1LOGGEN(1) The loggen manual page LOGGEN(1)
2
6 loggen - Generate syslog messages at a specified rate
7
9 loggen [options]target [port]
10
12 NOTE: The loggen application is distributed with the syslog-ng system
13 logging application, and is usually part of the syslog-ng package. The
14 latest version of the syslog-ng application is available at the
15 official syslog-ng website[1].
16 This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of
18 syslog-ng, see The syslog-ng Administrator Guide[2].
19 The loggen application is tool to test and stress-test your syslog
21 server and the connection to the server. It can send syslog messages to
22 the server at a specified rate, using a number of connection types and
23 protocols, including TCP, UDP, and unix domain sockets. The messages
24 can be generated automatically (repeating the PADDstring over and
25 over), or read from a file or the standard input.
26 When loggen finishes sending the messages, it displays the following
28 statistics:
29 • average rate: Average rate the messages were sent in
31 messages/second.
32 • count: The total number of messages sent.
34 • time: The time required to send the messages in seconds.
36 • average message size: The average size of the sent messages in
38 bytes.
39 • bandwidth: The average bandwidth used for sending the messages in
41 kilobytes/second.
42
44 --active-connections <number-of-connections>
45 Number of connections loggen will use to send messages to the
46 destination. This option is usable only when using TCP or TLS
47 connections to the destination. Default value: 1
48 The loggen utility waits until every connection is established
50 before starting to send messages. See also the --idle-connections
51 option.
52 --csv or -C
54 Send the statistics of the sent messages to stdout as CSV. This can
55 be used for plotting the message rate.
56 --dgram or -D
58 Use datagram socket (UDP or unix-dgram) to send the messages to the
59 target. Requires the --inet option as well.
60 --dont-parse or -d
62 Do not parse the lines read from the input files, send them as
63 received.
64 --help or -h
66 Display a brief help message.
67 --idle-connections <number-of-connections>
69 Number of idle connections loggen will establish to the
70 destination. Note that loggen will not send any messages on idle
71 connections, but the connection is kept open using keep-alive
72 messages. This option is usable only when using TCP or TLS
73 connections to the destination. See also the --active-connections
74 option. Default value: 0
75 --inet or -i
77 Use the TCP (by default) or UDP (when used together with the
78 --dgram option) protocol to send the messages to the target.
79 --interval <seconds> or -I <seconds>
81 The number of seconds loggen will run. Default value: 10
82 Note
84 Note that when the --interval and --number are used together,
85 loggen will send messages until the period set in --interval
86 expires or the amount of messages set in --number is reached,
87 whichever happens first.
88 --ipv6 or -6
90 Specify the destination using its IPv6 address. Note that the
91 destination must have a real IPv6 address.
92 --loop-reading or -l
94 Read the file specified in --read-file option in loop: loggen will
95 start reading from the beginning of the file when it reaches the
96 end of the file.
97 --number <number-of-messages> or -n <number-of-messages>
99 Number of messages to generate.
100 Note
102 Note that when the --interval and --number are used together,
103 loggen will send messages until the period set in --interval
104 expires or the amount of messages set in --number is reached,
105 whichever happens first.
106 --no-framing or -F
108 Do not use the framing of the IETF-syslog protocol style, even if
109 the syslog-proto option is set.
110 --quiet or -Q
112 Output statistics only when the execution of loggen is finished. If
113 not set, the statistics are displayed every second.
114 --permanent or -T
116 Keep sending logs indefinitely, without time limit.
117 --rate <message/second> or -r <message/second>
119 The number of messages generated per second for every active
120 connection. Default value: 1000
121 --read-file <filename> or -R <filename>
123 Read the messages from a file and send them to the target. See also
124 the --skip-tokens option.
125 Specify - as the input file to read messages from the standard
127 input (stdio). Note that when reading messages from the standard
128 input, loggen can only use a single thread. The -R - parameters
129 must be placed at end of command, like: loggen 127.0.0.1 1061
130 --read-file -
131 --sdata <data-to-send> or -p <data-to-send>
133 Send the argument of the --sdata option as the SDATA part of
134 IETF-syslog (RFC5424 formatted) messages. Use it together with the
135 --syslog-proto option. For example: --sdata "[test name=\"value\"]
136 --size <message-size> or -s <message-size>
138 The size of a syslog message in bytes. Default value: 256. Minimum
139 value: 127 bytes, maximum value: 8192 bytes.
140 --skip-tokens <number>
142 Skips the specified number of space-separated tokens (words) at the
143 beginning of every line. For example, if the messages in the file
144 look like foo bar message, --skip-tokens 2 skips the foo bar part
145 of the line, and sends only the message part. Works only when used
146 together with the --read-file parameter. Default value: 0
147 --stream or -S
149 Use a stream socket (TCP or unix-stream) to send the messages to
150 the target.
151 --syslog-proto or -P
153 Use the new IETF-syslog message format as specified in RFC5424. By
154 default, loggen uses the legacy BSD-syslog message format (as
155 described in RFC3164). See also the --no-framing option.
156 --unix </path/to/socket> or -x </path/to/socket>
158 Use a UNIX domain socket to send the messages to the target.
159 --use-ssl or -U
161 Use an SSL-encrypted channel to send the messages to the target.
162 Note that it is not possible to check the certificate of the
163 target, or to perform mutual authentication.
164 --version or -V
166 Display version number of syslog-ng.
167
169 The following command generates 100 messages per second for ten
170 minutes, and sends them to port 2010 of the localhost via TCP. Each
171 message is 300 bytes long.
172 loggen --stream --size 300 --rate 100 --interval 600 127.0.0.1 2010
174 The following command is similar to the one above, but uses the UDP
176 protocol.
177 loggen --inet --dgram --size 300 --rate 100 --interval 600 127.0.0.1 2010
179 Send a single message on TCP6 to the ::1 IPv6 address, port 1061:
181 loggen --ipv6 --number 1 ::1 1061
183 Send a single message on UDP6 to the ::1 IPv6 address, port 1061:
185 loggen --ipv6 --dgram --number 1 ::1 1061
187 Send a single message using a unix domain-socket:
189 loggen --unix --stream --number 1 </path/to/socket>
191 Read messages from the standard input (stdio) and send them to the
193 localhost:
194 loggen 127.0.0.1 1061 --read-file -
196
198 /usr/local/bin/loggen
199
201 syslog-ng.conf(5)
202 Note
204 For the detailed documentation of see The 4.3 Administrator
205 Guide[2]
206 If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit
208 the syslog-ng mailing list[3].
209 For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng
211 blogs[4].
212
214 This manual page was written by the Balabit Documentation Team
215 <documentation@balabit.com>.
216
219 1. the official syslog-ng website
220 https://www.balabit.com/log-management
221 2. The syslog-ng Administrator Guide
223 https://www.syslog-ng.com/technical-documents/doc/syslog-ng-open-source-edition/3.37/administration-guide
224 3. syslog-ng mailing list
226 https://lists.balabit.hu/mailman/listinfo/syslog-ng
227 4. syslog-ng blogs
229 https://syslog-ng.org/blogs/
2304.3 07/28/2023 LOGGEN(1)