gelfclient

Python client for sending UDP messages in Graylog Extended Log Format (GELF).

Messages are zlib compressed, and support GELF chunked encoding.

Since messages are sent with UDP, the log method should return quickly and not raise an exception due to timeout. However an exception may be raised due to a DNS name resolution failure for the target hostname.

Installation

pip install gelfclient

Usage

from gelfclient import UdpClient

gelf_server = 'localhost'

# Using mandatory arguments
gelf = UdpClient(gelf_server)

# Using all arguments
gelf = UdpClient(gelf_server, port=12202, mtu=8000, source='macbook.local')

# Bare minimum is to send a string, which will map to gelf['short_message']
gelf.log('server is DOWN')

# 'source' and 'host' are the same. Defaults to socket.gethostname() but can be overridden
gelf.log('server is DOWN', source='hostchecker')

# Set extra fields
gelf.log('status change', _state='DOWN', _server='macbook')

# Set severity level
import syslog
gelf.log('unexpected error', level=syslog.LOG_CRIT)

# You can also prepare all data into a dictionary and give that to .log
data = {}
data['short_message'] = 'warning from python'
data['host'] = 'hostchecker'
data['level'] = syslog.LOG_WARNING
gelf.log(data)

See the GELF specification for other fields and their meaning: http://docs.graylog.org/en/latest/pages/gelf.html#gelf-format-specification