# General Queue Parameters

Queue parameters can be used together with the following statements:

- action()
- ruleset()
- main_queue()

Queues need to be configured in the action or ruleset it should affect. If nothing is configured, default values will be used. Thus, the default ruleset has only the default main queue. Specific Action queues are not set up by default.

To fully understand queue parameters and how they interact, be sure to read the queues documentation. Note: As with other configuration objects, parameters for this object are case-insensitive.

- queue.filename name File name to be used for the queue files. Please note that this is actually just the file name. A directory can NOT be specified in this parameter. If the files shall be created in a specific directory, specify queue.spoolDirectory for this. The filename is used to build to complete path for queue files.

- queue.spoolDirectory name This is the directory into which queue files will be stored. Note that the directory must exist, it is NOT automatically created by rsyslog. If no spoolDirectory is specified, the work directory is used.

- queue.size number This is the maximum size of the queue in number of messages. Note that setting the queue size to very small values (roughly below 100 messages) is not supported and can lead to unpredictable results. For more information on the current status of this restriction see the rsyslog FAQ: “lower bound for queue sizes”.

  The default depends on queue type and rsyslog version, if you need a specific value, please specify it. Otherwise rsyslog selects what it consideres appropriate for the version in question. In rsyslog rsyslog 8.30.0, for example, ruleset queues have a default size of 50000 and action queues which are configured to be non-direct have a size of 1000.

- queue.dequeuebatchsize number default 128

- queue.maxdiskspace number The maximum size that all queue files together will use on disk. Note that the actual size may be slightly larger than the configured max, as rsyslog never writes partial queue records.

- queue.highwatermark number This applies to disk-assisted queues, only. When the queue fills up to this number of messages, the queue begins to spool messages to disk. Please note that this should not happen as part of usual processing, because disk queue mode is very considerably slower than in-memory queue mode. Going to disk should be reserved for cases where an output action destination is offline for some period. default 90% of queue size

- queue.lowwatermark number default 70% of queue size

- queue.fulldelaymark number Number of messages when the queue should block delayable messages. Messages are NO LONGER PROCESSED until the queue has sufficient space again. If a message is delayable depends on the input. For example, messages received via imtcp are delayable (because TCP can push back), but those received via imudp are not (as UDP does not permit a push back). The intent behind this setting is to leave some space in an almost-full queue for non-delayable messages, which would be lost if the queue runs out of space. Please note that if you use a DA queue, setting the fulldelaymark BELOW the highwatermark makes the queue never activate disk mode for delayable inputs. So this is probably not what you want. default 97% of queue size

- queue.lightdelaymark number default 70% of queue size

- queue.discardmark number default 80% of queue size

- queue.discardseverity number *numerical* severity! default 8 (nothing discarded)

- queue.checkpointinterval number Disk queues by default do not update housekeeping structures every time the queue writes to disk. This is for performance reasons. In the event of failure, data will still be lost (except when data is mangled via the file structures). However, disk queues can be set to write bookkeeping information on checkpoints (every n records), so that this can be made ultra-reliable, too. If the checkpoint interval is set to one, no data can be lost, but the queue is exceptionally slow.

- queue.syncqueuefiles on/off (default “off”)

  Disk-based queues can be made very reliable by issuing a (f)sync after each write operation. This happens when you set the parameter to “on”. Activating this option has a performance penalty, so it should not be turned on without a good reason. Note that the penalty also depends on queue.checkpointInterval frequency.

- queue.samplinginterval number

  This option allows queues to be populated by events produced at a specific interval. It provides a way to sample data each N events, instead of processing all, in order to reduce resources usage (disk, bandwidth…) This feature is available for version 8.23 and above.

- queue.type [FixedArray/LinkedList/Direct/Disk]

- queue.workerthreads number number of worker threads, default 1, recommended 1

- queue.timeoutshutdown number number is timeout in ms (1000ms is 1sec!), default 0 (indefinite)

- queue.timeoutactioncompletion number number is timeout in ms (1000ms is 1sec!), default 1000, 0 means immediate!

- queue.timeoutenqueue number number is timeout in ms (1000ms is 1sec!), default 2000, 0 means discard immediate.

  This timeout value is used when the queue is full. If rsyslog cannot enqueue a message within the timeout period, the message is discarded. Note that this is setting of last resort (assuming defaults are used for the queue settings or proper parameters are set): all delayable inputs (like imtcp or imfile) have already been pushed back at this stage. Also, discarding of lower priority messages (if configured) has already happened. So we run into one of these situations if we do not timeout quickly enough:

  - if using imuxsock and no systemd journal is involved, the system would become unresponsive and most probably a hard reset would be required.
  - if using imuxsock with imjournal forwarding is active, messages are lost because the journal discards them (more agressive than rsyslog does)
  - if using imjournal, the journal will buffer messages. If journal runs out of configured space, messages will be discarded. So in this mode discarding is moved to a bit later place.
  - other non-delayable sources like imudp will also loose messages

  So this setting is provided in order to guard against problematic situations, which always will result either in message loss or system hang. For action queues, one may debate if it would be better to overflow rapidly to the main queue. If so desired, this is easy to acomplish by setting a very large timeout value. The same, of course, is true for the main queue, but you have been warned if you do so!

  In some other words, you can consider this scenario, using default values. With all progress blocked (unable to deliver a message):

  - all delayable inputs (tcp, relp, imfile, imjournal, etc) will block indefinantly (assuming queue.lightdelaymark and queue.fulldelaymark are set sensible, which they are by default).

  - imudp will be loosing messages because the OS will be dropping them

  - messages arriving via UDP or imuxsock that do make it to rsyslog, and that are a severity high enough to not be filtered by discardseverity, will block for 2 seconds trying to put the message in the queue (in the hope that something happens to make space in the queue) and then be dropped to avoid blocking the machine permanently.

    Then the next message to be processed will also be tried for 2 seconds, etc.

  - If this is going into an action queue, the log message will remain in the main queue during these 2 seconds, and additional logs that arrive will accumulate behind this in the main queue.

- queue.timeoutworkerthreadshutdown number number is timeout in ms (1000ms is 1sec!), default 60000 (1 minute)

- queue.workerthreadminimummessages number default queue size/number of workers

- queue.maxfilesize size_nbr default 1m

- queue.saveonshutdown on/off

- queue.dequeueslowdown number number is timeout in microseconds (1000000us is 1sec!), default 0 (no delay). Simple rate-limiting!

- queue.dequeuetimebegin number

- queue.dequeuetimeend number

- queue.samplinginterval number Sampling interval for action queue. This parameter specifies how many line of logs will be dropped before one enqueued. default 0.

Sample:

The following is a sample of a TCP forwarding action with its own queue.

    action(type="omfwd" target="192.168.2.11" port="10514" protocol="tcp"
           queue.filename="forwarding" queue.size="1000000" queue.type="LinkedList"
          )