48ac-9803-91c4f02c9a92",
    "name": "testingsplunk",
    "path": "/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529827656.3798487
}
sp - CRITICAL - {
    "asctime": "2018-06-24 01:07:36,379",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "test_logging.py",
    "levelname": "CRITICAL",
    "lineno": 31,
    "logger_name": "testingsplunk",
    "message": "testing CRITICAL message_id=7271a65d-d563-4231-b24a-b17364044818",
    "name": "testingsplunk",
    "path": "/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529827656.3794894
}
sp - ERROR - {
    "asctime": "2018-06-24 01:07:36,379",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "test_logging.py",
    "levelname": "ERROR",
    "lineno": 29,
    "logger_name": "testingsplunk",
    "message": "testing ERROR message_id=9227cc2f-f734-4b99-8448-117776ef6bff",
    "name": "testingsplunk",
    "path": "/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529827656.3792682
}
sp - INFO - {
    "asctime": "2018-06-24 01:07:36,378",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "test_logging.py",
    "levelname": "INFO",
    "lineno": 27,
    "logger_name": "testingsplunk",
    "message": "testing INFO message_id=ce9c91dc-3af9-484d-aeb0-fc09194bb42e",
    "name": "testingsplunk",
    "path": "/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529827656.3789432
}
sp - INFO - done

Running Stats Commands like Counting Log Matches

After running a few million logs through the Splunk container you can count the number of matches using sp:

sp -q 'index="antinex" | stats count'
{
    "count": "9261227"
}

Splunk Client Load Testing

If you are looking to tune your Splunk client logging performance, then please check out the included load tester to validate the deployed configuration will not fail to publish log messages (if that is required for your client).

Before using this in production, please note it is possible to overflow the current python queues during something like an extended Splunk maintenance window or if the client is publishing logs over an unreliable network connection. The default configuration is only going to queue up to 1 million log messages before starting to drop new logs. Another way to test this is if your application is writing logs faster than the Splunk REST API can keep up, then eventually it will overflow the queue’s default depth. If you are concerned about not losing log messages, then the logger should set a flush interval of 0 to disable the asynchronous, threaded queue support. This will put the client logger into a blocking mode and ensure there are no missed log messages. Please consider that this change will only create blocking log publishers where the retry_count and timeout values should be tuned to your application’s needs to prevent slow application performance while waiting on the client’s HTTP requests to acknowledge each log was received.

Here is how to start a single process load tester:

./spylunking/scripts/start_logging_loader.py
2018-06-28 22:01:47,702 - load-test-2018_06_29_05_01_47 - INFO - INFO message_id=acdbfd0a-6349-4c2e-959c-f49572fc94ca
2018-06-28 22:01:47,702 - load-test-2018_06_29_05_01_47 - ERROR - ERROR message_id=7daf8a8e-0d8d-4aa8-9ed1-313cd5dfb421
2018-06-28 22:01:47,702 - load-test-2018_06_29_05_01_47 - CRITICAL - CRITICAL message_id=a27e7778-94be-4a35-9ce2-279403b7cf60
2018-06-28 22:01:47,703 - load-test-2018_06_29_05_01_47 - WARNING - WARN message_id=d4f39765-5812-4e2e-b7ce-857b231f79d4

Logging to Splunk from a Python Shell

Here are python commands to build a colorized, splunk-ready python logger. On startup, the logger will authenticate with splunk using the provided credentials. Once authenticated you can use it like a normal logger.

Note

The build_colorized_logger and search method also support authentication using a pre-existing splunk_token=<token string> or by setting a SPLUNK_TOKEN environment key

python -c '\
    import json;\
    from spylunking.log.setup_logging import build_colorized_logger;\
    import spylunking.search as sp;\
    from spylunking.ppj import ppj;\
    print("build the logger");\
    log = build_colorized_logger(\
        name="spylunking-in-a-shell",\
        splunk_user="trex", \
        splunk_password="123321");\
    print("import the search wrapper");\
    res = sp.search(\
        user="trex",\
        password="123321",\
        address="splunkenterprise:8089",\
        query_dict={\
            "search": "search index=\"antinex\" | head 1"\
        });\
    print("pretty print the first record in the result list");\
    log.critical("found search results={}".format(ppj(json.loads(res["record"]["results"][0]["_raw"]))))'

Here is sample output from running this command:

build the logger
import the search wrapper
pretty print the first record in the result list
2018-06-21 22:38:38,475 - spylunking-in-a-shell - CRITICAL - found search results={
    "asctime": "2018-06-21 22:13:36,279",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "<stdin>",
    "levelname": "INFO",
    "lineno": 1,
    "logger_name": "spylunking-in-a-shell",
    "message": "testing from a python shell",
    "name": "spylunking-in-a-shell",
    "path": "<stdin>",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529644416.2790444
}

Here it is from a python shell:

python
Python 3.6.5 (default, Apr  1 2018, 05:46:30)
[GCC 7.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from spylunking.log.setup_logging import build_colorized_logger
>>> log = build_colorized_logger(
        name='spylunking-in-a-shell',
        splunk_user='trex',
        splunk_password='123321')
>>> import spylunking.search as sp
>>> res = sp.search(
        user='trex',
        password='123321',
        address="splunkenterprise:8089",
        query_dict={
            'search': 'search index="antinex" | head 1'
        })
>>> from spylunking.ppj import ppj
>>> log.critical('found search results={}'.format(ppj(json.loads(res['record']['results'][0]['_raw']))))
2018-06-21 22:31:04,231 - spylunking-in-a-shell - CRITICAL - found search results={
    "asctime": "2018-06-21 22:13:36,279",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "<stdin>",
    "levelname": "INFO",
    "lineno": 1,
    "logger_name": "spylunking-in-a-shell",
    "message": "testing from a python shell",
    "name": "spylunking-in-a-shell",
    "path": "<stdin>",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529644416.2790444
}

Publishing Logs to a Remote Splunk Server

Set up the environment variables:

export SPLUNK_API_ADDRESS="splunkenterprise:8089"
export SPLUNK_ADDRESS="splunkenterprise:8088"
export SPLUNK_USER="trex"
export SPLUNK_PASSWORD="123321"

Run the test tool to verify logs are published:

test_logging.py
2018-06-24 01:07:36,378 - testingsplunk - INFO - testing INFO message_id=ce9c91dc-3af9-484d-aeb0-fc09194bb42e
2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testingsplunk - ERROR - testing ERROR message_id=9227cc2f-f734-4b99-8448-117776ef6bff
2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testingsplunk - CRITICAL - testing CRITICAL message_id=7271a65d-d563-4231-b24a-b17364044818
2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testingsplunk - WARNING - testing WARN message_id=54063058-dba1-47ee-a0ab-d654b3140e55
2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testingsplunk - ERROR - Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=c1e100f4-202d-48ac-9803-91c4f02c9a92

Get the logs with sp

sp -a splunkenterprise:8089

Which should return the newly published logs:

sp - ERROR - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=c1e100f4-202d-48ac-9803-91c4f02c9a92 dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=41 ex=None
sp - CRITICAL - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testing CRITICAL message_id=7271a65d-d563-4231-b24a-b17364044818 dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=31 ex=None
sp - ERROR - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:07:36,379 - testing ERROR message_id=9227cc2f-f734-4b99-8448-117776ef6bff dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=29 ex=None
sp - INFO - testingsplunk.testingsplunk 2018-06-24 01:07:36,378 - testing INFO message_id=ce9c91dc-3af9-484d-aeb0-fc09194bb42e dc= env= source=/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py line=27 ex=None
sp - INFO - done

Set up a Logger

There are multiple loggers avaiable depending on the type of logger that is needed.

Simple Logger

Build a simple, no dates colorized logger that prints just the message in colors and does not publish logs to Splunk using:

from spylunking.log.setup_logging import simple_logger
log = simple_logger()
log.info('simple logger example')
simple logger example

No Date Colorized Logger

Build a colorized logger that preserves the parent application name and log level without a date field and does not publish logs to Splunk using:

from spylunking.log.setup_logging import no_date_colors_logger
log = no_date_colors_logger(name='app-name')
log.info('no date with colors logger example')
app-name - INFO - no date with colors logger example

Test Logger

The test logger is for unittests and does not publish to Splunk.

from spylunking.log.setup_logging import test_logger
log = test_logger(name='unittest logger')
log.info('unittest log line')
2018-06-25 16:01:50,118 - using-a-colorized-logger - INFO - colorized logger example

Console Logger

The console logger is the same as the build_colorized_logger which can be created with authenticated Splunk-ready logging using:

from spylunking.log.setup_logging import build_colorized_logger
log = build_colorized_logger(name='using-a-colorized-logger')
log.info('colorized logger example')
2018-06-25 16:47:54,053 - unittest logger - INFO - unittest log line

Define Custom Fields for Splunk

You can export a custom JSON dictionary to send as JSON fields for helping drill down on log lines using this environment variable.

export LOG_FIELDS_DICT='{"name":"hello-world","dc":"k8-splunk","env":"development"}'

Or you can export the following environment variables if you just want a couple set in the logs:

export LOG_NAME=<application log name>
export DEPLOY_CONFIG=<PaaS/CaaS deployment config name>
export ENV_NAME<deployed environment name>

Log some new test messages to Splunk:

test_logging.py
2018-06-25 20:48:51,367 - testingsplunk - INFO - testing INFO message_id=0c5e2a2c-9553-4c8a-8fff-8d77de2be78a
2018-06-25 20:48:51,368 - testingsplunk - ERROR - testing ERROR message_id=0dc1086d-4fe4-4062-9882-e822f9256d6f
2018-06-25 20:48:51,368 - testingsplunk - CRITICAL - testing CRITICAL message_id=0c0f56f2-e87f-41a0-babb-b71e2b9d5d5a
2018-06-25 20:48:51,368 - testingsplunk - WARNING - testing WARN message_id=59b099eb-8c0d-40d0-9d3a-7dfa13fefc90
2018-06-25 20:48:51,368 - testingsplunk - ERROR - Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=70fc422d-d33b-4a9e-bb51-ed86aa0a02f9

Once published, you can search for these new logs using those new JSON fields with the sp search tool. Here is an example of searching for the logs with the application log name hello-world:

sp -q 'index="antinex" AND name=hello-world'
2018-06-25 20:48:51,368 testingsplunk - ERROR - Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=70fc422d-d33b-4a9e-bb51-ed86aa0a02f9
2018-06-25 20:48:51,368 testingsplunk - CRITICAL - testing CRITICAL message_id=0c0f56f2-e87f-41a0-babb-b71e2b9d5d5a
2018-06-25 20:48:51,368 testingsplunk - ERROR - testing ERROR message_id=0dc1086d-4fe4-4062-9882-e822f9256d6f
2018-06-25 20:48:51,367 testingsplunk - INFO - testing INFO message_id=0c5e2a2c-9553-4c8a-8fff-8d77de2be78a
done

And you can view log the full JSON dictionaries using the -j argument on the sp command:

sp -q 'index="antinex" AND name=hello-world' -j
{
    "asctime": "2018-06-25 20:48:51,368",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "dc": "k8-deploy",
    "env": "development",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "test_logging.py",
    "levelname": "ERROR",
    "lineno": 41,
    "logger_name": "testingsplunk",
    "message": "Testing EXCEPTION with ex=Throw for testing exceptions message_id=70fc422d-d33b-4a9e-bb51-ed86aa0a02f9",
    "name": "hello-world",
    "path": "/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529984931.3688767
}
{
    "asctime": "2018-06-25 20:48:51,368",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "dc": "k8-deploy",
    "env": "development",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "test_logging.py",
    "levelname": "CRITICAL",
    "lineno": 31,
    "logger_name": "testingsplunk",
    "message": "testing CRITICAL message_id=0c0f56f2-e87f-41a0-babb-b71e2b9d5d5a",
    "name": "hello-world",
    "path": "/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529984931.3684626
}
{
    "asctime": "2018-06-25 20:48:51,368",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "dc": "k8-deploy",
    "env": "development",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "test_logging.py",
    "levelname": "ERROR",
    "lineno": 29,
    "logger_name": "testingsplunk",
    "message": "testing ERROR message_id=0dc1086d-4fe4-4062-9882-e822f9256d6f",
    "name": "hello-world",
    "path": "/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529984931.3682773
}
{
    "asctime": "2018-06-25 20:48:51,367",
    "custom_key": "custom value",
    "dc": "k8-deploy",
    "env": "development",
    "exc": null,
    "filename": "test_logging.py",
    "levelname": "INFO",
    "lineno": 27,
    "logger_name": "testingsplunk",
    "message": "testing INFO message_id=0c5e2a2c-9553-4c8a-8fff-8d77de2be78a",
    "name": "hello-world",
    "path": "/opt/spylunking/spylunking/scripts/test_logging.py",
    "tags": [],
    "timestamp": 1529984931.3679354
}
done

Available Environment Variables

Drill down fields

Splunk drill down fields with environment variables:

export LOG_NAME="<application log name>"
export DEPLOY_CONFIG="<application deployed config like k8 filename>"
export ENV_NAME="<environment name for this application>"

Common Environment Variables

export SPLUNK_USER="<splunk host>"
export SPLUNK_PASSWORD="<splunk host>"
export SPLUNK_HOST="<splunk host>"
export SPLUNK_PORT="<splunk port: 8088>"
export SPLUNK_API_PORT="<splunk port: 8089>"
export SPLUNK_ADDRESS="<splunk address host:port>"
export SPLUNK_API_ADDRESS="<splunk api address host:port>"
export SPLUNK_TOKEN="<splunk token>"
export SPLUNK_INDEX="<splunk index>"
export SPLUNK_SOURCE="<splunk source>"
export SPLUNK_SOURCETYPE="<splunk sourcetype>"
export SPLUNK_VERIFY="<verify certs on HTTP POST>"
export SPLUNK_TIMEOUT="<timeout in seconds>"
export SPLUNK_QUEUE_SIZE="<num msgs allowed in queue - 0=infinite>"
export SPLUNK_SLEEP_INTERVAL="<sleep in seconds per batch>"
export SPLUNK_RETRY_COUNT="<attempts per log to retry publishing>"
export SPLUNK_RETRY_BACKOFF="<cooldown in seconds per failed POST>"
export SPLUNK_DEBUG="<debug the publisher - 1 enable debug|0 off>"
export SPLUNK_VERBOSE="<debug the sp command line tool - 1 enable|0 off>"

Debug the Publishers

Export this variable before creating a logger to see the publisher logs:

export SPLUNK_DEBUG=1

Login to Splunk from a Browser

Open this url in a browser to view the splunk container’s web application:

http://127.0.0.1:8000

Login with the credentials:

username: trex password: 123321

Troubleshooting

Splunk Handler Dropping Logs

If the splunk handler is dropping log messages you can use these values to tune the handler’s worker thread:

export SPLUNK_RETRY_COUNT="<number of attempts to send logs>"
export SPLUNK_TIMEOUT="<timeout in seconds per attempt>"
export SPLUNK_QUEUE_SIZE="<integer value or 0 for infinite>"
export SPLUNK_SLEEP_INTERVAL="<seconds to sleep between publishes>"
export SPLUNK_DEBUG="<debug the Splunk Publisher by setting to 1>"

Testing in a Python Shell

Here is a debugging python shell session for showing some common errors you can expect to see as you start to play around with spylunking.

python
Python 3.6.5 (default, Apr  1 2018, 05:46:30)
[GCC 7.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from spylunking.log.setup_logging import build_colorized_logger
>>> log = build_colorized_logger(
        name='spylunking-in-a-shell',
        splunk_user='trex',
        splunk_password='123321')
>>> log.info("testing from a python shell")
2018-06-21 22:13:36,279 - spylunking-in-a-shell - INFO - testing from a python shell
>>> import spylunking.search as sp
>>> res = sp.search(
        user='trex',
        password='123321',
        query_dict={
                'search': 'index="antinex" | head 1'
        },
        verify=False)
>>> log.info('job status={}'.format(res['status']))
2018-06-21 22:16:22,158 - spylunking-in-a-shell - INFO - job status=2
>>> log.info('job err={}'.format(res['err']))
2018-06-21 22:16:28,945 - spylunking-in-a-shell - INFO - job err=Failed to get splunk token for user=trex url=https://None ex=HTTPSConnectionPool(host='none', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /services/auth/login (Caused by NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.VerifiedHTTPSConnection object at 0x7f869c2f2cc0>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno -2] Name or service not known',))
>>> print("now search with the url set")
now search with the url set
>>> res = sp.search(
        user='trex',
        password='123321',
        query_dict={
                'search': 'index="antinex" | head 1'
        },
        address="splunkenterprise:8089")
2018-06-21 22:18:15,380 - spylunking.search - ERROR - Failed searching splunk response=<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<response>
<messages>
    <msg type="ERROR">Search Factory: Unknown search command 'index'.</msg>
</messages>
</response>
for query={
    "search": "index=\"antinex\" | head 1"
} url=https://splunkenterprise:8089/services/search/jobs ex=list index out of range
>>> print("now nest the search correctly")
now nest the search correctly
>>> res = sp.search(
        user='trex',
        password='123321',
        address="splunkenterprise:8089",
        query_dict={
                'search': 'search index="antinex" | head 1'
        })
>>> log.info('job status={}'.format(res['status']))
2018-06-21 22:20:10,142 - spylunking-in-a-shell - INFO - job status=0
>>> log.info('job err={}'.format(res['err']))
2018-06-21 22:20:14,667 - spylunking-in-a-shell - INFO - job err=
>>> from spylunking.ppj import ppj
>>> log.critical('found search results={}'.format(ppj(res['record'])))
2018-06-21 22:21:25,977 - spylunking-in-a-shell - CRITICAL - found search results={
    "fields": [
        {
            "name": "_bkt"
        },
        {
            "name": "_cd"
        },
        {
            "name": "_indextime"
        },
        {
            "name": "_raw"
        },
        {
            "name": "_serial"
        },
        {
            "name": "_si"
        },
        {
            "name": "_sourcetype"
        },
        {
            "name": "_subsecond"
        },
        {
            "name": "_time"
        },
        {
            "name": "host"
        },
        {
            "name": "index"
        },
        {
            "name": "linecount"
        },
        {
            "name": "source"
        },
        {
            "name": "sourcetype"
        },
        {
            "name": "splunk_server"
        }
    ],
    "highlighted": {},
    "init_offset": 0,
    "messages": [],
    "preview": false,
    "results": [
        {
            "_bkt": "antinex~0~791398E7-6A0B-4640-B8D5-5D25E7EF3D02",
            "_cd": "0:3",
            "_indextime": "1529644419",
            "_raw": "{\"asctime\": \"2018-06-21 22:13:36,279\", \"name\": \"spylunking-in-a-shell\", \"levelname\": \"INFO\", \"message\": \"testing from a python shell\", \"filename\": \"<stdin>\", \"lineno\": 1, \"timestamp\": 1529644416.2790444, \"path\": \"<stdin>\", \"custom_key\": \"custom value\", \"tags\": [], \"exc\": null, \"logger_name\": \"spylunking-in-a-shell\"}",
            "_serial": "0",
            "_si": [
                "splunkenterprise",
                "antinex"
            ],
            "_sourcetype": "json",
            "_subsecond": ".2792356",
            "_time": "2018-06-22T05:13:36.279+00:00",
            "host": "dev",
            "index": "antinex",
            "linecount": "1",
            "source": "<stdin>",
            "sourcetype": "json",
            "splunk_server": "splunkenterprise"
        }
    ]
}
>>> exit()

Please refer to the command line tool’s updated usage prompt for help searching for logs:

usage: sp [-h] [-u USER] [-p PASSWORD] [-f DATAFILE] [-i INDEX_NAME]
      [-a ADDRESS] [-e EARLIEST_TIME_MINUTES] [-l LATEST_TIME_MINUTES]
      [-q [QUERY_ARGS [QUERY_ARGS ...]]] [-j] [-m] [-v] [-b]

Search Splunk

optional arguments:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
-u USER               username
-p PASSWORD           user password
-f DATAFILE           splunk-ready request in a json file
-i INDEX_NAME         index to search
-a ADDRESS            host address: <fqdn:port>
-e EARLIEST_TIME_MINUTES
                        (Optional) earliest_time minutes back
-l LATEST_TIME_MINUTES
                        (Optional) latest_time minutes back
-q [QUERY_ARGS [QUERY_ARGS ...]], --queryargs [QUERY_ARGS [QUERY_ARGS ...]]
                        query string for searching splunk: search
                        index="antinex" AND levelname="ERROR"
-j                    (Optional) view as json dictionary logs
-m                    (Optional) verbose message when getting logs
-v                    (Optional) verify certs - disabled by default
-b                    verbose

For trying the host-only compose file, you may see errors like:

unable to resolve host splunkenterprise

Please add splunkenterprise to the end of the line for 127.0.0.1 in your /etc/hosts

Cleanup

Remove the docker container with the commands:

docker stop splunk
docker rm splunk

Manual Splunk Commands

Create Token

curl -k -u admin:changeme https://splunkenterprise:8089/servicesNS/admin/splunk_httpinput/data/inputs/http -d name=antinex-token

List Token

curl -k -u admin:changeme https://splunkenterprise:8089/servicesNS/admin/splunk_httpinput/data/inputs/http

Using Splunk CLI

List Tokens

./bin/splunk http-event-collector list -uri 'https://splunkenterprise:8089' -auth 'admin:changeme'

Add Index

./bin/splunk add index antinex -auth 'admin:changeme'

Create Token

./bin/splunk \
    http-event-collector create  \
    antinex-token 'antinex logging token'  \
    -index antinex \
    -uri 'https://splunkenterprise:8089' \
    -auth 'admin:changeme'

Development

Setting up your development environment (right now this demo is using virtualenv):

virtualenv -p python3 ~/.venvs/spylunk && source ~/.venvs/spylunk/bin/activate && pip install -e .

Testing

Run all

py.test

Linting

flake8 .

pycodestyle .