Writing to Amazon Data Firehose Using Kinesis Agent - Amazon Data Firehose

Amazon Data Firehose was previously known as Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose

Writing to Amazon Data Firehose Using Kinesis Agent

Amazon Kinesis agent is a standalone Java software application that serves as a reference implementation to show how you can collect and send data to Firehose. The agent continuously monitors a set of files and sends new data to your Firehose delivery stream. The agent shows how you can handle file rotation, checkpointing, and retry upon failures. It shows how you can deliver your data in a reliable, timely, and simple manner. It also shows how you can emit CloudWatch metrics to better monitor and troubleshoot the streaming process. To learn more, awslabs/amazon-kinesis-agent.

By default, records are parsed from each file based on the newline ('\n') character. However, the agent can also be configured to parse multi-line records (see Agent Configuration Settings).

You can install the agent on Linux-based server environments such as web servers, log servers, and database servers. After installing the agent, configure it by specifying the files to monitor and the Firehose stream for the data. After the agent is configured, it durably collects data from the files and reliably sends it to the Firehose stream.

Prerequisites

Credentials

Manage your AWS credentials using one of the following methods:

  • Create a custom credentials provider. For details, see Custom Credential Providers.

  • Specify an IAM role when you launch your EC2 instance.

  • Specify AWS credentials when you configure the agent (see the entries for awsAccessKeyId and awsSecretAccessKey in the configuration table under Agent Configuration Settings).

  • Edit /etc/sysconfig/aws-kinesis-agent to specify your AWS Region and AWS access keys.

  • If your EC2 instance is in a different AWS account, create an IAM role to provide access to the Amazon Data Firehose service. Specify that role when you configure the agent (see assumeRoleARN and assumeRoleExternalId). Use one of the previous methods to specify the AWS credentials of a user in the other account who has permission to assume this role.

Custom Credential Providers

You can create a custom credentials provider and give its class name and jar path to the Kinesis agent in the following configuration settings: userDefinedCredentialsProvider.classname and userDefinedCredentialsProvider.location. For the descriptions of these two configuration settings, see Agent Configuration Settings.

To create a custom credentials provider, define a class that implements the AWSCredentialsProvider interface, like the one in the following example.

import com.amazonaws.auth.AWSCredentials; import com.amazonaws.auth.AWSCredentialsProvider; import com.amazonaws.auth.BasicAWSCredentials; public class YourClassName implements AWSCredentialsProvider { public YourClassName() { } public AWSCredentials getCredentials() { return new BasicAWSCredentials("key1", "key2"); } public void refresh() { } }

Your class must have a constructor that takes no arguments.

AWS invokes the refresh method periodically to get updated credentials. If you want your credentials provider to provide different credentials throughout its lifetime, include code to refresh the credentials in this method. Alternatively, you can leave this method empty if you want a credentials provider that vends static (non-changing) credentials.

Download and Install the Agent

First, connect to your instance. For more information, see Connect to Your Instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances. If you have trouble connecting, see Troubleshooting Connecting to Your Instance in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances.

Next, install the agent using one of the following methods.

  • To set up the agent from the Amazon Linux repositories

    This method works only for Amazon Linux instances. Use the following command:

    sudo yum install –y aws-kinesis-agent

    Agent v 2.0.0 or later is installed on computers with operating system Amazon Linux 2 (AL2). This agent version requires Java 1.8 or later. If required Java version is not yet present, the agent installation process installs it. For more information regarding Amazon Linux 2 see https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-linux-2/.

  • To set up the agent from the Amazon S3 repository

    This method works for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, as well as Amazon Linux 2 instances because it installs the agent from the publicly available repository. Use the following command to download and install the latest version of the agent version 2.x.x:

    sudo yum install –y https://s3.amazonaws.com/streaming-data-agent/aws-kinesis-agent-latest.amzn2.noarch.rpm

    To install a specific version of the agent, specify the version number in the command. For example, the following command installs agent v 2.0.1.

    sudo yum install –y https://streaming-data-agent.s3.amazonaws.com/aws-kinesis-agent-2.0.1-1.amzn1.noarch.rpm

    If you have Java 1.7 and you don’t want to upgrade it, you can download agent version 1.x.x, which is compatible with Java 1.7. For example, to download agent v1.1.6, you can use the following command:

    sudo yum install –y https://s3.amazonaws.com/streaming-data-agent/aws-kinesis-agent-1.1.6-1.amzn1.noarch.rpm

    The latest agent v1.x.x can be downloaded using the following command:

    sudo yum install –y https://s3.amazonaws.com/streaming-data-agent/aws-kinesis-agent-latest.amzn1.noarch.rpm
  • To set up the agent from the GitHub repo

    1. First, make sure that you have required Java version installed, depending on agent version.

    2. Download the agent from the awslabs/amazon-kinesis-agent GitHub repo.

    3. Install the agent by navigating to the download directory and running the following command:

      sudo ./setup --install
  • To set up the agent in a Docker container

    Kinesis Agent can be run in a container as well via the amazonlinux container base. Use the following Dockerfile and then run docker build.

    FROM amazonlinux RUN yum install -y aws-kinesis-agent which findutils COPY agent.json /etc/aws-kinesis/agent.json CMD ["start-aws-kinesis-agent"]

Configure and Start the Agent

To configure and start the agent
  1. Open and edit the configuration file (as superuser if using default file access permissions): /etc/aws-kinesis/agent.json

    In this configuration file, specify the files ( "filePattern" ) from which the agent collects data, and the name of the Firehose stream ( "deliveryStream" ) to which the agent sends data. The file name is a pattern, and the agent recognizes file rotations. You can rotate files or create new files no more than once per second. The agent uses the file creation time stamp to determine which files to track and tail into your Firehose stream. Creating new files or rotating files more frequently than once per second does not allow the agent to differentiate properly between them.

    { "flows": [ { "filePattern": "/tmp/app.log*", "deliveryStream": "yourdeliverystream" } ] }

    The default AWS Region is us-east-1. If you are using a different Region, add the firehose.endpoint setting to the configuration file, specifying the endpoint for your Region. For more information, see Agent Configuration Settings.

  2. Start the agent manually:

    sudo service aws-kinesis-agent start
  3. (Optional) Configure the agent to start on system startup:

    sudo chkconfig aws-kinesis-agent on

The agent is now running as a system service in the background. It continuously monitors the specified files and sends data to the specified Firehose stream. Agent activity is logged in /var/log/aws-kinesis-agent/aws-kinesis-agent.log.

Agent Configuration Settings

The agent supports two mandatory configuration settings, filePattern and deliveryStream, plus optional configuration settings for additional features. You can specify both mandatory and optional configuration settings in /etc/aws-kinesis/agent.json.

Whenever you change the configuration file, you must stop and start the agent, using the following commands:

sudo service aws-kinesis-agent stop sudo service aws-kinesis-agent start

Alternatively, you could use the following command:

sudo service aws-kinesis-agent restart

The following are the general configuration settings.

Configuration Setting Description
assumeRoleARN

The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the role to be assumed by the user. For more information, see Delegate Access Across AWS Accounts Using IAM Roles in the IAM User Guide.

assumeRoleExternalId

An optional identifier that determines who can assume the role. For more information, see How to Use an External ID in the IAM User Guide.

awsAccessKeyId

AWS access key ID that overrides the default credentials. This setting takes precedence over all other credential providers.

awsSecretAccessKey

AWS secret key that overrides the default credentials. This setting takes precedence over all other credential providers.

cloudwatch.emitMetrics

Enables the agent to emit metrics to CloudWatch if set (true).

Default: true

cloudwatch.endpoint

The regional endpoint for CloudWatch.

Default: monitoring.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

firehose.endpoint

The regional endpoint for Amazon Data Firehose.

Default: firehose.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

sts.endpoint

The regional endpoint for the AWS Security Token Service.

Default: https://sts.amazonaws.com

userDefinedCredentialsProvider.classname If you define a custom credentials provider, provide its fully-qualified class name using this setting. Don't include .class at the end of the class name.
userDefinedCredentialsProvider.location If you define a custom credentials provider, use this setting to specify the absolute path of the jar that contains the custom credentials provider. The agent also looks for the jar file in the following location: /usr/share/aws-kinesis-agent/lib/.

The following are the flow configuration settings.

Configuration Setting Description
aggregatedRecordSizeBytes

To make the agent aggregate records and then put them to the Firehose stream in one operation, specify this setting. Set it to the size that you want the aggregate record to have before the agent puts it to the Firehose stream.

Default: 0 (no aggregation)

dataProcessingOptions

The list of processing options applied to each parsed record before it is sent to the Firehose stream. The processing options are performed in the specified order. For more information, see Use the agent to Preprocess Data.

deliveryStream

[Required] The name of the Firehose stream.

filePattern

[Required] A glob for the files that need to be monitored by the agent. Any file that matches this pattern is picked up by the agent automatically and monitored. For all files matching this pattern, grant read permission to aws-kinesis-agent-user. For the directory containing the files, grant read and execute permissions to aws-kinesis-agent-user.

Important

The agent picks up any file that matches this pattern. To ensure that the agent doesn't pick up unintended records, choose this pattern carefully.

initialPosition

The initial position from which the file started to be parsed. Valid values are START_OF_FILE and END_OF_FILE.

Default: END_OF_FILE

maxBufferAgeMillis

The maximum time, in milliseconds, for which the agent buffers data before sending it to the Firehose stream.

Value range: 1,000–900,000 (1 second to 15 minutes)

Default: 60,000 (1 minute)

maxBufferSizeBytes

The maximum size, in bytes, for which the agent buffers data before sending it to the Firehose stream.

Value range: 1–4,194,304 (4 MB)

Default: 4,194,304 (4 MB)

maxBufferSizeRecords

The maximum number of records for which the agent buffers data before sending it to the Firehose stream.

Value range: 1–500

Default: 500

minTimeBetweenFilePollsMillis

The time interval, in milliseconds, at which the agent polls and parses the monitored files for new data.

Value range: 1 or more

Default: 100

multiLineStartPattern

The pattern for identifying the start of a record. A record is made of a line that matches the pattern and any following lines that don't match the pattern. The valid values are regular expressions. By default, each new line in the log files is parsed as one record.

skipHeaderLines

The number of lines for the agent to skip parsing at the beginning of monitored files.

Value range: 0 or more

Default: 0 (zero)

truncatedRecordTerminator

The string that the agent uses to truncate a parsed record when the record size exceeds the Amazon Data Firehose record size limit. (1,000 KB)

Default: '\n' (newline)

Monitor Multiple File Directories and Write to Multiple Streams

By specifying multiple flow configuration settings, you can configure the agent to monitor multiple file directories and send data to multiple streams. In the following configuration example, the agent monitors two file directories and sends data to a Kinesis data stream and a Firehose stream respectively. You can specify different endpoints for Kinesis Data Streams and Amazon Data Firehose so that your data stream and Firehose stream don’t need to be in the same Region.

{ "cloudwatch.emitMetrics": true, "kinesis.endpoint": "https://your/kinesis/endpoint", "firehose.endpoint": "https://your/firehose/endpoint", "flows": [ { "filePattern": "/tmp/app1.log*", "kinesisStream": "yourkinesisstream" }, { "filePattern": "/tmp/app2.log*", "deliveryStream": "yourfirehosedeliverystream" } ] }

For more detailed information about using the agent with Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, see Writing to Amazon Kinesis Data Streams with Kinesis Agent.

Use the agent to Preprocess Data

The agent can pre-process the records parsed from monitored files before sending them to your Firehose stream. You can enable this feature by adding the dataProcessingOptions configuration setting to your file flow. One or more processing options can be added, and they are performed in the specified order.

The agent supports the following processing options. Because the agent is open source, you can further develop and extend its processing options. You can download the agent from Kinesis Agent.

Processing Options
SINGLELINE

Converts a multi-line record to a single-line record by removing newline characters, leading spaces, and trailing spaces.

{ "optionName": "SINGLELINE" }
CSVTOJSON

Converts a record from delimiter-separated format to JSON format.

{ "optionName": "CSVTOJSON", "customFieldNames": [ "field1", "field2", ... ], "delimiter": "yourdelimiter" }
customFieldNames

[Required] The field names used as keys in each JSON key value pair. For example, if you specify ["f1", "f2"], the record "v1, v2" is converted to {"f1":"v1","f2":"v2"}.

delimiter

The string used as the delimiter in the record. The default is a comma (,).

LOGTOJSON

Converts a record from a log format to JSON format. The supported log formats are Apache Common Log, Apache Combined Log, Apache Error Log, and RFC3164 Syslog.

{ "optionName": "LOGTOJSON", "logFormat": "logformat", "matchPattern": "yourregexpattern", "customFieldNames": [ "field1", "field2", ] }
logFormat

[Required] The log entry format. The following are possible values:

  • COMMONAPACHELOG — The Apache Common Log format. Each log entry has the following pattern by default: "%{host} %{ident} %{authuser} [%{datetime}] \"%{request}\" %{response} %{bytes}".

  • COMBINEDAPACHELOG — The Apache Combined Log format. Each log entry has the following pattern by default: "%{host} %{ident} %{authuser} [%{datetime}] \"%{request}\" %{response} %{bytes} %{referrer} %{agent}".

  • APACHEERRORLOG — The Apache Error Log format. Each log entry has the following pattern by default: "[%{timestamp}] [%{module}:%{severity}] [pid %{processid}:tid %{threadid}] [client: %{client}] %{message}".

  • SYSLOG — The RFC3164 Syslog format. Each log entry has the following pattern by default: "%{timestamp} %{hostname} %{program}[%{processid}]: %{message}".

matchPattern

Overrides the default pattern for the specified log format. Use this setting to extract values from log entries if they use a custom format. If you specify matchPattern, you must also specify customFieldNames.

customFieldNames

The custom field names used as keys in each JSON key value pair. You can use this setting to define field names for values extracted from matchPattern, or override the default field names of predefined log formats.

Example : LOGTOJSON Configuration

Here is one example of a LOGTOJSON configuration for an Apache Common Log entry converted to JSON format:

{ "optionName": "LOGTOJSON", "logFormat": "COMMONAPACHELOG" }

Before conversion:

64.242.88.10 - - [07/Mar/2004:16:10:02 -0800] "GET /mailman/listinfo/hsdivision HTTP/1.1" 200 6291

After conversion:

{"host":"64.242.88.10","ident":null,"authuser":null,"datetime":"07/Mar/2004:16:10:02 -0800","request":"GET /mailman/listinfo/hsdivision HTTP/1.1","response":"200","bytes":"6291"}
Example : LOGTOJSON Configuration With Custom Fields

Here is another example LOGTOJSON configuration:

{ "optionName": "LOGTOJSON", "logFormat": "COMMONAPACHELOG", "customFieldNames": ["f1", "f2", "f3", "f4", "f5", "f6", "f7"] }

With this configuration setting, the same Apache Common Log entry from the previous example is converted to JSON format as follows:

{"f1":"64.242.88.10","f2":null,"f3":null,"f4":"07/Mar/2004:16:10:02 -0800","f5":"GET /mailman/listinfo/hsdivision HTTP/1.1","f6":"200","f7":"6291"}
Example : Convert Apache Common Log Entry

The following flow configuration converts an Apache Common Log entry to a single-line record in JSON format:

{ "flows": [ { "filePattern": "/tmp/app.log*", "deliveryStream": "my-delivery-stream", "dataProcessingOptions": [ { "optionName": "LOGTOJSON", "logFormat": "COMMONAPACHELOG" } ] } ] }
Example : Convert Multi-Line Records

The following flow configuration parses multi-line records whose first line starts with "[SEQUENCE=". Each record is first converted to a single-line record. Then, values are extracted from the record based on a tab delimiter. Extracted values are mapped to specified customFieldNames values to form a single-line record in JSON format.

{ "flows": [ { "filePattern": "/tmp/app.log*", "deliveryStream": "my-delivery-stream", "multiLineStartPattern": "\\[SEQUENCE=", "dataProcessingOptions": [ { "optionName": "SINGLELINE" }, { "optionName": "CSVTOJSON", "customFieldNames": [ "field1", "field2", "field3" ], "delimiter": "\\t" } ] } ] }
Example : LOGTOJSON Configuration with Match Pattern

Here is one example of a LOGTOJSON configuration for an Apache Common Log entry converted to JSON format, with the last field (bytes) omitted:

{ "optionName": "LOGTOJSON", "logFormat": "COMMONAPACHELOG", "matchPattern": "^([\\d.]+) (\\S+) (\\S+) \\[([\\w:/]+\\s[+\\-]\\d{4})\\] \"(.+?)\" (\\d{3})", "customFieldNames": ["host", "ident", "authuser", "datetime", "request", "response"] }

Before conversion:

123.45.67.89 - - [27/Oct/2000:09:27:09 -0400] "GET /java/javaResources.html HTTP/1.0" 200

After conversion:

{"host":"123.45.67.89","ident":null,"authuser":null,"datetime":"27/Oct/2000:09:27:09 -0400","request":"GET /java/javaResources.html HTTP/1.0","response":"200"}

Agent CLI Commands

Automatically start the agent on system startup:

sudo chkconfig aws-kinesis-agent on

Check the status of the agent:

sudo service aws-kinesis-agent status

Stop the agent:

sudo service aws-kinesis-agent stop

Read the agent's log file from this location:

/var/log/aws-kinesis-agent/aws-kinesis-agent.log

Uninstall the agent:

sudo yum remove aws-kinesis-agent

FAQ

Is there a Kinesis Agent for Windows?

Kinesis Agent for Windows is different software than Kinesis Agent for Linux platforms.

Why is Kinesis Agent slowing down and/or RecordSendErrors increasing?

This is usually due to throttling from Kinesis. Check the WriteProvisionedThroughputExceeded metric for Kinesis Data Streams or the ThrottledRecords metric for Firehose streams. Any increase from 0 in these metrics indicates that the stream limits need to be increased. For more information, see Kinesis Data Stream limits and Firehose streams.

Once you rule out throttling, see if the Kinesis Agent is configured to tail a large amount of small files. There is a delay when Kinesis Agent tails a new file, so Kinesis Agent should be tailing a small amount of larger files. Try consolidating your log files into larger files.

Why am I getting java.lang.OutOfMemoryError exceptions?

Kinesis Agent does not have enough memory to handle its current workload. Try increasing JAVA_START_HEAP and JAVA_MAX_HEAP in /usr/bin/start-aws-kinesis-agent and restarting the agent.

Why am I getting IllegalStateException : connection pool shut down exceptions?

Kinesis Agent does not have enough connections to handle its current workload. Try increasing maxConnections and maxSendingThreads in your general agent configuration settings at /etc/aws-kinesis/agent.json. The default value for these fields is 12 times the runtime processors available. See AgentConfiguration.java for more about advanced agent configurations settings.

How can I debug another issue with Kinesis Agent?

DEBUG level logs can be enabled in /etc/aws-kinesis/log4j.xml .

How should I configure Kinesis Agent?

The smaller the maxBufferSizeBytes, the more frequently Kinesis Agent will send data. This can be good as it decreases delivery time of records, but it also increases the requests per second to Kinesis.

Why is Kinesis Agent sending duplicate records?

This occurs due to a misconfiguration in file tailing. Make sure that each fileFlow’s filePattern is only matching one file. This can also occur if the logrotate mode being used is in copytruncate mode. Try changing the mode to the default or create mode to avoid duplication. For more information on handling duplicate records, see Handling Duplicate Records.