Python Logging Azure Workspace OMS Extension

This package provides an asynchronous solution for uploading application logs to an Azure Log Workspace using their provided REST API, all supplied as a handler and service extension for python builtin logging module.

The service works by instantiating an always-alive (non-daemonized) thread connected to a log request pool in which logs will be queued, then periodically running through the pool in order to send the requests asynchronously in bulk using the grequests package. This is all to intend logging safely without interrupting or slowing down the main process execution as transparently as possible.

Installation

For installing via the distributed package via PyPi:

$ pip install logging-azure

Or if you which to install from the source, you can checkout the git repository and install using setuptools:

$ python setup.py install

Special conditions

Installing GEvent

If you require using this package within a docker distributed application image for example, you will be required to have an available compiler and necessary libraries in order to build cython and gevent needed for grequests to run.

If using an Alpine image for example, this can be accomplished with the following:

FROM python:3.7.4-alpine3.9

# Install required dependencies for building like git etc.
RUN apk add --virtual .build-dep build-base [...]

# Install the python package
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir logging-azure

# Cleanup no-longer required dependencies for a lighter image
RUN apk del .build-dep

GEvent monkey patching ssl

As this package leverages the grequests package, which itself uses gevent, in several cases, like running in a debug Flask server, you may need to monkey patch gevent for things to work correctly.

For this you just need to run the following as early as possible within your application:

from gevent import monkey

monkey.patch_all()

Usually, you are warned by gevent itself when running your application if this is needed or not done early enough, so it shouldn't be hard to miss.

Usage

Package Configuration

The following environment variables are read to configure the extension and are required:

• AZURE_LOG_CUSTOMER_ID: Customer ID for the Azure Log Workspace
• AZURE_LOG_SHARED_KEY: Customer shared key for the Azure Log Workspace
• AZURE_LOG_DEFAULT_NAME: The default "log type" name to indicate where the logs are stored. This will be suffixed with "_CL" within the Azure Log Workspace.

The following environment variables are read to tweak some parameters of the extension, they all have default values and therefore are optional:

• AZURE_LOG_MAX_CONCURRENT_REQUESTS: Default: 10 The maximum number of asyncronous requests to handle at once. Used by grequests
• AZURE_LOG_SEND_FREQUENCY: Default: 5 How many seconds the service thread should wait before sending pooled logs.

Logging Configuration

As you would any other handler, you only require to define a handler using the logging_azure.handler.AzureLogServiceHandler class:

[...]
    "handlers": {
        "console": {"level": logging.DEBUG, "class": "logging.StreamHandler", "formatter": "colorize"},
        "azure_log_oms": {
            "level": logging.INFO, "class": "logging_azure.handler.AzureLogServiceHandler", "formatter": "azure"
        },
        "default": {"level": logging.INFO, "class": "logging.StreamHandler", "formatter": "default"},
    },
[...]

Then add the handler to your selected logger instance:

[...]
    "loggers": {
        LOGGER_NAME: {
            "handlers": ["console"] if IS_LOCAL_DEV_INSTANCE else ["default", "azure_log_oms"],
            "level": LOG_LEVEL,
            "propagate": True,
        }
    },
[...]

Recommendations

Set an appropriate log level minimum

In order to prevent additional cost from Azure Log OMS ingestion for talkative applications, it is recommended to set an adequate LOG_LEVEL for your application (avoid logging.DEBUG for example).

It is also recommended to configure your loggers appropriately so the AzureLogServiveHandler isn't used during local development or CI environments for example.

You are warned.

Set a clear formatter for messages

This package supplies a decent amount of information already to complement the message in a clean way by reading the log record in order to facilitate Azure Log OMS Queries and ingestion, so you may only require using a specific formatter that will only format the message itself as follows:

[...]
    "formatters": {
        "default": {
            "format": '[%(asctime)s] %(levelname)s %(name)s %(module)s "%(message)s"',
            "datefmt": "%d/%b/%Y %H:%M:%S",
        },
        "azure": {
            "format": '%(message)s',
        },
[...]

This provides the following output within the Azure Portal for example:

This allows for easily creating custom queries and alerts for your application directly from the Azure Log OMS solution.

Useful links

• Create a Log Analytics workspace in the Azure portal
• Create a Log Analytics workspace with Azure CLI 2.0
• Manage access to log data and workspaces in Azure Monitor
• Azure Monitor pricing

Package requirements

• grequests
• gevent
• cython
• injector