# pmrfc3164: Parse RFC3164-formatted messages

Module Name: | pmrfc3164
Author: | Rainer Gerhards <rgerhards@adiscon.com>

## Purpose

This parser module is for parsing messages according to the traditional/legacy syslog standard RFC 3164

It is part of the default parser chain.

The parser can also be customized to allow the parsing of specific formats, if they occur.

## Configuration Parameters

Note

Parameter names are case-insensitive.

### Parser Parameters

#### permit.squareBracketsInHostname

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
binary | off | no | none

This setting tells the parser that hostnames that are enclosed by brackets should omit the brackets.

#### permit.slashesInHostname

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
binary | off | no | none

New in version 8.20.0.

This setting tells the parser that hostnames may contain slashes. This is useful when messages e.g. from a syslog-ng relay chain are received. Syslog-ng puts the various relay hosts via slashes into the hostname field.

#### permit.AtSignsInHostname

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
binary | off | no | none

New in version 8.25.0.

This setting tells the parser that hostnames may contain at-signs. This is useful when messages are relayed from a syslog-ng server in rfc3164 format. The hostname field sent by syslog-ng may be prefixed by the source name followed by an at-sign character.

#### force.tagEndingByColon

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
binary | off | no | none

New in version 8.25.0.

This setting tells the parser that tag need to be ending by colon to be valid. In others case, the tag is set to dash (“-“) without changing message.

#### remove.msgFirstSpace

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
binary | off | no | none

New in version 8.25.0.

Rfc3164 tell message is directly after tag including first white space. This option tell to remove the first white space in message just after reading. It make rfc3164 & rfc5424 syslog messages working in a better way.

#### detect.YearAfterTimestamp

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
binary | off | no | none

Some devices send syslog messages in a format that is similar to RFC3164, but they also attach the year to the timestamp (which is not compliant to the RFC). With regular parsing, the year would be recognized to be the hostname and the hostname would become the syslogtag. This setting should prevent this. It is also limited to years between 2000 and 2099, so hostnames with numbers as their name can still be recognized correctly. But everything in this range will be detected as a year.

## Examples

### Receiving malformed RFC3164 messages

We assume a scenario where some of the devices send malformed RFC3164 messages. The parser module will automatically detect the malformed sections and parse them accordingly.

    module(load="imtcp")

    input(type="imtcp" port="514" ruleset="customparser")

    parser(name="custom.rfc3164"
          type="pmrfc3164"
          permit.squareBracketsInHostname="on"
          detect.YearAfterTimestamp="on")

    ruleset(name="customparser" parser="custom.rfc3164") {
          ... do processing here ...
    }

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.