Set up Azure log forwarding

Azure log forwarding allows you to stream Azure logs from Azure Event Hubs into Dynatrace logs via an Azure Function App instance. It supports both Azure resource logs and activity logs.

Resources to be deployed

Azure log forwarding is performed directly through Cluster API. If you don't want to use direct ingest through the Cluster API, you have to use an existing ActiveGate for log ingestion.

The following resources will be created by the Azure logs forwarder deployment script:

• Storage account (Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts)
• Storage Account Blob Service (Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/blobServices)
• Azure App Service plan (Microsoft.Web/serverfarms)
• Azure Function App (Microsoft.Web/sites)

For details about the resources created, see the Azure Resource Manager file on GitHub

Prerequisites

Note: If you're using an earlier version of Dynatrace, see Alternative deployments for instructions.

See below the list of requirements for setting up Azure log forwarding. Some are needed before you start deployment, others during the deployment process.

Dynatrace

• Enable generic log ingestion
• Enable Log Monitoring (latest version)
• Create an API token and enable the Ingest logs permission

Azure

1. In each Azure location from where you want to pull logs Create a resource group & Set up an Azure Event Hubs instance.

   Note: To be able to send logs, the Event Hubs instances and the resource group in which the deployment will run need to be in the same region.

2. Create an authorization rule with the listen permission for the Event Hubs instance that is configured for receiving logs:

   shcopydownload
   az eventhubs eventhub authorization-rule create --resource-group <your_resource_group> --namespace-name <your_event_hub_namespace> --eventhub-name <your_event_hub_instance> --name <authorization_rule_name> --rights Listen

3. Get an Event Hubs connection string for the authorization rule created above:

   shcopydownload
   az eventhubs eventhub authorization-rule keys list --resource-group <your_resource_group> --namespace-name <your_event_hub_namespace> --eventhub-name <your_event_hub_instance> --name <your_authorization_rule_name>

4. Configure diagnostic settings for resources from which you want to stream logs so that the diagnostic settings point to Azure Event Hubs instances.

CLI

You can run Azure log forwarding deployment using Azure Portal Cloud Shell (Bash) or from any machine with Azure CLI and Bash shell (Linux or Windows WSL).

Deploy

1. Set the following environment variables, making sure to replace the placeholders (<...>) with your own values.

   • For DEPLOYMENT_NAME, enter your deployment name (lowercase only).
   • For TARGET_URL, enter your environment URL: https://<your_environment_ID>.live.dynatrace.com. To learn how to determine your environment ID, see environment ID.
   • For TARGET_API_TOKEN, enter your API token. See Dynatrace requirements for details.
   • For RESOURCE_GROUP, enter the name of the Azure resource group in which deployment will run. See Azure requirements for details.
   • For EVENT_HUB_CONNECTION_STRING, enter the connection string for the Azure Event Hubs instances configured for receiving logs. See Azure requirements for details.

   Note: optional You can enable self-monitoring and/or log filtering during or after deployment.

   plaintextcopydownload
   DEPLOYMENT_NAME=<your_deployment_name>
   TARGET_URL=<your_environment_URL>
   TARGET_API_TOKEN=<your_API_token>
   RESOURCE_GROUP=<your_resource_group>
   EVENT_HUB_CONNECTION_STRING="<your_Event_Hub_connection_string>"

2. Download the azure-log-forwarder-function script and deploy the infrastructure.

   plaintextcopydownload
   wget -q https://github.com/dynatrace-oss/dynatrace-azure-log-forwarder/releases/latest/download/dynatrace-azure-logs.sh -O dynatrace-azure-logs.sh && chmod +x ./dynatrace-azure-logs.sh \
   && ./dynatrace-azure-logs.sh --deployment-name $DEPLOYMENT_NAME --target-url $TARGET_URL --target-api-token $TARGET_API_TOKEN --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --event-hub-connection-string $EVENT_HUB_CONNECTION_STRING  --require-valid-certificate true

View Azure logs

After deploying the script, you can view and analyze Azure logs in Dynatrace: Go to Logs and, in the attributes filter, search for Azure.

• If you see logs coming in, you managed to deploy Azure log forwarder successfully.
• If there are no logs within 10 minutes checkout the Troubleshooting guide section of the page

Self-monitoring optional

Self-monitoring allows a quick diagnosis to see if your function processes and sends logs to Dynatrace properly.

Enable self-monitoring

To enable self-monitoring, you have two options:

• During deployment: Set the --enable-self-monitoring parameter (or the SFM_ENABLED environment variable) to true.

• After deployment: In Azure Portal, go to the configuration of your deployed Function App instance and set SELF_MONITORING_ENABLED to true.

Self-monitoring metrics

Once you enable self-monitoring, you can view the following metrics in your dynatrace_logs_self_monitoring namespace of the newly deployed Function App instance.

Log filtering optional

To reduce the number of logs that are sent to Dynatrace, you can apply filters.
To apply filters you have two options:

• During deployment: Set the FILTER_CONFIG environment variable in Azure Portal Cloud Shell (Bash) before running the deployment script.

  1. Add the FILTER_CONFIG environment variable to the list of environment variables needed for the deployment script.

     Note: Be sure to replace placeholders with your values. See Filter options for details.

     bashcopydownload
     FILTER_CONFIG="FILTER.GLOBAL.MIN_LOG_LEVEL=<log_level>;FILTER.GLOBAL.CONTAINS_PATTERN=<pattern>;FILTER.RESOURCE_TYPE.MIN_LOG_LEVEL.<resource_type>=<log_level>;FILTER.RESOURCE_TYPE.CONTAINS_PATTERN.<resource_type>=<pattern>;FILTER.RESOURCE_ID.MIN_LOG_LEVEL.<resource_id>=<log_level>;FILTER.RESOURCE_ID.CONTAINS_PATTERN.<resource_id>=<pattern>"

  2. Set the environment variables.

  3. Download the azure-log-forwarder-function script and deploy the infrastructure.

• After deployment: Add FILTER_CONFIG in Azure Portal.

  1. In Azure Portal, go to the Configuration of your deployed Function App instance.

  2. In Application settings, search and select FILTER_CONFIG.

     Note: FILTER_CONFIG will appear in Azure after running the deployment script.

  3. Select Edit to add a Value for your filter.

     Example edit

     

     Note: Alternatively, you can select Advanced edit to enter your value in the JSON.

     Example advanced edit

     

  4. Select OK.

  5. Restart your Function App instance.

Filter options

FILTER_CONFIG is a key-value pair variable. You can set two types of filters (MIN_LOG_LEVEL and/or CONTAINS_PATTERN) for three filter groups (GLOBAL, RESOURCE_TYPE, and/or RESOURCE_ID).

Filter type: MIN_LOG_LEVEL

This filter type allows you to filter out logs with unwanted levels. Possible log levels are:

• Critical (or 1)
• Error (or 2)
• Warning (or 3)
• Informational (or 4)

Example:
FILTER_CONFIG="FILTER.GLOBAL.MIN_LOG_LEVEL=Warning"
In the example above, Informational logs will be skipped, and only Warning, Error, and Critical logs will be sent to Dynatrace.

Syntax options are:

• FILTER.GLOBAL.MIN_LOG_LEVEL=<log_level>
• FILTER.RESOURCE_TYPE.MIN_LOG_LEVEL.<resource_type>=<log_level>
• FILTER.RESOURCE_ID.MIN_LOG_LEVEL.<resource_id>=<log_level>

You can have one global-level filter and additional filters for a particular resource type/ID.

Example:
FILTER_CONFIG="FILTER.GLOBAL.MIN_LOG_LEVEL=Error;FILTER.RESOURCE_TYPE.MIN_LOG_LEVEL.MICROSOFT.WEB/SITES=Informational"
In the example above, all logs from instances with resource type MICROSOFT.WEB/SITES will be sent to Dynatrace, while for all other resources, Informational and Warning logs will be filtered out.

Filter type: CONTAINS_PATTERN

This filter type allows you to collect logs containing a particular text. We use fnmatch that provides support for Unix shell–style wildcards. See Unix filename pattern matching for details.

Syntax options are:

• FILTER.GLOBAL.CONTAINS_PATTERN=<log_pattern>
• FILTER.RESOURCE_TYPE.CONTAINS_PATTERN.<resource_type>=<log_pattern>
• FILTER.RESOURCE_ID.CONTAINS_PATTERN.<resource_id>=<log_pattern>

Filter group: GLOBAL

This filter is set for all logs.

Filter group: RESOURCE_TYPE

This filter is used only for logs coming from resources of the given Azure resource type, such as Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines.

You can find the resource type in Azure Portal, in your resource's Properties.
Note: If the Type field doesn't appear in Properties, you can extract it from the resource ID string. Resource ID string syntax:
/subscriptions/<subscriptionId>/resourceGroups/<resourceGroupName>/providers/<resourceType>/<resourceName>
The resource type will be the part between /providers/ and /resourceName/.

Filter group: RESOURCE_ID

This filter is used only for logs coming from the given resource that is identified by the Azure resource ID.

You can look for the resource type in Azure Portal, in your resource's Properties.

Filter rules

• If you set two filter types for the same group, both conditions need to be met, so the second filter will have to match the first filter.

  For example, if you set MIN_LOG_LEVEL to Warning and CONTAINS_PATTERN to <some_important_message>, you will get only Warning logs containing <some_important_message>, and all other warning logs that don't contain that specific message will be filtered out.

• If you set one filter type for one group, and another filter type for another group, the two conditions do not overlap.

  For example, if you set MIN_LOG_LEVEL to Warning for GLOBAL, and CONTAINS_PATTERN to <some_important_message> for RESOURCE_TYPE, you will get all Warning, Error, and Critical logs from GLOBAL, and all logs containing <some_important_message> from RESOURCE_TYPE.

• If you set more than one pair of filter types (MIN_LOG_LEVEL and CONTAINS_PATTERN) for the same group (global or resource type/ID), only the last pair of filter types will apply; all the others will be ignored.

Update Azure log forwarding

To update Azure log forwarding

1. Download the latest Dynatrace Azure log forwarder.

   plaintextcopydownload
   wget https://github.com/dynatrace-oss/dynatrace-azure-log-forwarder/releases/latest/download/dynatrace-azure-log-forwarder.zip

2. Deploy the new version, making sure to replace the placeholders with the required values.

   plaintextcopydownload
   az webapp deployment source config-zip -g <your_resource_group_name> -n <application_name> --src <zip_file_path>

Alternative deployments

If you don't want to use direct ingest through the Cluster API, you have to use an existing ActiveGate for log ingestion.

See below for instructions.

1. Set the following environment variables, making sure to replace the placeholders (<...>) with your own values.

• For DEPLOYMENT_NAME, enter your deployment name (lowercase only).
• For TARGET_URL, enter the API URL of your ActiveGate endpoint: https://<your_activegate_IP_or_hostname>:9999/e/<your_environment_ID>. To learn how to determine your environment ID, see environment ID.
• For TARGET_API_TOKEN, enter your API token. For details, see the prerequisites above.
• For RESOURCE_GROUP, enter the name of the Azure resource group in which deployment will run. See Azure requirements for details.
• For EVENT_HUB_CONNECTION_STRING, enter the connection string for the Azure Event Hubs instances configured for receiving logs. See Azure requirements for details.
• For USE_EXISTING_ACTIVE_GATE, enter true.
• optional For REQUIRE_VALID_CERTIFICATE, enter true if you want Dynatrace to verify the SSL certificate of your ActiveGate. By default, certificates aren't validated.

Note: optional You can enable self-monitoring and/or log filtering during or after deployment.

plaintextcopydownload
DEPLOYMENT_NAME=<your_deployment_name>
TARGET_URL=<your_environment_URL>
TARGET_API_TOKEN=<your_API_token>
RESOURCE_GROUP=<your_resource_group>
EVENT_HUB_CONNECTION_STRING=<your_Event_Hub_connection_string>
REQUIRE_VALID_CERTIFICATE=false

2. Download the azure-log-forwarder-function script and deploy the infrastructure.

Note: Be sure to check whether you want to set other optional parameters as well. All parameters between brackets ([...]) are optional. For details, see Deploy table.

plaintextcopydownload
wget -q https://github.com/dynatrace-oss/dynatrace-azure-log-forwarder/releases/latest/download/dynatrace-azure-logs.sh -O dynatrace-azure-logs.sh && chmod +x ./dynatrace-azure-logs.sh \
&& ./dynatrace-azure-logs.sh --deployment-name $DEPLOYMENT_NAME --target-url $TARGET_URL --target-api-token $TARGET_API_TOKEN --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP --event-hub-connection-string $EVENT_HUB_CONNECTION_STRING --require-valid-certificate $REQUIRE_VALID_CERTIFICATE

Deploy table

For a complete list of parameters, see the deploy table below.

Troubleshoot

To verify if the deployment was successful, in Dynatrace, go to Logs and confirm that the following log line is present:

In around 10 minutes, further logs should start coming in. If no logs are coming in, make sure that:

• The Event Hubs instances and the resource group in which the deployment will run are in the same region
• You carefully followed the steps to Configure diagnostic settings

Uninstall Azure log forwarding

To uninstall the Dynatrace Azure log forwarder

1. In Azure Portal, go to the resource group used for installation.

2. Filter resources by tag.

   Note: The deployment script tags all created resources with LogsForwarderDeployment = <your_deployment_name>.

3. Delete the resources.