Official Windows build for 1.6.1 does not support built-in HTTP server

[swisspol]

Bug Report

Describe the bug
HTTP_Server On has no effect using Windows official build of Fluent Bit 1.6.1

To Reproduce
Use this config file and start Fluent Bit:

[SERVICE]
    HTTP_Server   On

[INPUT]
    Name         winlog
    Channels     System,Application,ThreatStack
    DB           winlog.db

[OUTPUT]
    Name            es
    Match           *
    Host            <REDACTED>
    Port            80
    Retry_Limit     5

The log indicates that the HTTP server is not started:

PS C:\FluentBit> .\fluent-bit.exe -c .\fluent-bit.conf
Fluent Bit v1.6.1
* Copyright (C) 2019-2020 The Fluent Bit Authors
* Copyright (C) 2015-2018 Treasure Data
* Fluent Bit is a CNCF sub-project under the umbrella of Fluentd
* https://fluentbit.io

[2020/10/17 07:44:11] [ info] [engine] started (pid=6324)
[2020/10/17 07:44:11] [ info] [storage] version=1.0.6, initializing...
[2020/10/17 07:44:11] [ info] [storage] in-memory
[2020/10/17 07:44:11] [ info] [storage] normal synchronization mode, checksum disabled, max_chunks_up=128
[2020/10/17 07:44:12] [ info] [sp] stream processor started
[2020/10/17 07:44:41] [engine] caught signal (SIGINT)
[2020/10/17 07:44:41] [ info] [input] pausing winlog.0
[2[2020/10/17 07:44:41] [error] [C:\projects\fluent-bit-2e87g\src\flb_utils.c:339 errno=0] No error
020/10/17 07:44:41] [ info] [input] pausing tail.1
[2020/10/17 07:44:41] [error] [C:\projects\fluent-bit-2e87g\src\flb_utils.c:339 errno=0] No error
[2020/10/17 07:44:41] [ warn] [engine] service will stop in 5 seconds
[2020/10/17 07:44:46] [ info] [engine] service stopped

Expected behavior
HTTP server works

Your Environment
"Windows_Server-2019-English-Full-ContainersLatest-2020.04.15" AMI on AWS

[edsiper]

cc: @fujimotos

[swisspol]

I realized after looking at the docs that the HTTP Server is not enabled by default for Windows when building from source, but I think it should really be enabled in the official builds:

1. All the docs mention monitoring as something working out of the box, but this requires the HTTP server, so it's not true for Windows
2. HTTP server is enabled by default in the official Docker images
3. Building fluent-bit for Windows is non-trivial and having to host and rollout your own executable is quite annoying

PS: Thanks for an awesome product :)

[fujimotos]

HTTP_Server On has no effect using Windows official build of Fluent Bit 1.6.1

@swisspol We need a bit more work to support HTTP monitoring on Windows.

The big picture here is that HTTP server requires a functional Windows
port of Monkey HTTP server (monkey/monkey), but we're not getting there yet.

Probably we can work on this task after the persistent file chunk
support #2632 (comment), considering that HTTP monitiroing feature is
being requested by several users.

[swisspol]

Thanks for the info! In the meantime you may want to update the docs to indicate HTTP monitoring is not available on Windows - it nah save people time

[fujimotos]

In the meantime you may want to update the docs to indicate HTTP monitoring is not available on Windows - it nah save people time

Should be resolved by fluent/fluent-bit-docs#405.

[lacksfish]

That's hella skuffed. Can we expect a fix for this soonish?

Any other way of having fluentbit report health status to prometheus apart from the nonfunctional API?

[lacksfish]

Maybe a possible easy remedy would be to have an [Output] option for a File regarding fluentbit health and plugin stats?

https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/pipeline/outputs/file

It seems fairly doable to write the internal health files into either a JSON or prometheus formatted file. All the code, beside writing to file (overwriting previous content preferred over append), should already exist in the HTTP API code.

If that approach would be interesting, I could dig into the codebase and see if I can help put this functionality together.

[fujimotos]

That's hella skuffed. Can we expect a fix for this soonish?

@lacksfish The full support will take several weeks at least.

I'm currently working on File Chunk support for Windows #1694;
Probably I can work on it after that.

Maybe a possible easy remedy would be to have an [Output] option for a File regarding fluentbit health and plugin stats?

I think the best way to go is to add a new input plugin in_monitor_agent
that emits health metrics as events. Fluentd provies a similar plugin by default,
so it should make a good sense for Fluent Bit to have one.

[qingling128]

Hi @fujimotos - Any update regarding this feature request?

[fujimotos]

@qingling128 I'm currently planning to work on this task in the next v1.8 dev cycle.

[qingling128]

Thanks for the heads up! We'll plan our work accordingly.

[qingling128]

I was about to draft a PR to update the doc at https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/administration/monitoring, but it seems like the master branch has been updated already: fluent/fluent-bit-docs@7bdc708. Any idea why the doc page is not updated?

[fujimotos]

@qingling128 My understanding is that the master branch points to

https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/v/master/administration/monitoring

while 1.6 branch points to:

https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual//administration/monitoring

My guess is that the commit was merged but not cherry-picked to v1.6 branch,
so it's not appearing on the current page.

[qingling128]

Ah I see. That makes sense. Thanks for checking!

[vahric]

Any change to have this feature on 1.7 version ?

[gillg]

Still not present in 1.7, it would be very great to have it.

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open 30 days with no activity. Remove stale label or comment or this will be closed in 5 days.

[edsiper]

Fixed by 6efe5c9 , this will be part of Fluent v1.8 release.