Tag Archives: DIY home server

Simplified guide to logging Docker to Elasticsearch in 2019 (With syslog-ng)

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This simplified guide to logging Docker to Elasticsearch shows you how to send logs of containers into Elastic. Although there are many tutorials on to logging Docker to Elasticsearch, this one is different from all as it uses syslog-ng. Visualize them on a nice dashboard in Kibana. And you can download it all at the end of the post!

Update: I moved the chapters about parsing and visualizing NGINX / Apache access logs in Kibana into a dedicated post. I hope it will improve readability of both subjects.

Docker logs in Kibana Dasboard
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Visualizing Fail2ban logs in Kibana

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In the last post I wrote about how you can enrich Fail2ban logs with GeoIP metadata and with other data parsed from the logs. This time I will show you how you can use syslog-ng to send them into Elasticsearch and how visualizing Fail2ban logs in Kibana can show you where the failed login attempts are coming from.Fail2ban vvisualization in Kibana Coordinate map

 

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Creating a central syslog server

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Your home network might already contain some devices or systems like a home server, a WiFi router, a media player, or home automation system. It is a best practice creating a central syslog server and storing logs of various sources in one place.

A pile of timber logs

In this post I will show you the way of creating a central syslog server and comply with use cases like:

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Docker failed to restart after upgrade

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I already had plans to write about Docker. However a recent system update caused issues and Docker failed to restart. This service outage made me think and write about such a typical maintenance task.

 

Docker logo upside downI know that I created the issue at the first place. However I could fix it and I will show you how I did it and how can I avoid that in the future.

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Mounting NFS exports by using autofs

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When I created a central file sever, I mentioned that some of the problems with the solution are yet to be resolved.

autofs better than manual

  1. YaST created an import rule in file /etc/fstab, which is the de-facto place for storing such information. Its content and the mounts are usually static in server environments. On most client (in term of using an export of an NFS server) the network connectivity rarely or never changes in traditional environments.
    However in case of mobile devices like on laptops, the network state could vary a lot. It can be offline, or on WiFi, or on wired connection, maybe using VPNs. We need much more flexibility than a mostly static file.
  2. Users would like to mount exports on their own. The system should be as transparent as possible to the end users.

Lucky for us, mounting NFS exports by using autofs service help us and gives the following advantages too. Continue reading →

Creating an NFS file server

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In 2019 almost everyone has a digital life, so as I. Having digital photos or videos taken with our smartphones is an every day action.
Year by year the number of smart phones and computers rises in households. Files started to be found everywhere. In your computers, in the cloud, everywhere
Why do not we store them in one place and access them from everywhere?

creating and nfs server

I wanted to create a file server providing a central location for all our digital data. Creating an NFS file server looked promising.
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