actiondb

Actiondb is a library and its associated tools to efficiently extract information from unstructured data. It's a tool to parse logs and extract key-value pairs with predefined patterns from them.

The patterns can be specified in a JSON or YAML serialized file. Their schema is the same, only the format is different. The format allows you to give a name, a unique identifier (UUID) to each pattern and to test message parsing with example messages.

Patterns

A pattern is composed of literals and parsers, like:

Jun %{INT:day} %{INT:hour}:%{INT:min}:%{INT:sec} server sshd[%{INT:pid}]: Accepted publickey for joe

It can be used to parse the following log message:

Jun 25 14:09:58 server sshd[26665]: Accepted publickey for joe

JSON pattern files

These files contains patterns and their attributes. A JSON file looks like the following example

{
  "patterns": [
    {
      "name": "SSH_DISCONNECT",
      "uuid": "9a49c47d-29e9-4072-be84-3b76c6814743",
      "pattern": "Jun %{INT:day} %{INT:hour}:%{INT:min}:%{INT:sec} lobotomy sshd[%{INT:pid}]: Received disconnect from %{GREEDY:ipaddr}: %{INT:dunno}: disconnected by user"
    },
    {
      "uuid": "fa8bdbcb-e0fd-4da1-9fa4-15ecfec28ad2",
      "pattern": "Jun %{INT:day} %{INT:hour}:%{INT:min}:%{INT:sec} lobotomy sshd[%{INT:pid}]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session closed for user zts"
    }
  ]
}

It has the following structure:

• patterns: it's a top level array of pattern objects

A pattern object consists of the following key-value pairs:

• uuid: it's a required field and contains a UUID,
• name: it's an optional field and contains the name of the pattern. Currently there is no restriction about the valid character set.
• pattern: it's the same thing as defined in Patterns
• values: it's an optional field and contains additional key-value pairs which should be added to the matching message
• tags: it's and optional array and contains tags which should be added to the matching message
• test_messages: it's an array of test messages which can be used to test the patters.

A test message object has the following key-value pairs:

• message: a string message which should be parsed,
• values: an object which defines the expected key-value pairs after the parsing. Every key and value must be strings.
• tags: the expected tags

An example test message object can be seen in the following example (in YAML):

patterns:
  -
    uuid: "6d2cba0c-e241-464a-89c3-8035cac8f73e"
    name: "LOGGEN"
    pattern: "seq: %{INT:.loggen.seq}, thread: %{INT:.loggen.thread}, runid: %{INT:.loggen.runid}, stamp: %{GREEDY:.loggen.stamp} %{GREEDY:.loggen.padding}"
    values:
      foo: "bar"
    tags:
      - "foo"
      - "bar"
    test_messages:
      -
        message: "seq: 0000000001, thread: 0000, runid: 1437655178, stamp: 2015-07-23T14:39:38 PADDPADDPADDPADD"
        values:
          .loggen.seq: "0000000001"
          .loggen.thread: "0000"
          .loggen.runid: "1437655178"
          .loggen.stamp: "2015-07-23T14:39:38"
          .loggen.padding: "PADDPADDPADDPADD"

Parsers

Parsers can be used to extract data from unstructured text.

Every parser has the following syntax:

%{PARSER_TYPE(required_arg1, required_arg2, optional_arg1="value", optional_arg2=value):parser_instance_name}

If a parser doesn't have extra arguments its parameter list can be omitted:

%{PARSER_TYPE:parser_instance_name}

The name can be omitted too:

%{PARSER_TYPE}

You can use the _, ., [0-9], - and [a-zA-Z] characters as parser names.

Available parsers

SET

Parses only the characters which was given as its arguments. An optional minimum and maximum length can be specified.

Example

%{SET("abcd",min_len=1,max_len=2):parsed_value_name}

It's identical to the [abcd]{1,2} regular expression (but faster).

INT

It reuses the SET parser with the character set of the numbers from 0 to 9. An optional minimum and maximum length can be specified as in SET.

GREEDY

It tries to fill in the gap between a parser and a literal or two literals. It will use the next literal as an "end string" condition. If the GREEDY parser is the last parser in the pattern it will consume the whole remaining message.

Example

Pattern:

from %{GREEDY:ipaddr}: %{INT:dunno}

Sample message:

from 1.2.3.4: 123

Extracted key-value pairs:

• (ipaddr,1.2.3.4)
• (dunno,123)

adbtool

adbtool is a tool which can be used for the following purposes:

• validate patterns,
• parse text files.

It support the validate and parse subcommands. For more information check it's --help option.

Changelog