Fluentd output plugin for Datadog

It mainly contains a proper JSON formatter and a socket handler that streams logs directly to Datadog - so no need to use a log shipper if you don't wan't to.

Pre-requirements

To add the plugin to your fluentd agent, use the following command:

gem install fluent-plugin-datadog

If you installed the td-agent instead

/usr/sbin/td-agent-gem install fluent-plugin-datadog

Usage

Configure the output plugin

To match events and send them to Datadog, simply add the following code to your configuration file.

TCP example

# Match events tagged with "datadog.**" and
# send them to Datadog
<match datadog.**>

  @type datadog
  @id awesome_agent
  api_key <your_api_key>

  # Optional
  include_tag_key true
  tag_key 'tag'

  # Optional tags
  dd_sourcecategory 'aws'
  dd_source 'rds' 
  dd_tags 'app:mysql,env:prod'

</match>

After a restart of FluentD, any child events tagged with datadog are shipped to your platform.

Validation

Let's make a simple test.

 curl -X POST -d 'json={"message":"hello Datadog from fluentd"}' http://localhost:8888/datadog.test

Produces the following event:

{
    "message": "hello Datadog from fluentd"
}

fluent-plugin-datadog properties

Let's go deeper on the plugin configuration.

As fluent-plugin-datadog is an output_buffer, you can set all output_buffer properties like it's describe in the fluentd documentation.

Property	Description	Default value
api_key	This parameter is required in order to authenticate your fluent agent.	nil
use_json	Event format, if true, the event is sent in json format. Othwerwise, in plain text.	true
include_tag_key	Automatically include tags in the record.	false
tag_key	Name of the tag attribute, if they are included.	"tag"
use_ssl	If true, the agent initializes a secure connection to Datadog. In clear TCP otherwise.	false
max_retries	The number of retries before the output plugin stops. Set to -1 for unlimited retries	-1
max_retries	The number of retries before the output plugin stops. Set to -1 for unlimited retries	-1
dd_source	This tells Datadog what integration it is	nil
dd_sourcecategory	Multiple value attribute. Can be used to refine the source attribtue	nil
dd_tags	Custom tags with the following format "key1:value1, key2:value2"	nil