PDBTOOL(1)



PDBTOOL(1)                  The pdbtool manual page                 PDBTOOL(1)

NAME
       pdbtool - An application to test and convert syslog-ng pattern database
       rules

SYNOPSIS
       pdbtool [command] [options]

DESCRIPTION
       This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of
       syslog-ng and pdbtool, see The syslog-ng Administrator Guide[1].

       The syslog-ng application can match the contents of the log messages to
       a database of predefined message patterns (also called patterndb). By
       comparing the messages to the known patterns, syslog-ng is able to
       identify the exact type of the messages, tag the messages, and sort
       them into message classes. The message classes can be used to classify
       the type of the event described in the log message. The functionality
       of the pattern database is similar to that of the logcheck project, but
       the syslog-ng approach is faster, scales better, and is much easier to
       maintain compared to the regular expressions of logcheck.

       The pdbtool application is a utility that can be used to:

       o   test messages, or specific rules

       o   convert an older pattern database to the latest database format

       o   merge pattern databases into a single file

       o   automatically create pattern databases from a large amount of log
           messages

       o   dump the RADIX tree built from the pattern database (or a part of
           it) to explore how the pattern matching works.

THE DICTIONARY COMMAND
       dictionary [options]

       Lists every name-value pair that can be set by the rules of the pattern
       database.

       --dump-tags or -T
           List the tags instead of the names of the name-value pairs.

       --pdb <path-to-file> or -p <path-to-file>
           Name of the pattern database file to use.

       --program <programname> or -P <programname>
           List only the name-value pairs that can be set for the messages of
           the specified $PROGRAM application.

THE DUMP COMMAND
       dump [options]

       Display the RADIX tree built from the patterns. This shows how are the
       patterns represented in syslog-ng and it might also help to track down
       pattern-matching problems. The dump utility can dump the tree used for
       matching the PROGRAM or the MESSAGE parts.

       --debug or -d
           Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

       --pdb or -p
           Name of the pattern database file to use.

       --program or -P
           Displays the RADIX tree built from the patterns belonging to the
           ${PROGRAM} application.

       --program-tree or -T
           Display the ${PROGRAM} tree.

       --verbose or -v
           Enable verbose messages on stderr.

       Example and sample output:

           pdbtool dump -p patterndb.xml  -P 'sshd'

           'p'
              'assword for'
                @QSTRING:@
                  'from'
                   @QSTRING:@
                     'port '
                       @NUMBER:@ rule_id='fc49054e-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
                         ' ssh' rule_id='fc55cf86-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
                            '2' rule_id='fc4b7982-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
               'ublickey for'
                 @QSTRING:@
                   'from'
                    @QSTRING:@
                      'port '
                        @NUMBER:@ rule_id='fc4d377c-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
                          ' ssh' rule_id='fc5441ac-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'
                             '2' rule_id='fc44a9fe-75fd-11dd-9bba-001e6806451b'

THE MATCH COMMAND
       match [options]

       Use the match command to test the rules in a pattern database. The
       command tries to match the specified message against the patterns of
       the database, evaluates the parsers of the pattern, and also displays
       which part of the message was parsed successfully. The command returns
       with a 0 (success) or 1 (no match) return code and displays the
       following information:

       o   the class assigned to the message (that is, system, violation, and
           so on),

       o   the ID of the rule that matched the message, and

       o   the values of the parsers (if there were parsers in the matching
           pattern).

       The match command has the following options:

       --color-out  or -c
           Color the terminal output to highlight the part of the message that
           was successfully parsed.

       --debug or -d
           Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

       --debug-csv or -C
           Print the debugging information returned by the --debug-pattern
           option as comma-separated values.

       --debug-pattern or -D
           Print debugging information about the pattern matching. See also
           the --debug-csv option.

       --file=<filename-with-path> or -f
           Process the messages of the specified log file with the pattern
           database. This option allows to classify messages offline, and to
           apply the pattern database to already existing logfiles. To read
           the messages from the standard input (stdin), specify a hyphen (-)
           character instead of a filename.

       --filter=<filter-expression> or -F
           Print only messages matching the specified syslog-ng filter
           expression.

       --message or -M
           The text of the log message to match (only the ${MESSAGE} part
           without the syslog headers).

       --pdb or -p
           Name of the pattern database file to use.

       --program or -P
           Name of the program to use, as contained in the ${PROGRAM} part of
           the syslog message.

       --template=<template-expression> or -T
           A syslog-ng template expression that is used to format the output
           messages.

       --verbose or -v
           Enable verbose messages on stderr.

       Example: The following command checks if the patterndb.xml file
       recognizes the Accepted publickey for myuser from 127.0.0.1 port 59357
       ssh2 message:

           pdbtool match -p patterndb.xml -P sshd -M "Accepted publickey for myuser from 127.0.0.1 port 59357 ssh2"

       The following example applies the sshd.pdb pattern database file to the
       log messages stored in the /var/log/messages file, and displays only
       the messages that received a useracct tag.

           pdbtool match -p sshd.pdb \
             -file /var/log/messages \
             -filter 'tags("usracct");'

THE MERGE COMMAND
       merge [options]

       Use the merge command to combine separate pattern database files into a
       single file (pattern databases are usually stored in separate files per
       applications to simplify maintenance). If a file uses an older database
       format, it is automatically updated to the latest format (V3). See the
       The syslog-ng Administrator Guide[1] for details on the different
       pattern database versions.

       --debug or -d
           Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

       --directory or -D
           The directory that contains the pattern database XML files to be
           merged.

       --glob or -G
           Specify filenames to be merged using a glob pattern, for example,
           using wildcards. For details on glob patterns, see man glob. This
           pattern is applied only to the filenames, and not on directory
           names.

       --pdb or -p
           Name of the output pattern database file.

       --recursive or -r
           Merge files from subdirectories as well.

       --verbose or -v
           Enable verbose messages on stderr.

       Example:

           pdbtool merge --recursive --directory /home/me/mypatterns/  --pdb /var/lib/syslog-ng/patterndb.xml

       Currently it is not possible to convert a file without merging, so if
       you only want to convert an older pattern database file to the latest
       format, you have to copy it into an empty directory.

THE PATTERNIZE COMMAND
       patternize [options]

       Automatically create a pattern database from a log file containing a
       large number of log messages. The resulting pattern database is printed
       to the standard output (stdout). The pdbtool patternize command uses a
       data clustering technique to find similar log messages and replacing
       the differing parts with @ESTRING:: @ parsers. For details on pattern
       databases and message parsers, see the The syslog-ng Administrator
       Guide[1]. The patternize command is available only in version 3.2 and
       later.

       --debug or -d
           Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

       --file=<path> or -f
           The logfile containing the log messages to create patterns from. To
           receive the log messages from the standard input (stdin), use -.

       --iterate-outliers or -o
           Recursively iterate on the log lines to cover as many log messages
           with patterns as possible.

       --named-parsers or -n
           The number of example log messages to include in the pattern
           database for every pattern. Default value: 1

       --no-parse or -p
           Do not parse the input file, treat every line as the message part
           of a log message.

       --samples=<number-of-samples>
           Include a generated name in the parsers, for example,
           .dict.string1, .dict.string2, and so on.

       --support=<number> or -S
           A pattern is added to the output pattern database if at least the
           specified percentage of log messages from the input logfile match
           the pattern. For example, if the input logfile contains 1000 log
           messages and the --support=3.0 option is used, a pattern is created
           only if the pattern matches at least 3 percent of the log messages
           (that is, 30 log messages). If patternize does not create enough
           patterns, try to decrease the support value.

           Default value: 4.0

       --verbose or -v
           Enable verbose messages on stderr.

       Example:

           pdbtool patternize --support=2.5 --file=/var/log/messages

THE TEST COMMAND
       test [options]

       Use the test command to validate a pattern database XML file. Note that
       you must have the xmllint application installed. The test command is
       available only in version 3.2 and later.

       --color-out or -c
           Enable coloring in terminal output.

       --debug or -d
           Enable debug/diagnostic messages on stderr.

       --debug or -D
           Print debugging information on non-matching patterns.

       --rule-id or -r
           Test only the patterndb rule (specified by its rule id) against its
           example.

       --validate
           Validate a pattern database XML file.

       --verbose or -v
           Enable verbose messages on stderr.

       Example:

           pdbtool test --validate /home/me/mypatterndb.pdb

FILES
       /usr/

       /etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf

SEE ALSO
       The syslog-ng Administrator Guide[1]

       syslog-ng.conf(5)

       syslog-ng(8)

           Note
           For the detailed documentation of see The 3.27 Administrator
           Guide[2]

           If you experience any problems or need help with syslog-ng, visit
           the syslog-ng mailing list[3].

           For news and notifications about of syslog-ng, visit the syslog-ng
           blogs[4].

AUTHOR
       This manual page was written by the Balabit Documentation Team
       <documentation@balabit.com>.

COPYRIGHT
NOTES
        1. The syslog-ng Administrator Guide
           https://www.balabit.com/support/documentation/

        2. The  3.27 Administrator Guide
           https://www.balabit.com/documents/syslog-ng-ose-latest-guides/en/syslog-ng-ose-guide-admin/html/index.html

        3. syslog-ng mailing list
           https://lists.balabit.hu/mailman/listinfo/syslog-ng

        4. syslog-ng blogs
           https://syslog-ng.org/blogs/

3.27                              06/16/2020                        PDBTOOL(1)

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