# global() configuration object

The global configuration object permits to set global parameters. Note that each parameter can only be set once and cannot be re-set thereafter. If a parameter is set multiple times, the behaviour is unpredictable. As with other configuration objects, parameters for this object are case-insensitive.

The following parameters can be set:

- action.reportSuspension - binary, default “on”, v7.5.8+

  If enabled (“on”) action will log message under syslog.* when an action suspends or resumes itself. This usually happens when there are problems connecting to backend systems. If disabled (“off”), these messages are not generated. These messages can be useful in detecting problems with backend systems. Most importantly, frequent suspension and resumption points to a problem area.

- action.reportSuspensionContinuation - binary, default “off”, v7.6.1+, v8.2.0+

  If enabled (“on”) the action will not only report the first suspension but each time the suspension is prolonged. Otherwise, the follow-up messages are not logged. If this setting is set to “on”, action.reportSuspension is also automatically turned “on”.

- workDirectory

  Sets the directory that rsyslog uses for work files, e.g. imfile state or queue spool files.

- umask available 8.26.0+

  Sets the rsyslogd process’ umask. If not specified, the system-provided default is used. The value given must always be a 4-digit octal number, with the initial digit being zero.

- dropMsgsWithMaliciousDNSPtrRecords

- localHostname Permits to overwrite the local host hostname.

- preserveFQDN

- defaultNetstreamDriverCAFile

  For TLS syslog, the CA certificate that can verify the machine keys and certs (see below)

- defaultNetstreamDriverKeyFile

  Machine private key

- defaultNetstreamDriverCertFile

  Machine public key (certificate)

- debug.gnutls (0-10; default:0)

  Any other parameter than 0 enables the debug messages of GnuTLS. The amount of messages given depends on the height of the parameter, 0 being nothing and 10 being very much. Caution! higher parameters may give out way more information than needed. We advise you to first use small parameters to prevent that from happening. This parameter only has an effect if general debugging is enabled.

- processInternalMessages binary (on/off)

  This tells rsyslog if it shall process internal messages itself. The default mode of operations (“off”) makes rsyslog send messages to the system log sink (and if it is the only instance, receive them back from there). This also works with systemd journal and will make rsyslog messages show up in the systemd status control information.

  If this (instance) of rsyslog is not the main instance and there is another main logging system, rsyslog internal messages will be inserted into the main instance’s syslog stream. In this case, setting to (“on”) will let you receive the internal messages in the instance they originate from.

  Note that earlier versions of rsyslog worked the opposite way. More information about the change can be found in rsyslog-error-reporting-improved.

- stdlog.channelspec

  Permits to set the liblogging-stdlog channel specifier string. This in turn permits to send rsyslog log messages to a destination different from the system default. Note that this parameter has only effect if processInternalMessages is set to “off”. Otherwise it is silently ignored.

- shutdown.enable.ctlc

  If set to “on”, rsyslogd can be terminated by pressing ctl-c. This is most useful for containers. If set to “off” (the default), this is not possible.

- defaultNetstreamDriver

  Set it to “ossl” or “gtls” to enable TLS. This guide shows how to use TLS.

- maxMessageSize

  Configures the maximum message size allowed for all inputs. Default is 8K. Anything above the maximum size will be truncated.

  Note: some modules provide separate parameters that allow overriding this setting (e.g., imrelp’s MaxDataSize parameter).

- janitor.interval [minutes], available 8.3.3+

  Sets the interval at which the janitor process runs.

- debug.onShutdown available 7.5.8+

  If enabled (“on”), rsyslog will log debug messages when a system shutdown is requested. This can be used to track issues that happen only during shutdown. During normal operations, system performance is NOT affected. Note that for this option to be useful, the debug.logFile parameter must also be set (or the respective environment variable).

- debug.logFile available 7.5.8+

  This is used to specify the debug log file name. It is used for all debug output. Please note that the RSYSLOG_DEBUGLOG environment variable always overrides the value of debug.logFile.

- net.ipprotocol available 8.6.0+

  This permits to instruct rsyslog to use IPv4 or IPv6 only. Possible values are “unspecified”, in which case both protocols are used, “ipv4-only”, and “ipv6-only”, which restrict usage to the specified protocol. The default is “unspecified”.

  Note: this replaces the former -4 and -6 rsyslogd command line options.

- net.aclAddHostnameOnFail available 8.6.0+

  If “on”, during ACL processing, hostnames are resolved to IP addresses for performance reasons. If DNS fails during that process, the hostname is added as wildcard text, which results in proper, but somewhat slower operation once DNS is up again.

  The default is “off”.

- net.aclResolveHostname available 8.6.0+

  If “off”, do not resolve hostnames to IP addresses during ACL processing.

  The default is “on”.

- net.enableDNS [on/off] available 8.6.0+

  Default: on

  Can be used to turn DNS name resolution on or off.

- net.permitACLWarning [on/off] available 8.6.0+

  Default: on

  If “off”, suppress warnings issued when messages are received from non-authorized machines (those, that are in no AllowedSender list).

- parser.parseHostnameAndTag [on/off] available 8.6.0+

  Default: on

  This controls whether the parsers try to parse HOSTNAME and TAG fields from messages. The default is “on”, in which case parsing occurs. If set to “off”, the fields are not parsed. Note that this usually is not what you want to have.

  It is highly suggested to change this setting to “off” only if you know exactly why you are doing this.

- parser.permitSlashInProgramName [on/off] available 8.25.0+

  Default: off

  This controls whether slashes in the “programname” property (the static part of the tag) are permitted or not. By default this is not permitted, but some Linux tools (including most importantly the journal) store slashes as part of the program name inside the syslogtag. In those cases, the `programname` is truncated at the first slash.

  In other words, if the setting is off, a value of `app/foo[1234]` in the tag will result in a programname of `app`, and if an application stores an absolute path name like `/app/foo[1234]`, the `programname` property will be empty (“”). If set to `on`, a syslogtag of `/app/foo[1234]` will result in a `programname` value of `/app/foo` and a syslogtag of `app/foo[1234]` will result in a `programname` value of `app/foo`.

- parser.escapeControlCharacterTab [on/off] available since 8.7.0

  Default: on

  If set to “off”, the TAB control character (US-ASCII HT) will not be escaped. If set to “on”, it will be escaped to the sequence “#011”. Note that escaping is the traditional behavior and existing scripts may get into trouble if this is changed to “off”.

- parser.controlCharacterEscapePrefix [char]

  Default: ‘#’

  This option specifies the prefix character to be used for control character escaping (see option parser.escapeControlCharactersOnReceive).

- parser.escape8BitCharactersOnReceive [on/off]

  Default: off

  This parameter instructs rsyslogd to replace non US-ASCII characters (those that have the 8th bit set) during reception of the message. This may be useful for some systems. Please note that this escaping breaks Unicode and many other encodings. Most importantly, it can be assumed that Asian and European characters will be rendered hardly readable by this settings. However, it may still be useful when the logs themselves are primarily in English and only occasionally contain local script. If this option is turned on, all control-characters are converted to a 3-digit octal number and be prefixed with the parser.controlCharacterEscapePrefix character (being ‘#’ by default).

  Warning:

  - turning on this option most probably destroys non-western character sets (like Japanese, Chinese and Korean) as well as European character sets.

  - turning on this option destroys digital signatures if such exists inside the message

  - if turned on, the drop-cc, space-cc and escape-cc property replacer options do not work as expected because control characters are already removed upon message reception. If you intend to use these property replacer options, you must turn off parser.escape8BitCharactersOnReceive.

- parser.escapeControlCharactersOnReceive [on/off]

  Default: on

  This parameter instructs rsyslogd to replace control characters during reception of the message. The intent is to provide a way to stop non-printable messages from entering the syslog system as whole. If this option is turned on, all control-characters are converted to a 3-digit octal number and be prefixed with the parser.controlCharacterEscapePrefix character (being ‘#’ by default). For example, if the BEL character (ctrl-g) is included in the message, it would be converted to ‘#007’. To be compatible to sysklogd, this option must be turned on.

  Warning:

  - turning on this option most probably destroys non-western character sets (like Japanese, Chinese and Korean)

  - turning on this option destroys digital signatures if such exists inside the message

  - if turned on, the drop-cc, space-cc and escape-cc property replacer options do not work as expected because control characters are already removed upon message reception. If you intend to use these property replacer options, you must turn off parser.escapeControlCharactersOnReceive.

- senders.keepTrack [on/off] available 8.17.0+

  Default: off

  If turned on, rsyslog keeps track of known senders and also reports statistical data for them via the impstats mechanism.

  A list of active senders is kept. When a new sender is detected, an informational message is emitted. Senders are purged from the list only after a timeout (see senders.timoutAfter parameter). Note that we do not intentionally remove a sender when a connection is closed. The whole point of this sender-tracking is to have the ability to provide longer-duration data. As such, we would not like to drop information just because the sender has disconnected for a short period of time (e.g. for a reboot).

  Senders are tracked by their hostname (taken at connection establishment).

  Note: currently only imptcp and imtcp support sender tracking.

- senders.timeoutAfter [seconds] available 8.17.0+

  Default: 12 hours (12*60*60 seconds)

  Specifies after which period a sender is considered to “have gone away”. For each sender, rsyslog keeps track of the time it least received messages from it. When it has not received a message during that interval, rsyslog considers the sender to be no longer present. It will then a) emit a warning message (if configured) and b) purge it from the active senders list. As such, the sender will no longer be reported in impstats data once it has timed out.

- senders.reportGoneAway [on/off] available 8.17.0+

  Default: off

  Emit a warning message when now data has been received from a sender within the senders.timeoutAfter interval.

- senders.reportNew [on/off] available 8.17.0+

  Default: off

  If sender tracking is active, report a sender that is not yet inside the cache. Note that this means that senders which have been timed out due to prolonged inactivity are also reported once they connect again.

- debug.unloadModules [on/off] available 8.17.0+

  Default: on

  This is primarily a debug setting. If set to “off”, rsyslog will never unload any modules (including plugins). This usually causes no operational problems, but may in extreme cases. The core benefit of this setting is that it makes valgrind stack traces readable. In previous versions, the same functionality was only available via a special build option.

- debug.files [ARRAY of filenames] available 8.29.0+

  Default: none

  This can be used to configure rsyslog to only show debug-output generated in certain files. If the option is set, but no filename is given, the debug-output will behave as if the option is turned off.

  Do note however that due to the way the configuration works, this might not effect the first few debug-outputs, while rsyslog is reading in the configuration. For optimal results we recommend to put this parameter at the very start of your configuration to minimize unwanted output.

  See debug.whitelist for more information.

- debug.whitelist [on/off] available 8.29.0+

  Default: on

  This parameter is an assisting parameter of debug.files. If debug.files is used in the configuration, debug.whitelist is a switch for the files named to be either white- or blacklisted from displaying debug-output. If it is set to on, the listed files will generate debug-output, but no other files will. The reverse principle applies if the parameter is set to off.

  See debug.files for more information.

- environment [ARRAY of environment variable=value strings] available 8.23.0+

  Default: none

  This permits to set environment variables via rsyslog.conf. The prime motivation for having this is that for many libraries, defaults can be set via environment variables, but setting them via operating system service startup files is cumbersome and different on different platforms. So the environment parameter provides a handy way to set those variables.

  A common example is to set the http_proxy variable, e.g. for use with KSI signing or ElasticSearch. This can be done as follows:

      global(environment="http_proxy=http://myproxy.example.net")

  Note that an environment variable set this way must contain an equal sign, and the variable name must not be longer than 127 characters.

  It is possible to set multiple environment variables in a single global statement. This is done in regular array syntax as follows:

      global(environment=["http_proxy=http://myproxy.example.net",
                          "another_one=this string is=ok!"]
            )

  As usual, whitespace is irrelevant in regard to parameter placing. So the above sample could also have been written on a single line.

- internalmsg.ratelimit.interval [positive integer] available 8.29.0+

  Default: 5

  > Specifies the interval in seconds onto which rate-limiting is to be applied to internal messages generated by rsyslog(i.e. error messages). If more than internalmsg.ratelimit.burst messages are read during that interval, further messages up to the end of the interval are discarded.

- internalmsg.ratelimit.burst [positive integer] available 8.29.0+

  Default: 500

  > Specifies the maximum number of internal messages that can be emitted within the ratelimit.interval interval. For further information, see description there.

  Caution: Environment variables are set immediately when the corresponding statement is encountered. Likewise, modules are loaded when the module load statement is encountered. This may create sequence dependencies inside rsyslog.conf. To avoid this, it is highly suggested that environment variables are set right at the top of rsyslog.conf. Also, rsyslog-related environment variables may not apply even when set right at the top. It is safest to still set them in operating system start files. Note that rsyslog environment variables are usually intended only for developers so there should hardly be a need to set them for a regular user. Also, many settings (e.g. debug) are also available as configuration objects.

- internalmsg.severity [syslog severity value] available 8.1905.0+

  Default: info

  This permits to limit which internal messages are emitted by rsyslog. This is especially useful if internal messages are reported to systemd journal, which is the default on journal systems. In that case there is no other ability to filter out messages before they are logged by the journal.

  While any syslog severity value can be used, the most useful ones are

  - error, to see only error messages but ignore anything else

  - warn, to also see warning messages (highly recommended)

  - info, to also see informational messages like events generated

      by DA queues status checks. This is the default as the informational messages often provide valuable information.

  - debug, to see all messages, including only those interesting for

      debugging. While this is still considerably lower volume than a rsyslog developer debug log, this can be quite verbose. Selecting debug without hard need thus is not recommended.

  We expect that users are most often interested in limiting verboseness to warning messages. This can be done e.g. via:

      global(internalmsg.severity="warn")

- errorMessagesToStderr.maxNumber [positive integer] available 8.30.0+

  Default: unlimited

  This permits to put a hard limit on the number of messages that can go to stderr. If for nothing else, this capability is helpful for the testbench. It permits to reduce spamming the test log while still providing the ability to see initial error messages. Might also be useful for some practical deployments.

- variables.caseSensitive [boolean (on/off)] available 8.30.0+

  Default: off

  This permits to make variables case-sensitive, what might be required for some exotic input data where case is the only difference in field names. Note that in rsyslog versions prior to 8.30, the default was “on”, which very often led to user confusion. There normally should be no need to switch it back to “on”, except for the case to be mentioned. This is also the reason why we switched the default.

- dynafile.donotsuspend [boolean (on/off)] available 8.32.0+

  Default: on

  This permits SUSPENDing dynafile actions. Traditionally, SUSPEND mode was never entered for dynafiles as it would have blocked overall processing flow. Default is not to suspend (and thus block).

- internal.developeronly.options

  This is NOT to be used by end users. It provides rsyslog developers the ability to do some (possibly strange) things inside rsyslog, e.g. for testing. This parameter should never be set, except if instructed by a developer. If it is set, rsyslog may misbehave, segfault, or cause other strange things. Note that option values are not guaranteed to stay the same between releases, so do not be “smart” and apply settings that you found via a web search.

  Once again: users must NOT set this parameter!

- oversizemsg.errorfile [file name] available 8.35.0+

  This parameter is used to specify the name of the oversize message log file. Here messages that are longer than maxMessageSize will be gathered.

- oversizemsg.input.mode [mode] available 8.35.0+

  With this parameter the behavior for oversized messages can be specified. Available modes are:

  - truncate: Oversized messages will be truncated.

  - split: Oversized messages will be split and the rest of the message will be sent in another message.

  - accept: Oversized messages will still be accepted.

- oversizemsg.report [boolean (on/off)] available 8.35.0+

  This parameter specifies if an error shall be reported when an oversized message is seen. The default is “on”.

- abortOnUncleanConfig [boolean (on/of)] available 8.37.0+

  This parameter permits to prevent rsyslog from running when the configuration file is not clean. “Not Clean” means there are errors or some other annoyances that rsyslogd reports on startup. This is a user-requested feature to have a strict startup mode. Note that with the current code base it is not always possible to differentiate between an real error and a warning-like condition. As such, the startup will also prevented if warnings are present. I consider this a good thing in being “strict”, but I admit there also currently is no other way of doing it.

- inputs.timeout.shutdown [numeric, ms] available 8.37.0+

  This parameter specifies how long input modules are given time to terminate when rsyslog is shutdown. The default is 1000ms (1 second). If the input requires longer to terminate, it will be cancelled. This is necessary if the input is inside a lengthy operation, but should generally be tried to avoid. On busy systems it may make sense to increase that timeout. This especially seems to be the case with containers.

- default.action.queue.timeoutshutdown [numeric] available 8.1901.0+

- default.action.queue.timeoutactioncompletion [numeric] available 8.1901.0+

- default.action.queue.timeoutenqueue [numeric] available 8.1901.0+

- default.action.queue.timeoutworkerthreadshutdown [numeric] available 8.1901.0+

  These parameters set global queue defaults for the respective queue settings.

- reverselookup.cache.ttl.default [numeric, seconds] available 8.1904.0+

  Rsyslog includes a cache for ip-address-to-hostname lookups. This is most useful for inputs without a connection. imudp is the prime example. This settings permits to specify after which period (in seconds) an entry expires. Upon expiration the entry will be discarded and re-queried. The default value is 24 hours. To never cache entries, set the parameter to 0, which will make cache entries expire immediately. Note that especially with imudp this can cause huge performance degradation and potentially also message loss.

  Note: for many years rsyslog did not timeout cache entries at all. This only occasionally caused issues. We assume that the once-every-24-hrs default value is a very good compromise between performance and keeping reverse lookup information current.

- reverselookup.cache.ttl.enable [boolean (on/off)] available 8.1904.0+

  This configures whether rsyslog expires DNS cache entries (setting “on”) or not (setting “off”, the default). If configured to “off”, reverselookup.cache.default.ttl is not in effect. Note that this is the default.

- security.abortOnIDResoultionFail [boolean (on/off)], default “on”, available 8.2002.0+

  This setting controls if rsyslog should error-terminate when an security ID cannot be resolved during config file processing at startup. If set to “on” and a name ID lookup fails (for user and group names) rsyslog does not start but terminate with an error message. This is necessary as a security measure, as otherwise the wrong permissions can be assigned or privileges are not dropped. This setting is applied whereever security IDs are resolved, e.g. when dropping privileges or assigning file permissions or owners.

  The setting should be at the top of the configuration parameters to make sure its behavior is correctly applied on all other configuration parameters.

  CHANGE OF BEHAVIOR

  The default for this parameter is “on”. In versions prior to 8.2002.0, the default was “off” (by virtue of this parameter not existing). As such, existing configurations may now error out.

  We have decided to accept this change of behavior because of the potential security implications.

- operatingStateFile [string, filename], default unset, available 8.39.0+

  The operatingStateFile, as the name says, provides information about rsyslog operating state. It can be useful for troubleshooting.

  If this parameter is not set, an operating state file will not be written. If it is set, the file will be written and used to detect unclean shutdown. Upon startup, rsyslog checks if the last recorded line contains the “clean shutdown notification”. If so, the file is deleted and re-written with new operating state. If the notification cannot be found, rsyslog assumes unclean shutdown and complains about this state. In this case the operating state file is renamed to “<configured-name>.previous” and a new file is started under the configured name for the current run. This permits the administrator to check the previous operating state file for helpful information on why the system shut down unclean.

- reportChildProcessExits [none|errors|all], default “errors”, available 8.1901.0+

  Tells rsyslog whether and when to log a message (under syslog.*) when a child process terminates. The available modes are:

  - none: Do not report any child process termination.

  - errors: Only report the termination of child processes that have exited with a non-zero exit code, or that have been terminated by a signal.

  - all: Report all child process terminations.

  The logged message will be one of the following:

  - “program ‘x’ (pid n) exited with status s” (with “info” severity if the status is zero, and “warning” severity otherwise)

  - “program ‘x’ (pid n) terminated by signal s” (with “warning” severity)

  In some cases, the program name is not included in the message (but only the PID).

  Normally, if a child process terminates prematurely for some reason, rsyslog will also report some specific error message the next time it interacts with the process (for example, in the case of a process started by omprog, if omprog cannot send a message to the process because the pipe is broken, it will report an error indicating this). This specific error message (if any) is not affected by this global setting.

- default.ruleset.queue.timeoutshutdown

- default.ruleset.queue.timeoutactioncompletion

- default.ruleset.queue.timeoutenqueue

- default.ruleset.queue.timeoutworkerthreadshutdown

  Sets default parameters for ruleset queues. See queue doc for the meaning of the individual settings.

- default.action.queue.timeoutshutdown

- default.action.queue.timeoutactioncompletion

- default.action.queue.timeoutenqueue

- default.action.queue.timeoutworkerthreadshutdown

  Sets default parameters for action queues. See queue doc for the meaning of the individual settings.

- shutdown.queue.doublesize

  This setting (default “off”) permits to temporarily increase the maximum queue size during shutdown processing. This is useful when rsyslog needs to re-enqueue some messages at shutdown and the queue is already full. Note that the need to re-enqueue messages stems back to some failed operations. Note that the maximum permitted queue size is doubled, as this ensures in all cases that re-enqueuing can be completed. Note also that the increase of the max size is temporary during shutdown and also does not requiere any more storage. Except, of course, for re-enqueued message.

  The situation addressed by this setting is unlikley to happen, but it could happen. To enable the funtionality, set it to “on”.

- parser.supportCompressionExtension [boolean (on/off)] available 8.2106.0+

  This parameter permits to disable rsyslog’s single-message-compression extension on reception (“off”). The default is to keep it activated (“on”).

  The single-message-compression extension permits senders to zip-compress single syslog messages. Such messages start with the letter “z” instead of the usual syslog PRI value. For well-formed syslog messages, the extension works as designed. However, some users transport non-syslog data via rsyslog, and such messages may validly start with “z” for non-compressed data. To support such non-standard cases, this option can be used to globally disable support for compression on all inputs.

## privdrop.group.name

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
integer |  | no | `$PrivDropToGroup`

New in version 8.2110.0.

Name of the group rsyslog should run under after startup. Please note that this group is looked up in the system tables. If the lookup fails, privileges are NOT dropped. Thus it is advisable to use the less convenient privdrop.group.id parameter. Note that all supplementary groups are removed by default from the process if the privdrop.group.keepsupplemental parameter is not specified. If the group id can be looked up, but can not be set, rsyslog aborts.

Note: See the privilege drop documentation for more details on dropping privileges on startup.

## privdrop.group.id

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
integer |  | no | `$PrivDropToGroupID`

New in version 8.2110.0.

Numerical user ID of the group rsyslog should run under after startup. This is more reliable than the privdrop.group.name parameter, which relies on presence of the group name in system tables. The change to the ID will always happen if the ID is valid.

Note: See the privilege drop documentation for more details on dropping privileges on startup.

## privdrop.user.name

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
integer |  | no | `$PrivDropToUser`

New in version 8.2110.0.

Name of the user rsyslog should run under after startup. Please note that this user is looked up in the system tables. If the lookup fails, privileges are NOT dropped. Thus it is advisable to use the less convenient privdrop.user.id parameter. If the user id can be looked up, but can not be set, rsyslog aborts.

Note: See the privilege drop documentation for more details on dropping privileges on startup.

## privdrop.user.id

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
integer |  | no | `$PrivDropToUserID`

New in version 8.2110.0.

Numerical user ID of the user rsyslog should run under after startup. This is more reliable than the privdrop.user.name parameter, which relies on presence of the user name in system tables. The change to the ID will always happen if the ID is valid.

Note: See the privilege drop documentation for more details on dropping privileges on startup.

See also

Help with configuring/using `Rsyslog`:

- Mailing list - best route for general questions

- GitHub: rsyslog source project - detailed questions, reporting issues that are believed to be bugs with `Rsyslog`

- Stack Exchange (View, Ask) - experimental support from rsyslog community

See also

Contributing to `Rsyslog`:

- Source project: rsyslog project README.

- Documentation: rsyslog-doc project README

Copyright 2008-2020 Rainer Gerhards (Großrinderfeld), and Others.