loggen - Generate syslog messages at a specified rate

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

       NOTE: The loggen application is distributed with the syslog-ng system logging application, and is usually
       part of the syslog-ng package. The latest version of the syslog-ng application is available at theofficialsyslog-ngwebsite[1].

       This manual page is only an abstract, for the complete documentation of syslog-ng, see Thesyslog-ngAdministratorGuide[2].

       The loggen application is tool to test and stress-test your syslog server and the connection to the
       server. It can send syslog messages to the server at a specified rate, using a number of connection types
       and protocols, including TCP, UDP, and unix domain sockets. The messages can be generated automatically
       (repeating the PADDstring over and over), or read from a file or the standard input.

       When loggen finishes sending the messages, it displays the following statistics:

       •   averagerate: Average rate the messages were sent in messages/second.

       •   count: The total number of messages sent.

       •   time: The time required to send the messages in seconds.

       •   averagemessagesize: The average size of the sent messages in bytes.

       •   bandwidth: The average bandwidth used for sending the messages in kilobytes/second.

       The following command generates 100 messages per second for ten minutes, and sends them to port 2010 of
       the localhost via TCP. Each message is 300 bytes long.

           loggen --stream --size 300 --rate 100 --interval 600 127.0.0.1 2010

       The following command is similar to the one above, but uses the UDP protocol.

           loggen --inet --dgram --size 300 --rate 100 --interval 600 127.0.0.1 2010

       Send a single message on TCP6 to the ::1 IPv6 address, port 1061:

           loggen --ipv6 --number 1 ::1 1061

       Send a single message on UDP6 to the ::1 IPv6 address, port 1061:

           loggen --ipv6 --dgram --number 1 ::1 1061

       Send a single message using a unix domain-socket:

           loggen --unix --stream --number 1 </path/to/socket>

       Read messages from the standard input (stdio) and send them to the localhost:

           loggen 127.0.0.1 1061 --read-file -

       /usr/bin/loggen

       loggen - Generate syslog messages at a specified rate

        1. the official syslog-ng website
           https://www.balabit.com/log-management

        2. The syslog-ng Administrator Guide
           https://www.syslog-ng.com/technical-documents/doc/syslog-ng-open-source-edition/3.37/administration-guide

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

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

4.8                                                03/16/2025                                          LOGGEN(1)

--active-connections<number-of-connections>
           Number of connections loggen will use to send messages to the destination. This option is usable only
           when using TCP or TLS connections to the destination. Default value: 1

           The loggen utility waits until every connection is established before starting to send messages. See
           also the --idle-connections option.

       --csv or -C
           Send the statistics of the sent messages to stdout as CSV. This can be used for plotting the message
           rate.

       --dgram or -D
           Use datagram socket (UDP or unix-dgram) to send the messages to the target. Requires the --inet
           option as well.

       --dont-parse or -d
           Do not parse the lines read from the input files, send them as received.

       --help or -h
           Display a brief help message.

       --idle-connections<number-of-connections>
           Number of idle connections loggen will establish to the destination. Note that loggen will not send
           any messages on idle connections, but the connection is kept open using keep-alive messages. This
           option is usable only when using TCP or TLS connections to the destination. See also the
           --active-connections option. Default value: 0

       --inet or -i
           Use the TCP (by default) or UDP (when used together with the --dgram option) protocol to send the
           messages to the target.

       --interval<seconds> or -I<seconds>
           The number of seconds loggen will run. Default value: 10

               Note
               Note that when the --interval and --number are used together, loggen will send messages until the
               period set in --interval expires or the amount of messages set in --number is reached, whichever
               happens first.

       --ipv6 or -6
           Specify the destination using its IPv6 address. Note that the destination must have a real IPv6
           address.

       --loop-reading or -l
           Read the file specified in --read-file option in loop: loggen will start reading from the beginning
           of the file when it reaches the end of the file.

       --number<number-of-messages> or -n<number-of-messages>
           Number of messages to generate.

               Note
               Note that when the --interval and --number are used together, loggen will send messages until the
               period set in --interval expires or the amount of messages set in --number is reached, whichever
               happens first.

       --no-framing or -F
           Do not use the framing of the IETF-syslog protocol style, even if the syslog-proto option is set.

       --quiet or -Q
           Output statistics only when the execution of loggen is finished. If not set, the statistics are
           displayed every second.

       --permanent or -T
           Keep sending logs indefinitely, without time limit.

       --rate<message/second> or -r<message/second>
           The number of messages generated per second for every active connection. Default value: 1000

       --read-file<filename> or -R<filename>
           Read the messages from a file and send them to the target. See also the --skip-tokens option.

           Specify - as the input file to read messages from the standard input (stdio). Note that when reading
           messages from the standard input, loggen can only use a single thread. The -R- parameters must be
           placed at end of command, like: loggen127.0.0.11061--read-file---sdata<data-to-send> or -p<data-to-send>
           Send the argument of the --sdata option as the SDATA part of IETF-syslog (RFC5424 formatted)
           messages. Use it together with the --syslog-proto option. For example: --sdata"[testname=\"value\"]--size<message-size> or -s<message-size>
           The size of a syslog message in bytes. Default value: 256. Minimum value: 127 bytes, maximum value:
           8192 bytes.

       --skip-tokens<number>
           Skips the specified number of space-separated tokens (words) at the beginning of every line. For
           example, if the messages in the file look like foobarmessage, --skip-tokens2 skips the foobar
           part of the line, and sends only the message part. Works only when used together with the --read-file
           parameter. Default value: 0

       --stream or -S
           Use a stream socket (TCP or unix-stream) to send the messages to the target.

       --syslog-proto or -P
           Use the new IETF-syslog message format as specified in RFC5424. By default, loggen uses the legacy
           BSD-syslog message format (as described in RFC3164). See also the --no-framing option.

       --unix</path/to/socket> or -x</path/to/socket>
           Use a UNIX domain socket to send the messages to the target.

       --use-ssl or -U
           Use an SSL-encrypted channel to send the messages to the target. Note that it is not possible to
           check the certificate of the target, or to perform mutual authentication.

       --version or -V
           Display version number of syslog-ng.

syslog-ng.conf(5)

           Note

           For the detailed documentation of see The4.8AdministratorGuide[2]

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

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

loggen [options]target [port]