ejournald

Ejournald is an Erlang interface for systemd's journald. It provides advanced write and read support.

Installation

Ejournald consists of two parts: the first part is a NIF for the communication with journald, the second is an Erlang application using it.

First, you have to compile the sources in c_src/ using make. You will need the systemd development header for that. Next you can compile the erlang source in src/.

Installation using tetrapak

Execute "tetrapak build".

Installation using rebar

Execute "rebar compile".

Usage

Ejournald is intended to provide logging support for journald. Together with lager and the lager_journald_backend it allows to write structured logs with additional metainformation into systemd's journal. Logging directly with ejournald is also possible (via the NIF-API) but it is recommended to use lager. On top of that ejournald provides:

• an Erlang I/O-server for stream-like logging (without lager)
• a high-level API for retrieving logs (possibly by Erlang specific meta information)

The I/O-server is is not capable of reading the journal. It can be used as an IO device together with the erlang io library. Therefore commands like io:format() or io:write() can be used in a very convenient way to write stuff into the journal without using lager.

To test this setup via simply sending error messages from an erlang shell, do the following: Start ejournald:

application:ensure_all_started(ejournald).
{ok,[ejournald]}

Set the handler for the lager backend and start lager:

application:set_env(lager, handlers, [{lager_journald_backend, []}]).
lager:start().

Send an error message (which the backend sends to the journal)

lager:error("Some error happened!").

Then simply check your journal for the corresponding message (e.g. 'journalctl -f'):

# journalctl
...
Jan 16 13:16:18 Host beam.smp[7481]: Some error happened!

It is possible to augment the logs with additional meta information (keys are always atoms)

lager:info([{current_weather, "Sunny"}, {temperature, 23}], "Hello World!", []).

Via 'journalctl -f -o verbose' you should see all log fields including the special ones set by you (not all fields are shown):

...
PRIORITY=6
_TRANSPORT=journal
ERL_APPLICATION=my_test_app
ERL_MODULE=my_test_app_mod
ERL_FUNCTION=start
ERL_LINE=20
ERL_PID="<0.36.0>"
[email protected]
MESSAGE=Hello World!
CURRENT_WEATHER="Sunny"
TEMPERATURE=23
...

Erlang specific fields which are set automatically by the backend are prepended with "ERL_".

Note that lager uses parse transform, e.g. you have to add

-compile([{parse_transform, lager_transform}]).

to your erlang module to compile it. If you want to test your stuff without doing that just use something like

lager:log(info, [{meta1, data1}, {meta2, data2}], "Hello World!").

See edocs for more information.