Source Declarations - Amazon Kinesis Agent for Microsoft Windows
DirectorySource ConfigurationExchangeLogSource ConfigurationW3SVCLogSource ConfigurationUlsSource ConfigurationWindowsEventLogSource ConfigurationWindowsEventLogPollingSource ConfigurationWindowsETWEventSource ConfigurationWindowsPerformanceCounterSource ConfigurationKinesis Agent for Windows Built-In Metrics SourceList of Kinesis Agent for Windows MetricsBookmark Configuration

Source Declarations

In Amazon Kinesis Agent for Microsoft Windows, source declarations describe where and what log, event, and metric data should be collected. They also optionally specify information for parsing that data so that it can be transformed. The following sections describe configurations for the built-in source types that are available in Kinesis Agent for Windows. Because Kinesis Agent for Windows is extensible, you can add custom source types. Each source type typically requires specific key-value pairs in the configuration objects that are relevant for that source type.

All source declarations must contain at least the following key-value pairs:

Id

A unique string that identifies a particular source object within the configuration file.

SourceType

The name of the source type for this source object. The source type specifies the origin of the log, event, or metric data that is being collected by this source object. It also controls what other aspects of the source can be declared.

For examples of complete configuration files that use different kinds of source declarations, see Streaming from Various Sources to Kinesis Data Streams.

DirectorySource Configuration

Overview

The DirectorySource source type gathers logs from files that are stored in the specified directory. Because log files come in many different formats, the DirectorySource declaration lets you specify the format of the data in the log file. Then you can transform the log contents to a standard format such as JSON or XML before streaming to various AWS services.

The following is an example DirectorySource declaration:

{
	   "Id": "myLog",
	   "SourceType": "DirectorySource",
	   "Directory": "C:\\Program Data\\MyCompany\\MyService\\logs",
	   "FileNameFilter": "*.log",
	   "IncludeSubdirectories": true,
	   "IncludeDirectoryFilter": "cpu\\cpu-1;cpu\\cpu-2;load;memory",
	   "RecordParser": "Timestamp",
	   "TimestampFormat": "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.ffff",
	   "Pattern": "\\d{4}-\\d{2}-\\d(2}",
	   "ExtractionPattern": "",
	   "TimeZoneKind": "UTC",
	   "SkipLines": 0,
	   "Encoding": "utf-16",
	   "ExtractionRegexOptions": "Multiline"
}

All DirectorySource declarations can provide the following key-value pairs:

SourceType

Must be the literal string "DirectorySource" (required).

Directory

The path to the directory containing the log files (required).

FileNameFilter

Optionally limits the set of files in the directory where log data is collected based on a wild card file-naming pattern. If you have multiple log file name patterns, this feature allows you to use a single DirectorySource, as shown in the following example.

FileNameFilter: "*.log|*.txt"

System administrators sometimes compress log files before archiving them. If you specify "*.*" in FileNameFilter, known compressed files are now excluded. This feature prevents .zip, .gz, and .bz2 files from being streamed accidentally. If this key-value pair is not specified, data from all files in the directory are collected by default.

IncludeSubdirectories

Specifies to monitor subdirectories to arbitrary depth limited by the operating system. This feature is useful for monitoring web servers with multiple websites. You can also use the IncludeDirectoryFilter attribute to monitor only certain subdirectories specified in the filter.

RecordParser

Specifies how the DirectorySource source type should parse the log files that are found in the specified directory. This key-value pair is required, and the valid values are as follows:

  • SingleLine — Each line of the log file is a log record.

  • SingleLineJson — Each line of the log file is a JSON-formatted log record. This parser is useful when you want to add additional key-value pairs to the JSON using object decoration. For more information, see Configuring Sink Decorations. For an example that uses the SingleLineJson record parser, see Tutorial: Stream JSON Log Files to Amazon S3 Using Kinesis Agent for Windows.

  • Timestamp — One or more lines can include a log record. The log record starts with a timestamp. This option requires specifying the TimestampFormat key-value pair.

  • Regex — Each record starts with text that matches a particular regular expression. This option requires specifying the Pattern key-value pair.

  • SysLog — Indicates that the log file is written in the syslog standard format. The log file is parsed into records based on that specification.

  • Delimited — A simpler version of the Regex record parser where data items in the log records are separated by a consistent delimiter. This option is easier to use and executes faster than the Regex parser, and it is preferred when this option is available. When using this option, you must specify the Delimiter key-value pair.

TimestampField

Specifies which JSON field contains the timestamp for the record. This is only used with the SingleLineJson RecordParser. This key-value pair is optional. If it is not specified, Kinesis Agent for Windows uses the time when the record was read for the timestamp. One advantage of specifying this key-value pair is that latency statistics generated by Kinesis Agent for Windows are more accurate.

TimestampFormat

Specifies how to parse the date and time associated with the record. The value is either the string epoch or a .NET date/time format string. If the value is epoch, time is parsed based on UNIX Epoch time. For more information about UNIX Epoch time, see Unix time. For more information about .NET date/time format strings, see Custom Date and Time Format Strings in the Microsoft .NET documentation). This key-value pair is required only if the Timestamp record parser is specified, or the SingleLineJson record parser is specified along with the TimestampField key-value pair.

Pattern

Specifies a regular expression that must match the first line of a potentially multi-line record. This key-value pair is only required for the Regex record parser.

ExtractionPattern

Specifies a regular expression that should use named groups. The record is parsed using this regular expression and the named groups form the fields of the parsed record. These fields are then used as the basis for constructing JSON or XML objects or documents that are then streamed by sinks to various AWS services. This key-value pair is optional, and is available with the Regex record parser and the Timestamp parser.

The Timestamp group name is specially processed, as it indicates to the Regex parser which field contains the date and time for each record in each log file.

Delimiter

Specifies the character or string that separates each item in each log record. This key-value pair must be (and can only be) used with the Delimited record parser. Use the two-character sequence \t to represent the tab character.

HeaderPattern

Specifies a regular expression for matching the line in the log file that contains the set of headers for the record. If the log file does not contain any header information, use the Headers key-value pair to specify the implicit headers. The HeaderPattern key-value pair is optional and only valid for the Delimited record parser.

Note

An empty (0 length) header entry for a column causes the data for that column to be filtered from the final output of the DirectorySource parsed output.

Headers

Specifies the names for the columns of data parsed using the specified delimiter. This key-value pair is optional and only valid for the Delimited record parser.

Note

An empty (0 length) header entry for a column causes the data for that column to be filtered from the final output of the DirectorySource parsed output.

RecordPattern

Specifies a regular expression that identifies lines in the log file that contain record data. Other than the optional header line identified by HeaderPattern, lines that do not match the specified RecordPattern are ignored during record processing. This key-value pair is optional and only valid for the Delimited record parser. If it is not provided, the default is to consider any line that does not match the optional HeaderPattern or the optional CommentPattern to be a line that contains parseable record data.

CommentPattern

Specifies a regular expression that identifies lines in the log file that should be excluded before parsing the data in the log file. This key-value pair is optional and only valid for the Delimited record parser. If it is not provided, the default is to consider any line that does not match the optional HeaderPattern to be a line that contains parseable record data, unless RecordPattern is specified.

TimeZoneKind

Specifies whether the timestamp in the log file should be considered in the local time zone or the UTC time zone. This is optional and defaults to UTC. The only valid values for this key-value pair are Local or UTC. The timestamp is never altered if TimeZoneKind is either not specified or if the value is UTC. The timestamp is converted to UTC when the TimeZoneKind value is Local and the sink receiving the timestamp is CloudWatch Logs, or the parsed record is sent to other sinks. Dates and times that are embedded in messages are not converted.

SkipLines

When specified, controls the number of lines ignored at the start of each log file before record parsing occurs. This is optional, and the default value is 0.

Encoding

By default, Kinesis Agent for Windows can automatically detect the encoding from bytemark. However, the automatic encoding may not work correctly on some older unicode formats. The following example specifies the encoding required to stream a Microsoft SQL Server log.

"Encoding": "utf-16"

For a list of encoding names, see List of encodings in Microsoft .NET documentation.

ExtractionRegexOptions

You can use ExtractionRegexOptions to simplify regular expressions. This key-value pair is optional. The default is "None".

The following example specifies that the "." expression matches any character including \r\n.

"ExtractionRegexOptions" = "Multiline"

For a list of the possible fields for ExtractionRegexOptions, see the RegExOptions Enum in Microsoft .NET documentation.

Regex Record Parser

You can parse unstructured text logs using the Regex record parser along with the TimestampFormat, Pattern, and ExtractionPattern key-value pairs. For example, suppose that your log file looks like the following:


[FATAL][2017/05/03 21:31:00.534][0x00003ca8][0000059c][][ActivationSubSystem][GetActivationForSystemID][0] 'ActivationException.File: EQCASLicensingSubSystem.cpp'
[FATAL][2017/05/03 21:31:00.535][0x00003ca8][0000059c][][ActivationSubSystem][GetActivationForSystemID][0] 'ActivationException.Line: 3999'

You can specify the following regular expression for the Pattern key-value pair to help break the log file into individual log records: 


^\[\w+\]\[(?<TimeStamp>\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2} \d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\.\d{3})\]

This regular expression matches the following sequence:

  1. The start of the string being evaluated.

  2. One or more word characters surrounded by square brackets.

  3. A timestamp surrounded by square brackets. The timestamp matches the following sequence:

    1. A four-digit year

    2. A forward slash

    3. A two-digit month

    4. A forward slash

    5. A two-digit day

    6. A space character

    7. A two-digit hour

    8. A colon

    9. A two-digit minute

    10. A colon

    11. A two-digit second

    12. A period

    13. A three-digit millisecond

You can specify the following format for the TimestampFormat key-value pair to convert the textual timestamp into a date and time:

yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.fff

You can use the following regular expression for extracting the fields of the log record via the ExtractionPattern key-value pair.

^\[(?<Severity>\w+)\]\[(?<TimeStamp>\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2} \d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\.\d{3})\]\[[^]]*\]\[[^]]*\]\[[^]]*\]\[(?<SubSystem>\w+)\]\[(?<Module>\w+)\]\[[^]]*\] '(?<Message>.*)'$

This regular expression matches the following groups in sequence:

  1. Severity — One or more word characters surrounded by square brackets.

  2. TimeStamp — See the previous description for the timestamp.

  3. Three unnamed square bracketed sequences of zero or more characters are skipped.

  4. SubSystem — One or more word characters surrounded by square brackets.

  5. Module — One or more word characters surrounded by square brackets.

  6. One unnamed square bracketed sequence of zero or more characters is skipped.

  7. One unnamed space is skipped.

  8. Message — Zero or more characters surrounded by single quotes.

The following source declaration combines these regular expressions and the date time format to provide the complete instructions to Kinesis Agent for Windows for parsing this kind of log file.

{
    "Id": "PrintLog",
    "SourceType": "DirectorySource",
    "Directory": "C:\\temp\\PrintLogTest",
    "FileNameFilter": "*.log",
    "RecordParser": "Regex",
    "TimestampFormat": "yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.fff",
    "Pattern": "^\\[\\w+\\]\\[(?<TimeStamp>\\d{4}/\\d{2}/\\d{2} \\d{2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}\\.\\d{3})\\]",
    "ExtractionPattern": "^\\[(?<Severity>\\w+)\\]\\[(?<TimeStamp>\\d{4}/\\d{2}/\\d{2} \\d{2}:\\d{2}:\\d{2}\\.\\d{3})\\]\\[[^]]*\\]\\[[^]]*\\]\\[[^]]*\\]\\[(?<SubSystem>\\w+)\\]\\[(?<Module>\\w+)\\]\\[[^]]*\\] '(?<Message>.*)'$",
    "TimeZoneKind": "UTC"
}
Note

Backslashes in JSON-formatted files must be escaped with an additional backslash.

For more information about regular expressions, see Regular Expression Language - Quick Reference in the Microsoft .NET documentation.

Delimited Record Parser

You can use the Delimited record parser to parse semistructured log and data files where there is a consistent character sequence separating each column of data in each row of data. For example, CSV files use a comma to separate each column of data, and TSV files use a tab.

Suppose that you want to parse a Microsoft NPS Database Format log file produced by a Network policy server. Such a file might look like the following:

"NPS-MASTER","IAS",03/22/2018,23:07:55,1,"user1","Domain1\user1",,,,,,,,0,"192.168.86.137","Nate - Test 1",,,,,,,1,,0,"311 1 192.168.0.213 03/15/2018 08:14:29 1",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Use Windows authentication for all users",1,,,,
"NPS-MASTER","IAS",03/22/2018,23:07:55,3,,"Domain1\user1",,,,,,,,0,"192.168.86.137","Nate - Test 1",,,,,,,1,,16,"311 1 192.168.0.213 03/15/2018 08:14:29 1",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Use Windows authentication for all users",1,,,,

The following example appsettings.json configuration file includes a DirectorySource declaration that uses the Delimited record parser to parse this text into an object representation. It then streams JSON-formatted data to Firehose:

{
    "Sources": [
        {
            "Id": "NPS",
            "SourceType": "DirectorySource",
            "Directory": "C:\\temp\\NPS",
            "FileNameFilter": "*.log",
            "RecordParser": "Delimited",
            "Delimiter": ",",
            "Headers": "ComputerName,ServiceName,Record-Date,Record-Time,Packet-Type,User-Name,Fully-Qualified-Distinguished-Name,Called-Station-ID,Calling-Station-ID,Callback-Number,Framed-IP-Address,NAS-Identifier,NAS-IP-Address,NAS-Port,Client-Vendor,Client-IP-Address,Client-Friendly-Name,Event-Timestamp,Port-Limit,NAS-Port-Type,Connect-Info,Framed-Protocol,Service-Type,Authentication-Type,Policy-Name,Reason-Code,Class,Session-Timeout,Idle-Timeout,Termination-Action,EAP-Friendly-Name,Acct-Status-Type,Acct-Delay-Time,Acct-Input-Octets,Acct-Output-Octets,Acct-Session-Id,Acct-Authentic,Acct-Session-Time,Acct-Input-Packets,Acct-Output-Packets,Acct-Terminate-Cause,Acct-Multi-Ssn-ID,Acct-Link-Count,Acct-Interim-Interval,Tunnel-Type,Tunnel-Medium-Type,Tunnel-Client-Endpt,Tunnel-Server-Endpt,Acct-Tunnel-Conn,Tunnel-Pvt-Group-ID,Tunnel-Assignment-ID,Tunnel-Preference,MS-Acct-Auth-Type,MS-Acct-EAP-Type,MS-RAS-Version,MS-RAS-Vendor,MS-CHAP-Error,MS-CHAP-Domain,MS-MPPE-Encryption-Types,MS-MPPE-Encryption-Policy,Proxy-Policy-Name,Provider-Type,Provider-Name,Remote-Server-Address,MS-RAS-Client-Name,MS-RAS-Client-Version",
            "TimestampField": "{Record-Date} {Record-Time}",
            "TimestampFormat": "MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss"
        }
    ],
    "Sinks": [
        {
            "Id": "npslogtest",
            "SinkType": "KinesisFirehose",
            "Region": "us-west-2",
            "StreamName": "npslogtest",
            "Format": "json"
        }
    ],
    "Pipes": [
        {
            "Id": "W3SVCLog1ToKinesisStream",
            "SourceRef": "NPS",
            "SinkRef": "npslogtest"
        }
    ]
}

JSON-formatted data streamed to Firehose looks like the following:

{
    "ComputerName": "NPS-MASTER",
    "ServiceName": "IAS",
    "Record-Date": "03/22/2018",
    "Record-Time": "23:07:55",
    "Packet-Type": "1",
    "User-Name": "user1",
    "Fully-Qualified-Distinguished-Name": "Domain1\\user1",
    "Called-Station-ID": "",
    "Calling-Station-ID": "",
    "Callback-Number": "",
    "Framed-IP-Address": "",
    "NAS-Identifier": "",
    "NAS-IP-Address": "",
    "NAS-Port": "",
    "Client-Vendor": "0",
    "Client-IP-Address": "192.168.86.137",
    "Client-Friendly-Name": "Nate - Test 1",
    "Event-Timestamp": "",
    "Port-Limit": "",
    "NAS-Port-Type": "",
    "Connect-Info": "",
    "Framed-Protocol": "",
    "Service-Type": "",
    "Authentication-Type": "1",
    "Policy-Name": "",
    "Reason-Code": "0",
    "Class": "311 1 192.168.0.213 03/15/2018 08:14:29 1",
    "Session-Timeout": "",
    "Idle-Timeout": "",
    "Termination-Action": "",
    "EAP-Friendly-Name": "",
    "Acct-Status-Type": "",
    "Acct-Delay-Time": "",
    "Acct-Input-Octets": "",
    "Acct-Output-Octets": "",
    "Acct-Session-Id": "",
    "Acct-Authentic": "",
    "Acct-Session-Time": "",
    "Acct-Input-Packets": "",
    "Acct-Output-Packets": "",
    "Acct-Terminate-Cause": "",
    "Acct-Multi-Ssn-ID": "",
    "Acct-Link-Count": "",
    "Acct-Interim-Interval": "",
    "Tunnel-Type": "",
    "Tunnel-Medium-Type": "",
    "Tunnel-Client-Endpt": "",
    "Tunnel-Server-Endpt": "",
    "Acct-Tunnel-Conn": "",
    "Tunnel-Pvt-Group-ID": "",
    "Tunnel-Assignment-ID": "",
    "Tunnel-Preference": "",
    "MS-Acct-Auth-Type": "",
    "MS-Acct-EAP-Type": "",
    "MS-RAS-Version": "",
    "MS-RAS-Vendor": "",
    "MS-CHAP-Error": "",
    "MS-CHAP-Domain": "",
    "MS-MPPE-Encryption-Types": "",
    "MS-MPPE-Encryption-Policy": "",
    "Proxy-Policy-Name": "Use Windows authentication for all users",
    "Provider-Type": "1",
    "Provider-Name": "",
    "Remote-Server-Address": "",
    "MS-RAS-Client-Name": "",
    "MS-RAS-Client-Version": ""
}

SysLog Record Parser

For the SysLog record parser, the parsed output from the source includes the following information:

Attribute Type Description
SysLogTimeStamp String The original date and time from the syslog-formatted log file.
Hostname String The name of computer where the syslog-formatted log file resides.
Program String The name of the application or service that generated the log file.
Message String The log message generated by the application or service.
TimeStamp String The parsed date and time in ISO 8601 format.

The following is an example of SysLog data transformed into JSON:

{
    "SysLogTimeStamp": "Jun 18 01:34:56",
    "Hostname": "myhost1.example.mydomain.com",
    "Program": "mymailservice:",
    "Message": "Info: ICID 123456789 close",
    "TimeStamp": "2017-06-18T01:34.56.000"
}

Summary

The following is a summary of the key-value pairs available for the DirectorySource source and the RecordParsers related to those key-value pairs.

Key Name RecordParser Notes
SourceType Required for all Must have the value DirectorySource
Directory Required for all
FileNameFilter Optional for all
RecordParser Required for all
TimestampField Optional for SingleLineJson
TimestampFormat Required for Timestamp, and required for SingleLineJson if TimestampField is specified
Pattern Required for Regex
ExtractionPattern Optional for Regex Required for Regex if sink specifies json or xml format
Delimiter Required for Delimited
HeaderPattern Optional for Delimited
Headers Optional for Delimited
RecordPattern Optional for Delimited
CommentPattern Optional for Delimited
TimeZoneKind Optional for Regex, Timestamp, SysLog, and SingleLineJson when a timestamp field is identified
SkipLines Optional for all

ExchangeLogSource Configuration

The ExchangeLogSource type is used to collect logs from Microsoft Exchange. Exchange produces logs in several different kinds of log formats. This source type parses all of them. Although it is possible to parse them using the DirectorySource type with the Regex record parser, it is much simpler to use the ExchangeLogSource. This is because you don't need to design and provide regular expressions for the log file formats. The following is an example ExchangeLogSource declaration: 

{
   "Id": "MyExchangeLog",
   "SourceType": "ExchangeLogSource",
   "Directory": "C:\\temp\\ExchangeLogTest",
   "FileNameFilter": "*.log"
}

All exchange declarations can provide the following key-value pairs:

SourceType

Must be the literal string "ExchangeLogSource" (required).

Directory

The path to the directory containing the log files (required).

FileNameFilter

Optionally limits the set of files in the directory where log data is collected based on a wildcard file-naming pattern. If this key-value pair is not specified, then by default, log data from all files in the directory is collected.

TimestampField

The name of the column containing the date and time for the record. This key-value pair is optional and need not be specified if the field name is date-time or DateTime. Otherwise, it is required.

W3SVCLogSource Configuration

The W3SVCLogSource type is used to collect logs from Internet Information Services (IIS) for Windows.

The following is an example W3SVCLogSource declaration: 

{
   "Id": "MyW3SVCLog",
   "SourceType": "W3SVCLogSource",
   "Directory": "C:\\inetpub\\logs\\LogFiles\\W3SVC1",
   "FileNameFilter": "*.log"
}

All W3SVCLogSource declarations can provide the following key-value pairs:

SourceType

Must be the literal string "W3SVCLogSource" (required).

Directory

The path to the directory containing the log files (required).

FileNameFilter

Optionally limits the set of files in the directory where log data is collected based on a wildcard file-naming pattern. If this key-value pair is not specified, then by default, log data from all files in the directory is collected.

UlsSource Configuration

The UlsSource type is used to collect logs from Microsoft SharePoint. The following is an example UlsSource declaration: 

{
    "Id": "UlsSource",
    "SourceType": "UlsSource",
    "Directory": "C:\\temp\\uls",
    "FileNameFilter": "*.log"
}

All UlsSource declarations can provide the following key-value pairs:

SourceType

Must be the literal string "UlsSource" (required).

Directory

The path to the directory containing the log files (required).

FileNameFilter

Optionally limits the set of files in the directory where log data is collected based on a wildcard file-naming pattern. If this key-value pair is not specified, then by default, log data from all files in the directory is collected.

WindowsEventLogSource Configuration

The WindowsEventLogSource type is used to collect events from the Windows Event Log service. The following is an example WindowsEventLogSource declaration: 

{
    "Id": "mySecurityLog",
    "SourceType": "WindowsEventLogSource",
    "LogName": "Security"
}

All WindowsEventLogSource declarations can provide the following key-value pairs:

SourceType

Must be the literal string "WindowsEventLogSource" (required).

LogName

Events are collected from the specified log. Common values include Application, Security, and System, but you can specify any valid Windows event log name. This key-value pair is required.

Query

Optionally limits what events are output from the WindowsEventLogSource. If this key-value pair is not specified, then by default, all events are output. For information about the syntax of this value, see Event Queries and Event XML in the Windows documentation. For information about log level definitions, see Event Types in the Windows documentation.

IncludeEventData

Optionally enables the collection and streaming of provider-specific event data associated with events from the specified Windows event log when the value of this key-value pair is "true". Only event data that can be successfully serialized is included. This key-value pair is optional, and if it is not specified, the provider-specific event data is not collected.

Note

Including event data could significantly increase the amount of data streamed from this source. The maximum size of an event can be 262,143 bytes with event data included.

The parsed output from the WindowsEventLogSource contains the following information:

Attribute Type Description
EventId Int The identifier of the type of event.
Description String Text that describes the details of the event.
LevelDisplayName String The category of event (one of Error, Warning, Information, Success Audit, Failure Audit).
LogName String Where the event was recorded (typical values are Application, Security, and System, but there are many possibilities).
MachineName String Which computer recorded the event.
ProviderName String Which application or service recorded the event.
TimeCreated String When the event occurred in ISO 8601 format.
Index Int Where the entry is located in the log.
UserName String Who made the entry if known.
Keywords String The type of event. Standard values include AuditFailure (failed security audit events), AuditSuccess (successful security audit events), Classic (events raised with the RaiseEvent function), Correlation Hint (transfer events), SQM (Service Quality Mechanism events), WDI Context (Windows Diagnostic Infrastructure context events), and WDI Diag (Windows Diagnostic Infrastructure diagnostics events).
EventData List of objects Optional provider-specific extra data about the log event. This is only included if the value for the IncludeEventData key-value pair is "true".

The following is an example event transformed into JSON:

{[ 
    "EventId": 7036, 
    "Description": "The Amazon SSM Agent service entered the stopped state.", 
    "LevelDisplayName": "Informational", 
    "LogName": "System", 
    "MachineName": "mymachine.mycompany.com", 
    "ProviderName": "Service Control Manager", 
    "TimeCreated": "2017-10-04T16:42:53.8921205Z", 
    "Index": 462335, 
    "UserName": null, 
    "Keywords": "Classic", 
    "EventData": [ 
    "Amazon SSM Agent", 
    "stopped", 
    "rPctBAMZFhYubF8zVLcrBd3bTTcNzHvY5Jc2Br0aMrxxx==" 
]}

WindowsEventLogPollingSource Configuration

WindowsEventLogPollingSource uses a polling-based mechanism to gather all new events from the event log that match the configured parameters. The polling interval is updated dynamically between 100 ms and 5000 ms depending on how many events were gathered during the last poll. The following is an example WindowsEventLogPollingSource declaration:

{
    "Id": "MySecurityLog",
    "SourceType": "WindowsEventLogPollingSource",
    "LogName": "Security",
    "IncludeEventData": "true",
    "Query": "",
    "CustomFilters": "ExcludeOwnSecurityEvents"
}

All WindowsEventLogPollingSource declarations can provide the following key-value pairs:

SourceType

Must be the literal string "WindowsEventLogPollingSource" (required).

LogName

Specifies the log. Valid options are Application, Security, System, or other valid logs.

IncludeEventData

Optional. When true, specifies that extra EventData when streamed as JSON and XML is included. Default is false.

Query

Optional. Windows event logs support querying events using XPath expressions, which you can specify using Query. For more information, see Event Queries and Event XML in Microsoft documentation.

CustomFilters

Optional. A list of filters separated by a semi-colon (;). The following filters can be specified.

ExcludeOwnSecurityEvents

Excludes security events generated by Kinesis Agent for Windows itself.

WindowsETWEventSource Configuration

The WindowsETWEventSource type is used to collect application and service event traces using a feature named Event Tracing for Windows (ETW). For more information, see Event Tracing in the Windows documentation.

The following is an example WindowsETWEventSource declaration:

{
    "Id": "ClrETWEventSource",
    "SourceType": "WindowsETWEventSource",
    "ProviderName": "Microsoft-Windows-DotNETRuntime",
    "TraceLevel": "Verbose",
    "MatchAnyKeyword": 32768
}

All WindowsETWEventSource declarations can provide the following key-value pairs:

SourceType

Must be the literal string "WindowsETWEventSource" (required).

ProviderName

Specifies which event provider to use to collect trace events. This must be a valid ETW provider name for an installed provider. To determine which providers are installed, execute the following in a Windows command prompt window:

logman query providers
TraceLevel

Specifies what categories of trace events should be collected. Allowed values include Critical, Error, Warning, Informational, and Verbose. The exact meaning depends on the ETW provider that is selected.

MatchAnyKeyword

This value is a 64-bit number, in which each bit represents an individual keyword. Each keyword describes a category of events to be collected. For the supported keywords and their values and how they related to TraceLevel, see the documentation for that provider. For example, for information about the CLR ETW provider, see CLR ETW Keywords and Levels in the Microsoft .NET Framework documentation.

In the previous example, 32768 (0x00008000) represents the ExceptionKeyword for the CLR ETW provider that instructs the provider to collect information about exceptions thrown. Although JSON doesn't natively support hex constants, you can specify them for MatchAnyKeyword by placing them in a string. You can also specify several constants separated by commas. For example, use the following to specify both the ExceptionKeyword and SecurityKeyword (0x00000400):

{
   "Id": "MyClrETWEventSource",
   "SourceType": "WindowsETWEventSource",
   "ProviderName": "Microsoft-Windows-DotNETRuntime",
   "TraceLevel": "Verbose",
   "MatchAnyKeyword": "0x00008000, 0x00000400"
}

To ensure that all specified keywords are enabled for a provider, multiple keyword values are combined using OR and passed to that provider.

The output from the WindowsETWEventSource contains the following information for each event:

Attribute Type Description
EventName String What kind of event occurred.
ProviderName String Which provider detected the event.
FormattedMessage String A textual summary of the event.
ProcessID Int Which process reported the event.
ExecutingThreadID Int Which thread within the process reported the event.
MachineName String The name of the desktop or server that is reporting the event.
Payload Hashtable A table with a string key and any kind of object as a value. The key is the payload item name, and the value is the payload item's value. The payload is provider dependent.

The following is an example event transformed into JSON:

{ 
     "EventName": "Exception/Start", 
     "ProviderName": "Microsoft-Windows-DotNETRuntime", 
     "FormattedMessage": "ExceptionType=System.Exception;\r\nExceptionMessage=Intentionally unhandled exception.;\r\nExceptionEIP=0x2ab0499;\r\nExceptionHRESULT=-2,146,233,088;\r\nExceptionFlags=CLSCompliant;\r\nClrInstanceID=9 ",
     "ProcessID": 3328, 
     "ExecutingThreadID": 6172, 
     "MachineName": "MyHost.MyCompany.com", 
     "Payload": 
      { 
        "ExceptionType": "System.Exception", 
        "ExceptionMessage": "Intentionally unhandled exception.", 
        "ExceptionEIP": 44762265, 
        "ExceptionHRESULT": -2146233088, 
        "ExceptionFlags": 16, 
        "ClrInstanceID": 9 
      } 
}

WindowsPerformanceCounterSource Configuration

The WindowsPerformanceCounterSource type collects performance counter metrics from Windows. The following is an example WindowsPerformanceCounterSource declaration: 

{
	"Id": "MyPerformanceCounter",
	"SourceType": "WindowsPerformanceCounterSource",
	"Categories": [{
			"Category": "Server",
			"Counters": ["Files Open", "Logon Total", "Logon/sec", "Pool Nonpaged Bytes"]
		},
		{
			"Category": "System",
			"Counters": ["Processes", "Processor Queue Length", "System Up Time"]
		},
		{
			"Category": "LogicalDisk",
			"Instances": "*",
			"Counters": [
				"% Free Space", "Avg. Disk Queue Length",
				{
					"Counter": "Disk Reads/sec",
					"Unit": "Count/Second"
				},
				"Disk Writes/sec"
			]
		},
		{
			"Category": "Network Adapter",
			"Instances": "^Local Area Connection\* \d$",
			"Counters": ["Bytes Received/sec", "Bytes Sent/sec"]
		}
	]
}

All WindowsPerformanceCounterSource declarations can provide the following key-value pairs:

SourceType

Must be the literal string "WindowsPerformanceCounterSource" (required).

Categories

Specifies a set of performance counter metric groups to gather from Windows. Each metric group contains the following key-value pairs:

Category

Specifies the counter set of metrics to be collected (required).

Instances

Specifies the set of objects of interest when there are a unique set of performance counters per object. For example, when the category is LogicalDisk, there are a set of performance counters per disk drive. This key-value pair is optional. You can use the wildcards * and ? to match multiple instances. To aggregate values across all instances, specify _Total.

You can also use InstanceRegex, which accepts regular expressions that contain the * wild card character as part of the instance name.

Counters

Specifies which metrics to gather for the specified category. This key-value pair is required. You can use the wildcards * and ? to match multiple counters. You can specify Counters using only the name, or by using the name and unit. If counter units are not specified, Kinesis Agent for Windows attempts to infer the units from the name. If those inferences are incorrect, then the unit can be explicitly specified. You can change Counter names if you want. The more complex representation of a counter is an object with the following key-value pairs:

Counter

The name of the counter. This key-value pair is required.

Rename

The name of the counter to present to the sink. This key-value pair is optional.

Unit

The meaning of the value that is associated with the counter. For a complete list of valid unit names, see the unit documentation in MetricDatum in the Amazon CloudWatch API Reference.

The following is an example of a complex counter specification:


{
   "Counter": "Disk Reads/sec, 
   "Rename": "Disk Reads per second",
   "Unit": "Count/Second"
}

WindowsPerformanceCounterSource can only be used with a pipe that specifies an Amazon CloudWatch sink. Use a separate sink if Kinesis Agent for Windows built-in metrics are also streamed to CloudWatch. Examine the Kinesis Agent for Windows log after service startup to determine what units have been inferred for counters when units have not been specified in the WindowsPerformanceCounterSource declarations. Use PowerShell to determine the valid names for categories, instances, and counters.

To see information about all categories, including counters associated with counter sets, execute this command in a PowerShell window:


    Get-Counter -ListSet * | Sort-Object

To determine what instances are available for each of the counters in the counter set, execute a command similar to the following example in a PowerShell window:


    Get-Counter -Counter "\Process(*)\% Processor Time"

The value of the Counter parameter should be one of the paths from a PathsWithInstances member listed by the previous Get-Counter -ListSet command invocation.

Kinesis Agent for Windows Built-In Metrics Source

In addition to ordinary metrics sources such as the WindowsPerformanceCounterSource type (see WindowsPerformanceCounterSource Configuration), the CloudWatch sink type can receive metrics from a special source that gathers metrics about Kinesis Agent for Windows itself. Kinesis Agent for Windows metrics are also available in the KinesisTap category of Windows performance counters.

The MetricsFilter key-value pair for the CloudWatch sink declarations specifies which metrics are streamed to CloudWatch from the built-in Kinesis Agent for Windows metrics source. The value is a string that contains one or more filter expressions separated by semicolons; for example:

"MetricsFilter": "FilterExpression1;FilterExpression2"

A metric that matches one or more filter expressions is streamed to CloudWatch.

Single instance metrics are global in nature and not tied to a particular source or sink. Multiple instance metrics are dimensional based on the source or sink declaration Id. Each source or sink type can have a different set of metrics.

For a list of built-in Kinesis Agent for Windows metric names, see List of Kinesis Agent for Windows Metrics.

For single instance metrics, the filter expression is the name of the metric; for example:


"MetricsFilter": "SourcesFailedToStart;SinksFailedToStart"

For multiple instance metrics, the filter expression is the name of the metric, a period (.), and then the Id of the source or sink declaration that generated that metric. For example, assuming there is a sink declaration with an Id of MyFirehose:


"MetricsFilter": "KinesisFirehoseRecordsFailedNonrecoverable.MyFirehose"

You can use special wildcard patterns that are designed to distinguish between single and multiple instance metrics.

  • Asterisk (*) matches zero or more characters except period (.).

  • Question mark (?) matches one character except period.

  • Any other character only matches itself.

  • _Total is a special token that causes the aggregation of all matching multiple instance values across the dimension.

The following example matches all single instance metrics:

"MetricsFilter": "*"

Because an asterisk does not match the period character, only single instance metrics are included.

The following example matches all multiple instance metrics:

"MetricsFilter": "*.*"

The following example matches all metrics (single and multiple):

"MetricsFilter": "*;*.*"

The following example aggregates all multiple instance metrics across all sources and sinks:

"MetricsFilter": "*._Total"

The following example aggregates all Firehose metrics for all Firehose sinks:

"MetricsFilter": "*Firehose*._Total"

The following example matches all single and multiple instance error metrics:

"MetricsFilter": "*Failed*;*Error*.*;*Failed*.*"

The following example matches all non-recoverable error metrics aggregated across all sources and sinks:

"MetricsFilter": "*Nonrecoverable*._Total"

For information about how to specify a pipe that uses the Kinesis Agent for Windows built-in metric source, see Configuring Kinesis Agent for Windows Metric Pipes.

List of Kinesis Agent for Windows Metrics

The following is a list of single instance and multiple instance metrics that are available for Kinesis Agent for Windows.

Single Instance Metrics

The following single instance metrics are available:

KinesisTapBuildNumber

The version number of Kinesis Agent for Windows.

PipesConnected

How many pipes have connected their source to their sink successfully.

PipesFailedToConnect

How many pipes have connected their source to their sink unsuccessfully.

SinkFactoriesFailedToLoad

How many sink types did not load into Kinesis Agent for Windows successfully.

SinkFactoriesLoaded

How many sink types loaded into Kinesis Agent for Windows successfully.

SinksFailedToStart

How many sinks did not begin successfully, usually due to incorrect sink declarations.

SinksStarted

How many sinks began successfully.

SourcesFailedToStart

How many sources did not begin successfully, usually due to incorrect source declarations.

SourcesStarted

How many sources began successfully.

SourceFactoriesFailedToLoad

How many source types did not load into Kinesis Agent for Windows successfully.

SourceFactoriesLoaded

How many source types loaded successfully into Kinesis Agent for Windows.

Multiple Instance Metrics

The following multiple instance metrics are available:

DirectorySource Metrics

DirectorySourceBytesRead

How many bytes were read during the interval for this DirectorySource.

DirectorySourceBytesToRead

How many known numbers of bytes are available to read that have not been read yet by Kinesis Agent for Windows.

DirectorySourceFilesToProcess

How many known files to examine that have not yet been examined yet by Kinesis Agent for Windows.

DirectorySourceRecordsRead

How many records have been read during the interval for this DirectorySource.

WindowsEventLogSource Metrics

EventLogSourceEventsError

How many Windows event log events were not read successfully.

EventLogSourceEventsRead

How many Windows event log events were read successfully.

KinesisFirehose Sink Metrics

KinesisFirehoseBytesAccepted

How many bytes were accepted during the interval.

KinesisFirehoseClientLatency

How much time passed between record generation and record streaming to the Firehose service.

KinesisFirehoseLatency

How much time passed between the start and end of record streaming for the Firehose service.

KinesisFirehoseNonrecoverableServiceErrors

How many times records could not be sent without error to the Firehose service despite retries.

KinesisFirehoseRecordsAttempted

How many records tried to be streamed to the Firehose service.

KinesisFirehoseRecordsFailedNonrecoverable

How many records were not successfully streamed to the Firehose service despite retries.

KinesisFirehoseRecordsFailedRecoverable

How many records were successfully streamed to the Firehose service, but only with retries.

KinesisFirehoseRecordsSuccess

How many records were successfully streamed to the Firehose service without retries.

KinesisFirehoseRecoverableServiceErrors

How many times records could successfully be sent to the Firehose service, but only with retries.

KinesisStream Metrics

KinesisStreamBytesAccepted

How many bytes were accepted during the interval.

KinesisStreamClientLatency

How much time passed between record generation and record streaming to the Kinesis Data Streams service.

KinesisStreamLatency

How much time passed between the start and end of record streaming for the Kinesis Data Streams service.

KinesisStreamNonrecoverableServiceErrors

How many times records could not be sent without error to the Kinesis Data Streams service despite retries.

KinesisStreamRecordsAttempted

How many records tried to be streamed to the Kinesis Data Streams service.

KinesisStreamRecordsFailedNonrecoverable

How many records were not successfully streamed to the Kinesis Data Streams service despite retries.

KinesisStreamRecordsFailedRecoverable

How many records were successfully streamed to the Kinesis Data Streams service, but only with retries.

KinesisStreamRecordsSuccess

How many records were successfully streamed to the Kinesis Data Streams service without retries.

KinesisStreamRecoverableServiceErrors

How many times records could successfully be sent to the Kinesis Data Streams service, but only with retries.

CloudWatchLog Metrics

CloudWatchLogBytesAccepted

How many bytes were accepted during the interval.

CloudWatchLogClientLatency

How much time passed between record generation and record streaming to the CloudWatch Logs service.

CloudWatchLogLatency

How much time passed between the start and end of record streaming for the CloudWatch Logs service.

CloudWatchLogNonrecoverableServiceErrors

How many times records could not be sent without error to the CloudWatch Logs service despite retries.

CloudWatchLogRecordsAttempted

How many records tried to be streamed to the CloudWatch Logs service.

CloudWatchLogRecordsFailedNonrecoverable

How many records were not successfully streamed to the CloudWatch Logs service despite retries.

CloudWatchLogRecordsFailedRecoverable

How many records were successfully streamed to the CloudWatch Logs service, but only with retries.

CloudWatchLogRecordsSuccess

How many records were successfully streamed to the CloudWatch Logs service without retries.

CloudWatchLogRecoverableServiceErrors

How many times records could successfully be sent to the CloudWatch Logs service, but only with retries.

CloudWatch Metrics

CloudWatchLatency

How much time on average passed between the start and end of metric streaming for the CloudWatch service.

CloudWatchNonrecoverableServiceErrors

How many times metrics could not be sent without error to the CloudWatch service despite retries.

CloudWatchRecoverableServiceErrors

How many times metrics were sent without error to the CloudWatch service but only with retries.

CloudWatchServiceSuccess

How many times metrics were sent without error to the CloudWatch service with no retries needed.

Bookmark Configuration

By default, Kinesis Agent for Windows sends log records to sinks that are created after the agent starts. Sometimes it is useful to send earlier log records, for example, log records that are created during the time period when Kinesis Agent for Windows stops during an automatic update. The bookmark feature tracks what records have been sent to sinks. When Kinesis Agent for Windows is in bookmark mode and starts up, it sends all log records that were created after Kinesis Agent for Windows stopped, along with any subsequently created log records. To control this behavior, file-based source declarations can optionally include the following key-value pairs:

InitialPosition

Specifies the initial situation for the bookmark. Possible values are as follows:

EOS

Specifies end of stream (EOS). Only log records created while the agent is running are sent to sinks.

0

All available log records and events are initially sent. Then a bookmark is created to ensure that every new log record and event created after the bookmark was created are eventually sent, whether or not Kinesis Agent for Windows is running.

Bookmark

The bookmark is initialized to just after the latest log record or event. Then a bookmark is created to ensure that every new log record and event created after the bookmark was created are eventually sent, whether or not Kinesis Agent for Windows is running.

Bookmarks are enabled by default. Files are stored in the %ProgramData%\Amazon\KinesisTap directory.

Timestamp

Log records and events that are created after the InitialPositionTimestamp value (definition follows) are sent. Then a bookmark is created to ensure that every new log record and event created after the bookmark was created are eventually sent whether or not Kinesis Agent for Windows is running.

InitialPositionTimestamp

Specifies the earliest log record or event timestamp that you want. Specify this key-value pair only when InitialPosition has a value of Timestamp.

BookmarkOnBufferFlush

This setting can be added to any bookmarkable source. When set to true, ensures that bookmark updates occur only when a sink successfully ships an event to AWS. You can only subscribe a single sink to a source. If you are shipping logs to multiple destinations, duplicate your sources to avoid potential issues with data loss.

When Kinesis Agent for Windows has been stopped for a long time, it might be necessary to delete those bookmarks because log records and events that are bookmarked might no longer exist. Bookmark files for a given source id are located in %PROGRAMDATA%\Amazon\AWSKinesisTap\source id.bm.

Bookmarks do not work on files that are renamed or truncated. Because of the nature of ETW events and performance counters, they cannot be bookmarked.