# Send Apache Logs to Mongodb

This article explains how to use [Fluentd](https://fluentd.org/)'s MongoDB Output plugin \([`out_mongo`](../output/mongo.md)\) to aggregate semi-structured logs in realtime.

## Background

[Fluentd](https://fluentd.org/) is an advanced open-source log collector originally developed at [Treasure Data, Inc](https://www.treasuredata.com/). Because Fluentd handles logs as semi-structured data streams, the ideal database should have strong support for semi-structured data. Several candidates meet this criterion, but we believe [MongoDB](https://www.mongodb.org/) is the market leader.

MongoDB is an open-source, document-oriented database developed at [MongoDB, Inc](https://www.mongodb.com/). It is schema-free and uses a JSON-like format to manage semi-structured data.

This article will show you how to use [Fluentd](https://fluentd.org/) to import Apache logs into MongoDB.

## Mechanism

The figure below shows how things will work:

![Apache + MongoDB](../.gitbook/assets/apache-to-mongodb.png)

Fluentd does these three \(3\) things:

1. It continuously "tails" the access log file.
2. It parses the incoming log entries into meaningful fields \(such as `ip`,

   `path`, etc.\) and buffers them.

3. It writes the buffered data to MongoDB periodically.

## Prerequisites

The following software/services are required to be set up correctly:

* [Fluentd](https://www.fluentd.org/)
* [MongoDB](https://www.mongodb.org/)
* [Apache](https://httpd.apache.org/) (with the Combined Log Format)

For simplicity, this article will describe how to set up a one-node configuration.
Please install the above prerequisites software/services on the same node.

You can install Fluentd via major packaging systems.

* [Installation](../installation/)

For MongoDB, please refer to the following downloads page:

* [MongoDB Downloads](https://www.mongodb.org/downloads)

## Install MongoDB Plugin

If [`out_mongo`](../output/mongo.md) (fluent-plugin-mongo) is not installed yet, please install it manually.

See [Plugin Management](../installation/post-installation-guide.md#plugin-management) section for how to install fluent-plugin-mongo on your environment.

## Configuration

Let's start configuring Fluentd. If you used the deb/rpm package, Fluentd's config file is located at `/etc/fluent/fluentd.conf`.

### Tail Input

For the input source, we will set up Fluentd to track the recent Apache logs \(typically found at `/var/log/apache2/access_log`\). The Fluentd configuration file should look like this:

```text
<source>
  @type tail
  path /var/log/apache2/access_log
  pos_file /var/log/fluent/apache2.access_log.pos
  <parse>
    @type apache2
  </parse>
  tag mongo.apache.access
</source>
```

Please make sure that your Apache outputs are in the default **combined** format. `format apache2` cannot parse custom log formats. Please see the [`in_tail`](../input/tail.md) article for more details.

Let's go through the configuration line by line:

1. `@type tail`: The `tail` Input plugin continuously tracks the log

   file. This handy plugin is included in Fluentd's core.

2. `@type apache2` in `<parse>`: Uses Fluentd's built-in Apache log parser.
3. `path /var/log/apache2/access_log`: The location of the Apache log.

   This may be different for your particular system.

4. `tag mongo.apache.access`: `mongo.apache.access` is used as the tag to route

   the messages within Fluentd.

That's it! You should now be able to output a JSON-formatted data stream for Fluentd to process.

### MongoDB Output

The output destination will be MongoDB. The output configuration should look like this:

```text
<match mongo.**>
  # plugin type
  @type mongo

  # mongodb db + collection
  database apache
  collection access

  # mongodb host + port
  host localhost
  port 27017

  # interval
  <buffer>
    flush_interval 10s
  </buffer>

  # make sure to include the time key
  <inject>
    time_key time
  </inject>
</match>
```

The match section specifies the regexp used to look for matching tags. If a matching tag is found in a log, then the config inside `<match>...</match>` is used \(i.e. the log is routed according to the config inside\). In this example, the `mongo.apache.access` tag \(generated by `tail`\) is always used.

The `**` in `mongo.**` matches zero or more period-delimited tag parts \(e.g. `mongo`/`mongo.a`/`mongo.a.b`\).

**`flush_interval`** specifies how often the data is written to MongoDB. The other options specify MongoDB's host, port, db, and collection.

For additional configuration parameters, please see the [MongoDB Output plugin](../output/mongo.md) article. If you are using ReplicaSet, please see the [MongoDB ReplicaSet Output plugin](../output/mongo_replset.md) article.

## Test

To test the configuration, just ping the Apache server. This example uses the `ab` \(Apache Bench\) program:

```text
$ ab -n 100 -c 10 http://localhost/
```

Then, access MongoDB and see the stored data:

```text
$ mongo
> use apache
> db["access"].findOne();
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4ed1ed3a340765ce73000001"), "host" : "127.0.0.1", "user" : "-", "method" : "GET", "path" : "/", "code" : "200", "size" : "44", "time" : ISODate("2011-11-27T07:56:27Z") }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4ed1ed3a340765ce73000002"), "host" : "127.0.0.1", "user" : "-", "method" : "GET", "path" : "/", "code" : "200", "size" : "44", "time" : ISODate("2011-11-27T07:56:34Z") }
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4ed1ed3a340765ce73000003"), "host" : "127.0.0.1", "user" : "-", "method" : "GET", "path" : "/", "code" : "200", "size" : "44", "time" : ISODate("2011-11-27T07:56:34Z") }
```

## Conclusion

Fluentd + MongoDB makes real-time log collection simple, easy, and robust.

## Learn More

* [Fluentd Architecture](https://www.fluentd.org/architecture)
* [Fluentd Get Started](../quickstart/)
* [MongoDB Output Plugin](../output/mongo.md)
* [MongoDB ReplicaSet Output Plugin](../output/mongo_replset.md)