AWS Firelens Guide
What is AWS FireLens?
AWS FireLens is a log routing feature for Amazon ECS. It lets you use popular open-source logging projects Fluent Bit or Fluentd with Amazon ECS to route your logs to various AWS and partner monitoring solutions like Axiom without installing third-party agents on your tasks.
FireLens integrates with your Amazon ECS tasks and services seamlessly, so you can send logs from your containers to Axiom seamlessly.
Using AWS FireLens with Fluent Bit and Axiom
Here's a basic configuration for using FireLens with Fluent Bit to forward logs to Axiom:
Fluent Bit Configuration for Axiom
You'll typically define this in a file called fluent-bit.conf
:
[SERVICE]
Log_Level info
[INPUT]
Name forward
Listen 0.0.0.0
Port 24224
[OUTPUT]
Name http
Match *
Host api.axiom.co
Port 443
URI /v1/datasets/$DATASET_NAME/ingest
Format json_lines
tls On
format json
json_date_key _time
json_date_format iso8601
# Authorization Bearer should be an API token
Header Authorization Bearer xait-xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxx
- Read more about Fluent Bit configuration here
ECS Task Definition with FireLens
You'll want to include this within your ECS task definition, and reference the Firelens configuration type and options:
{
"family": "myTaskDefinition",
"containerDefinitions": [
{
"name": "log_router",
"image": "amazon/aws-for-fluent-bit:latest",
"essential": true,
"firelensConfiguration": {
"type": "fluentbit",
"options": {
"config-file-type": "file",
"config-file-value": "/fluent-bit/etc/fluent-bit.conf"
}
}
},
{
"name": "myApp",
"image": "my-app-image",
"logConfiguration": {
"logDriver": "awsfirelens"
}
}
]
}
Using AWS FireLens with Fluentd and Axiom
Create the fluentd.conf
file and add your configuration:
<source>
@type forward
port 24224
bind 0.0.0.0
</source>
<match *>
@type http
# Authorization Bearer should be an ingest token
headers {"Authorization": "Bearer <your-token>"}
data_type json
endpoint https://api.axiom.co/v1/datasets/$DATASET_NAME/ingest
sourcetype ecs
</match>
- Read more about Fluentd configuration here
ECS Task Definition for Fluentd
The task definition would be similar to the Fluent Bit example, but using Fluentd and its configuration:
{
"family": "fluentdTaskDefinition",
"containerDefinitions": [
{
"name": "log_router",
"image": "YOUR_ECR_REPO_URI:latest",
"essential": true,
"memory": 512,
"cpu": 256,
"firelensConfiguration": {
"type": "fluentd",
"options": {
"config-file-type": "file",
"config-file-value": "/path/to/your/fluentd.conf"
}
}
},
{
"name": "myApp",
"image": "my-app-image",
"essential": true,
"memory": 512,
"cpu": 256,
"logConfiguration": {
"logDriver": "awsfirelens",
"options": {
"Name": "forward",
"Host": "log_router",
"Port": "24224"
}
}
}
]
}
By efficiently routing logs with FireLens and analyzing them with Axiom, businesses and development teams can save on operational overheads and reduce time spent on troubleshooting.