Bunyan is a simple and fast JSON logging library for node.js services:
var bunyan = require('bunyan');
var log = bunyan.createLogger({name: "myapp"});
log.info("hi");
and a
bunyan
CLI tool for nicely viewing those logs:Manifesto: Server logs should be structured. JSON's a good format. Let's do that. A log record is one line of
JSON.stringify
'd output. Let's also
specify some common names for the requisite and common fields for a log
record (see below).Table of Contents
Constructor API Log Method API CLI Usage Streams Introduction log.child Serializers
+ [Requirements for serializers functions](#requirements-for-serializers-functions)
+ [Standard Serializers](#standard-serializers)
src
Level suggestions
Core fields
Recommended/Best Practice Fields
Other fields to consider
Adding a Stream
stream errors
stream type: stream
stream type: file
stream type: rotating-file
stream type: raw
raw
+ RingBuffer Stream
third-party streams
DTrace examples
Browserify
WebpackCurrent Status
Stable. I do my best to follow semver: i.e. you should only need to worry
about code breaking for a major version bump. Bunyan currently supports node
0.10 and greater. Follow @trentmick for updates to Bunyan.There is an email discussion list bunyan-logging@googlegroups.com, also as a forum in the browser.
Active branches:
- "1.x" is for 1.x maintenance work, if any. 1.x releases are still "latest" in
- "master" is currently for coming Bunyan 2.x work. For now, 2.x releases are
npm install bunyan
is
still 1.x for now. To install 2.x use npm install bunyan@2
or
npm install bunyan@beta
.Installation
npm install bunyan
Tip: The
bunyan
CLI tool is written to be compatible (within reason) with
all versions of Bunyan logs. Therefore you might want to npm install -g bunyan
to get the bunyan CLI on your PATH, then use local bunyan installs for
node.js library usage of bunyan in your apps.Features
- elegant log method API
- extensible streams system for controlling where log records
bunyan
CLI for pretty-printing and filtering of Bunyan logs- simple include of log call source location (file, line, function) with
src: true
- lightweight specialization of Logger instances with
log.child
- custom rendering of logged objects with "serializers"
- Runtime log snooping via DTrace support
- Support for a few runtime environments: Node.js,
Introduction
Like most logging libraries you create a Logger instance and call methods
named after the logging levels:// hi.js
var bunyan = require('bunyan');
var log = bunyan.createLogger({name: 'myapp'});
log.info('hi');
log.warn({lang: 'fr'}, 'au revoir');
All loggers must provide a "name". This is somewhat akin to the log4j logger "name", but Bunyan doesn't do hierarchical logger names.
Bunyan log records are JSON. A few fields are added automatically: "pid", "hostname", "time" and "v".
$ node hi.js
{"name":"myapp","hostname":"banana.local","pid":40161,"level":30,"msg":"hi","time":"2013-01-04T18:46:23.851Z","v":0}
{"name":"myapp","hostname":"banana.local","pid":40161,"level":40,"lang":"fr","msg":"au revoir","time":"2013-01-04T18:46:23.853Z","v":0}
Constructor API
var bunyan = require('bunyan');
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: <string>, // Required
level: <level name or number>, // Optional, see "Levels" section
stream: <node.js stream>, // Optional, see "Streams" section
streams: [<bunyan streams>, ...], // Optional, see "Streams" section
serializers: <serializers mapping>, // Optional, see "Serializers" section
src: <boolean>, // Optional, see "src" section
// Any other fields are added to all log records as is.
foo: 'bar',
...
});
Log Method API
The example above shows two different ways to calllog.info(...)
. The
full API is:log.info(); // Returns a boolean: is the "info" level enabled?
// This is equivalent to `log.isInfoEnabled()` or
// `log.isEnabledFor(INFO)` in log4j.
log.info('hi'); // Log a simple string message (or number).
log.info('hi %s', bob, anotherVar); // Uses `util.format` for msg formatting.
log.info({foo: 'bar'}, 'hi');
// The first field can optionally be a "fields" object, which
// is merged into the log record.
log.info(err); // Special case to log an `Error` instance to the record.
// This adds an "err" field with exception details
// (including the stack) and sets "msg" to the exception
// message.
log.info(err, 'more on this: %s', more);
// ... or you can specify the "msg".
log.info({foo: 'bar', err: err}, 'some msg about this error');
// To pass in an Error *and* other fields, use the `err`
// field name for the Error instance **and ensure your logger
// has a `err` serializer.** One way to ensure the latter is:
// var log = bunyan.createLogger({
// ...,
// serializers: bunyan.stdSerializers
// });
// See the "Serializers" section below for details.
Note that this implies you cannot blindly pass any object as the first argument to log it because that object might include fields that collide with Bunyan's core record fields. In other words,
log.info(mywidget)
may not yield what you expect. Instead of a string
representation of mywidget
that other logging libraries may give you, Bunyan
will try to JSON-ify your object. It is a Bunyan best practice to always give a
field name to included objects, e.g.:log.info({widget: mywidget}, ...)
This will dove-tail with Bunyan serializer support, discussed later.
The same goes for all of Bunyan's log levels:
log.trace
, log.debug
,
log.info
, log.warn
, log.error
, and log.fatal
. See the levels
section below for details and suggestions.CLI Usage
Bunyan log output is a stream of JSON objects. This is great for processing, but not for reading directly. Abunyan
tool is provided for
pretty-printing bunyan logs and for filtering (e.g.
| bunyan -c 'this.foo == "bar"'
). Using our example above:$ node hi.js | ./node_modules/.bin/bunyan
[2013-01-04T19:01:18.241Z] INFO: myapp/40208 on banana.local: hi
[2013-01-04T19:01:18.242Z] WARN: myapp/40208 on banana.local: au revoir (lang=fr)
See the screenshot above for an example of the default coloring of rendered log output. That example also shows the nice formatting automatically done for some well-known log record fields (e.g.
req
is formatted like an HTTP request,
res
like an HTTP response, err
like an error stack trace).One interesting feature is filtering of log content, which can be useful for digging through large log files or for analysis. We can filter only records above a certain level:
$ node hi.js | bunyan -l warn
[2013-01-04T19:08:37.182Z] WARN: myapp/40353 on banana.local: au revoir (lang=fr)
Or filter on the JSON fields in the records (e.g. only showing the French records in our contrived example):
$ node hi.js | bunyan -c 'this.lang == "fr"'
[2013-01-04T19:08:26.411Z] WARN: myapp/40342 on banana.local: au revoir (lang=fr)
See
bunyan --help
for other facilities.Streams Introduction
By default, log output is to stdout and at the "info" level. Explicitly that looks like:var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'myapp',
stream: process.stdout,
level: 'info'
});
That is an abbreviated form for a single stream. You can define multiple streams at different levels.
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'myapp',
streams: [
{
level: 'info',
stream: process.stdout // log INFO and above to stdout
},
{
level: 'error',
path: '/var/tmp/myapp-error.log' // log ERROR and above to a file
}
]
});
More on streams in the Streams section below.
log.child
Bunyan has a concept of a child logger to specialize a logger for a sub-component of your application, i.e. to create a new logger with additional bound fields that will be included in its log records. A child logger is created withlog.child(...)
.In the following example, logging on a "Wuzzle" instance's
this.log
will
be exactly as on the parent logger with the addition of the widget_type
field:var bunyan = require('bunyan');
var log = bunyan.createLogger({name: 'myapp'});
function Wuzzle(options) {
this.log = options.log.child({widget_type: 'wuzzle'});
this.log.info('creating a wuzzle')
}
Wuzzle.prototype.woos = function () {
this.log.warn('This wuzzle is woosey.')
}
log.info('start');
var wuzzle = new Wuzzle({log: log});
wuzzle.woos();
log.info('done');
Running that looks like (raw):
$ node myapp.js
{"name":"myapp","hostname":"myhost","pid":34572,"level":30,"msg":"start","time":"2013-01-04T07:47:25.814Z","v":0}
{"name":"myapp","hostname":"myhost","pid":34572,"widget_type":"wuzzle","level":30,"msg":"creating a wuzzle","time":"2013-01-04T07:47:25.815Z","v":0}
{"name":"myapp","hostname":"myhost","pid":34572,"widget_type":"wuzzle","level":40,"msg":"This wuzzle is woosey.","time":"2013-01-04T07:47:25.815Z","v":0}
{"name":"myapp","hostname":"myhost","pid":34572,"level":30,"msg":"done","time":"2013-01-04T07:47:25.816Z","v":0}
And with the
bunyan
CLI (using the "short" output mode):$ node myapp.js | bunyan -o short
07:46:42.707Z INFO myapp: start
07:46:42.709Z INFO myapp: creating a wuzzle (widget_type=wuzzle)
07:46:42.709Z WARN myapp: This wuzzle is woosey. (widget_type=wuzzle)
07:46:42.709Z INFO myapp: done
A more practical example is in the node-restify web framework. Restify uses Bunyan for its logging. One feature of its integration, is that if
server.use(restify.requestLogger())
is used, each restify request handler
includes a req.log
logger that is:log.child({req_id: <unique request id>}, true)
Apps using restify can then use
req.log
and have all such log records
include the unique request id (as "req\_id"). Handy.Serializers
Bunyan has a concept of "serializer" functions to produce a JSON-able object from a JavaScript object, so you can easily do the following:log.info({req: <request object>}, 'something about handling this request');
and have the
req
entry in the log record be just a reasonable subset of
<request object>
fields (or computed data about those fields).A logger instance can have a
serializers
mapping of log record field name
("req" in this example) to a serializer function. When creating the log record,
Bunyan will call the serializer function for top-level fields of that name. An
example:function reqSerializer(req) {
return {
method: req.method,
url: req.url,
headers: req.headers
};
}
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'myapp',
serializers: {
req: reqSerializer
}
});
Typically serializers are added to a logger at creation time via:
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'myapp',
serializers: {
foo: function fooSerializer(foo) { ... },
...
}
});
// or
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'myapp',
serializers: bunyan.stdSerializers
});
Serializers can also be added after creation via
<logger>.addSerializers(...)
,
e.g.:var log = bunyan.createLogger({name: 'myapp'});
log.addSerializers({req: reqSerializer});
Requirements for serializers functions
A serializer function is passed unprotected objects that are passed to thelog.info
, log.debug
, etc. call. This means a poorly written serializer
function can case side-effects. Logging shouldn't do that. Here are a few
rules and best practices for serializer functions:- A serializer function should never throw. The bunyan library does
```
bunyan: ERROR: Exception thrown from the "foo" Bunyan serializer. This should never happen. This is a bug in that serializer function.
TypeError: Cannot read property 'not' of undefined
at Object.fooSerializer [as foo] (/Users/trentm/tm/node-bunyan/bar.js:8:26)
at /Users/trentm/tm/node-bunyan/lib/bunyan.js:873:50
at Array.forEach (native)
at Logger._applySerializers (/Users/trentm/tm/node-bunyan/lib/bunyan.js:865:35)
at mkRecord (/Users/trentm/tm/node-bunyan/lib/bunyan.js:978:17)
at Logger.info (/Users/trentm/tm/node-bunyan/lib/bunyan.js:1044:19)
at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/trentm/tm/node-bunyan/bar.js:13:5)
at Module._compile (module.js:409:26)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:416:10)
at Module.load (module.js:343:32)
{"name":"bar","hostname":"danger0.local","pid":47411,"level":30,"foo":"(Error in Bunyan log \"foo\" serializer broke field. See stderr for details.)","msg":"one","time":"2017-03-08T02:53:51.173Z","v":0}
```
- A serializer function should never mutate the given object. Doing so will
- A serializer function should be defensive. In my experience it is common to
```javascript
function fooSerializer(foo) {
// Guard against foo be null/undefined. Check that expected fields
// are defined.
if (!foo || !foo.bar)
return foo;
var obj = {
// Create the object to be logged.
bar: foo.bar
}
return obj;
};
```
Standard Serializers
Bunyan includes a small set of "standard serializers", exported asbunyan.stdSerializers
. Their use is completely optional. An example using
all of them:var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'myapp',
serializers: bunyan.stdSerializers
});
or particular ones:
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'myapp',
serializers: {err: bunyan.stdSerializers.err}
});
Standard serializers are:
| Field | Description | | ----- | ----------- | | err | Used for serializing JavaScript error objects, including traversing an error's cause chain for error objects with a
.cause()
-- e.g. as from verror. |
| req | Common fields from a node.js HTTP request object. |
| res | Common fields from a node.js HTTP response object. |Note that the
req
and res
serializers intentionally do not include the
request/response body, as that can be prohibitively large. If helpful, the
restify framework's audit logger plugin
has its own req/res serializers that include more information (optionally
including the body).src
The source file, line and function of the log call site can be added to log records by using thesrc: true
config option:var log = bunyan.createLogger({src: true, ...});
This adds the call source info with the 'src' field, like this:
{
"name": "src-example",
"hostname": "banana.local",
"pid": 123,
"component": "wuzzle",
"level": 4,
"msg": "This wuzzle is woosey.",
"time": "2012-02-06T04:19:35.605Z",
"src": {
"file": "/Users/trentm/tm/node-bunyan/examples/src.js",
"line": 20,
"func": "Wuzzle.woos"
},
"v": 0
}
WARNING: Determining the call source info is slow. Never use this option in production.
Levels
The log levels in bunyan are as follows. The level descriptions are best
practice opinions of the author.- "fatal" (60): The service/app is going to stop or become unusable now.
- "error" (50): Fatal for a particular request, but the service/app continues
- "warn" (40): A note on something that should probably be looked at by an
- "info" (30): Detail on regular operation.
- "debug" (20): Anything else, i.e. too verbose to be included in "info" level.
- "trace" (10): Logging from external libraries used by your app or very
Setting a logger instance (or one of its streams) to a particular level implies that all log records at that level and above are logged. E.g. a logger set to level "info" will log records at level info and above (warn, error, fatal).
While using log level names is preferred, the actual level values are integers internally (10 for "trace", ..., 60 for "fatal"). Constants are defined for the levels:
bunyan.TRACE
... bunyan.FATAL
. The lowercase level names are
aliases supported in the API, e.g. log.level("info")
. There is one exception:
DTrace integration uses the level names. The fired DTrace probes are named
'bunyan-$levelName'.Here is the API for querying and changing levels on an existing logger. Recall that a logger instance has an array of output "streams":
log.level() -> INFO // gets current level (lowest level of all streams)
log.level(INFO) // set all streams to level INFO
log.level("info") // set all streams to level INFO
log.levels() -> [DEBUG, INFO] // get array of levels of all streams
log.levels(0) -> DEBUG // get level of stream at index 0
log.levels("foo") // get level of stream with name "foo"
log.levels(0, INFO) // set level of stream 0 to INFO
log.levels(0, "info") // can use "info" et al aliases
log.levels("foo", WARN) // set stream named "foo" to WARN
Level suggestions
Trent's biased suggestions for server apps: Use "debug" sparingly. Information that will be useful to debug errors post mortem should usually be included in "info" messages if it's generally relevant or else with the corresponding "error" event. Don't rely on spewing mostly irrelevant debug messages all the time and sifting through them when an error occurs.Trent's biased suggestions for node.js libraries: IMHO, libraries should only ever log at
trace
-level. Fine control over log output should be up to the
app using a library. Having a library that spews log output at higher levels
gets in the way of a clear story in the app logs.Log Record Fields
This section will describe rules for the Bunyan log format: field names,
field meanings, required fields, etc. However, a Bunyan library doesn't
strictly enforce all these rules while records are being emitted. For example,
Bunyan will add a time
field with the correct format to your log records,
but you can specify your own. It is the caller's responsibility to specify
the appropriate format.The reason for the above leniency is because IMO logging a message should never break your app. This leads to this rule of logging: a thrown exception from
log.info(...)
or equivalent (other than for calling with the
incorrect signature) is always a bug in Bunyan.A typical Bunyan log record looks like this:
{"name":"myserver","hostname":"banana.local","pid":123,"req":{"method":"GET","url":"/path?q=1#anchor","headers":{"x-hi":"Mom","connection":"close"}},"level":3,"msg":"start request","time":"2012-02-03T19:02:46.178Z","v":0}
Pretty-printed:
{
"name": "myserver",
"hostname": "banana.local",
"pid": 123,
"req": {
"method": "GET",
"url": "/path?q=1#anchor",
"headers": {
"x-hi": "Mom",
"connection": "close"
},
"remoteAddress": "120.0.0.1",
"remotePort": 51244
},
"level": 3,
"msg": "start request",
"time": "2012-02-03T19:02:57.534Z",
"v": 0
}
Core fields
v
: Required. Integer. Added by Bunyan. Cannot be overridden.
require('bunyan').LOG_VERSION
).
The log version is a single integer. 0
is until I release a version
"1.0.0" of node-bunyan. Thereafter, starting with 1
, this will be
incremented if there is any backward incompatible change to the log record
format. Details will be in "CHANGES.md" (the change log).level
: Required. Integer. Added by Bunyan. Cannot be overridden.
name
: Required. String. Provided at Logger creation.
hostname
: Required. String. Provided or determined at Logger creation.
os.hostname()
.pid
: Required. Integer. Filled in automatically at Logger creation.time
: Required. String. Added by Bunyan. Can be overridden.
Date.toISOString()
.msg
: Required. String.
log.debug(...)
et al call must provide a log message.src
: Optional. Object giving log call source info. This is added
Go ahead and add more fields, and nested ones are fine (and recommended) as well. This is why we're using JSON. Some suggestions and best practices follow (feedback from actual users welcome).
Recommended/Best Practice Fields
err
: Object. A caught JS exception. Log that thing withlog.info(err)
to get:
```js
...
"err": {
"message": "boom",
"name": "TypeError",
"stack": "TypeError: boom\n at Object.<anonymous> ..."
},
"msg": "boom",
...
```
Or use the `bunyan.stdSerializers.err` serializer in your Logger and
do this `log.error({err: err}, "oops")`. See "examples/err.js".
req_id
: String. A request identifier. Including this field in all logging
req
: An HTTP server request. Bunyan providesbunyan.stdSerializers.req
```js
{
"method": "GET",
"url": "/path?q=1#anchor",
"headers": {
"x-hi": "Mom",
"connection": "close"
},
"remoteAddress": "120.0.0.1",
"remotePort": 51244
}
```
res
: An HTTP server response. Bunyan providesbunyan.stdSerializers.res
```js
{
"statusCode": 200,
"header": "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\nContent-Type: text/plain\r\nConnection: keep-alive\r\nTransfer-Encoding: chunked\r\n\r\n"
}
```
Other fields to consider
req.username
: Authenticated user (or for a 401, the user attempting to
- Some mechanism to calculate response latency. "restify" users will have
latency
custom field would be fine.req.body
: If you know that request bodies are small (common in APIs,
Streams
A "stream" is Bunyan's name for where it outputs log messages (the equivalent
to a log4j Appender). Ultimately Bunyan uses a
Writable Stream
interface, but there are some additional attributes used to create and
manage the stream. A Bunyan Logger instance has one or more streams.
In general streams are specified with the "streams" option:var bunyan = require('bunyan');
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: "foo",
streams: [
{
stream: process.stderr,
level: "debug"
},
...
]
});
For convenience, if there is only one stream, it can specified with the "stream" and "level" options (internally converted to a
Logger.streams
).var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: "foo",
stream: process.stderr,
level: "debug"
});
Note that "file" streams do not support this shortcut (partly for historical reasons and partly to not make it difficult to add a literal "path" field on log records).
If neither "streams" nor "stream" are specified, the default is a stream of type "stream" emitting to
process.stdout
at the "info" level.Adding a Stream
After a bunyan instance has been initialized, you may add additional streams by calling theaddStream
function.var bunyan = require('bunyan');
var log = bunyan.createLogger('myLogger');
log.addStream({
name: "myNewStream",
stream: process.stderr,
level: "debug"
});
stream errors
A Bunyan logger instance can be made to re-emit "error" events from its streams. Bunyan does so by default fortype === "file"
streams, so you can do this:var log = bunyan.createLogger({name: 'mylog', streams: [{path: LOG_PATH}]});
log.on('error', function (err, stream) {
// Handle stream write or create error here.
});
As of bunyan@1.7.0, the
reemitErrorEvents
field can be used when adding a
stream to control whether "error" events are re-emitted on the Logger. For
example:var EventEmitter = require('events').EventEmitter;
var util = require('util');
function MyFlakyStream() {}
util.inherits(MyFlakyStream, EventEmitter);
MyFlakyStream.prototype.write = function (rec) {
this.emit('error', new Error('boom'));
}
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'this-is-flaky',
streams: [
{
type: 'raw',
stream: new MyFlakyStream(),
reemitErrorEvents: true
}
]
});
log.info('hi there');
The behaviour is as follows:reemitErrorEvents
not specified:file
streams will re-emit error events
reemitErrorEvents: true
: error events will be re-emitted on the Logger
.on()
function -- which includes file streams,
process.stdout/stderr, and any object that inherits from EventEmitter.reemitErrorEvents: false
: error events will not be re-emitted for any
Note: "error" events are not related to log records at the "error" level as produced by
log.error(...)
. See the node.js docs on error
events for details.stream type: stream
A type === 'stream'
is a plain ol' node.js Writable
Stream. A
"stream" (the writable stream) field is required. E.g.: process.stdout
,
process.stderr
.var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'foo',
streams: [{
stream: process.stderr
// `type: 'stream'` is implied
}]
});
Field | Required? | Default | Description |
---|---|---|---|
stream | Yes | - | A "Writable Stream", e.g. a std handle or an open file write stream. |
type | No | n/a | type == 'stream' is implied if the stream field is given. |
level | No | info | The level to which logging to this stream is enabled. If not
specified it defaults to "info". If specified this can be one of the
level strings ("trace", "debug", ...) or constants (bunyan.TRACE ,
bunyan.DEBUG , ...). This serves as a severity threshold for that stream
so logs of greater severity will also pass through (i.e. If level="warn",
error and fatal will also pass through this stream). |
name | No | - | A name for this stream. This may be useful for usage of `log.level(NAME, LEVEL)`. See the Levels section for details. A stream "name" isn't used for anything else. |
stream type: file
A type === 'file'
stream requires a "path" field. Bunyan will open this
file for appending. E.g.:var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'foo',
streams: [{
path: '/var/log/foo.log',
// `type: 'file'` is implied
}]
});
Field | Required? | Default | Description |
---|---|---|---|
path | Yes | - | A file path to which to log. |
type | No | n/a | type == 'file' is implied if the path field is given. |
level | No | info | The level to which logging to this stream is enabled. If not
specified it defaults to "info". If specified this can be one of the
level strings ("trace", "debug", ...) or constants (bunyan.TRACE ,
bunyan.DEBUG , ...). This serves as a severity threshold for that
stream so logs of greater severity will also pass through (i.e. If
level="warn", error and fatal will also pass through this stream). |
name | No | - | A name for this stream. This may be useful for usage of `log.level(NAME, LEVEL)`. See the Levels section for details. A stream "name" isn't used for anything else. |
stream type: rotating-file
WARNING on node 0.8 usage: Users of Bunyan's rotating-file
should (a) be
using at least bunyan 0.23.1 (with the fix for this
issue), and (b) should use at
least node 0.10 (node 0.8 does not support the unref()
method on
setTimeout(...)
needed for the mentioned fix). The symptom is that process
termination will hang for up to a full rotation period.WARNING on cluster usage: Using Bunyan's
rotating-file
stream with node.js's "cluster" module
can result in unexpected file rotation. You must not have multiple processes
in the cluster logging to the same file path. In other words, you must have
a separate log file path for the master and each worker in the cluster.
Alternatively, consider using a system file rotation facility such as
logrotate
on Linux or logadm
on SmartOS/Illumos. See
this comment on issue #117
for details.A
type === 'rotating-file'
is a file stream that handles file automatic
rotation.var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'foo',
streams: [{
type: 'rotating-file',
path: '/var/log/foo.log',
period: '1d', // daily rotation
count: 3 // keep 3 back copies
}]
});
This will rotate '/var/log/foo.log' every day (at midnight) to:
/var/log/foo.log.0 # yesterday
/var/log/foo.log.1 # 1 day ago
/var/log/foo.log.2 # 2 days ago
Currently, there is no support for providing a template for the rotated files, or for rotating when the log reaches a threshold size.
Field | Required? | Default | Description |
---|---|---|---|
type | Yes | - | "rotating-file" |
path | Yes | - | A file path to which to log. Rotated files will be "$path.0", "$path.1", ... |
period | No | 1d | The period at which to rotate. This is a string of the format "$number$scope" where "$scope" is one of "ms" (milliseconds -- only useful for testing), "h" (hours), "d" (days), "w" (weeks), "m" (months), "y" (years). Or one of the following names can be used "hourly" (means 1h), "daily" (1d), "weekly" (1w), "monthly" (1m), "yearly" (1y). Rotation is done at the start of the scope: top of the hour (h), midnight (d), start of Sunday (w), start of the 1st of the month (m), start of Jan 1st (y). |
count | No | 10 | The number of rotated files to keep. |
level | No | info | The level at which logging to this stream is enabled. If not
specified it defaults to "info". If specified this can be one of the
level strings ("trace", "debug", ...) or constants (bunyan.TRACE ,
bunyan.DEBUG , ...). |
name | No | - | A name for this stream. This may be useful for usage of `log.level(NAME, LEVEL)`. See the Levels section for details. A stream "name" isn't used for anything else. |
Note on log rotation: Often you may be using external log rotation utilities like
logrotate
on Linux or logadm
on SmartOS/Illumos. In those cases, unless
your are ensuring "copy and truncate" semantics (via copytruncate
with
logrotate or -c
with logadm) then the fd for your 'file' stream will change.
You can tell bunyan to reopen the file stream with code like this in your
app:var log = bunyan.createLogger(...);
...
process.on('SIGUSR2', function () {
log.reopenFileStreams();
});
where you'd configure your log rotation to send SIGUSR2 (or some other signal) to your process. Any other mechanism to signal your app to run
log.reopenFileStreams()
would work as well.stream type: raw
raw
: Similar to a "stream" writable stream, except that the write method
raw
+ RingBuffer Stream
Bunyan comes with a special stream called a RingBuffer which keeps the last N
records in memory and does not write the data anywhere else. One common
strategy is to log 'info' and higher to a normal log file but log all records
(including 'trace') to a ringbuffer that you can access via a debugger, or your
own HTTP interface, or a post-mortem facility like MDB or node-panic.To use a RingBuffer:
/* Create a ring buffer that stores the last 100 records. */
var bunyan = require('bunyan');
var ringbuffer = new bunyan.RingBuffer({ limit: 100 });
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'foo',
streams: [
{
level: 'info',
stream: process.stdout
},
{
level: 'trace',
type: 'raw', // use 'raw' to get raw log record objects
stream: ringbuffer
}
]
});
log.info('hello world');
console.log(ringbuffer.records);
This example emits:
[ { name: 'foo',
hostname: '912d2b29',
pid: 50346,
level: 30,
msg: 'hello world',
time: '2012-06-19T21:34:19.906Z',
v: 0 } ]
third-party streams
See the user-maintained list in the Bunyan wiki.Runtime log snooping via DTrace
On systems that support DTrace (e.g., illumos derivatives like SmartOS and
OmniOS, FreeBSD, Mac), Bunyan will create a DTrace provider (bunyan
) that
makes available the following probes:log-trace
log-debug
log-info
log-warn
log-error
log-fatal
Each of these probes has a single argument: the string that would be written to the log. Note that when a probe is enabled, it will fire whenever the corresponding function is called, even if the level of the log message is less than that of any stream.
DTrace examples
Trace all log messages coming from any Bunyan module on the system. (The-x strsize=4k
is to raise dtrace's default 256 byte buffer size
because log messages are longer than typical dtrace probes.)dtrace -x strsize=4k -qn 'bunyan*:::log-*{printf("%d: %s: %s", pid, probefunc, copyinstr(arg0))}'
Trace all log messages coming from the "wuzzle" component:
dtrace -x strsize=4k -qn 'bunyan*:::log-*/strstr(this->str = copyinstr(arg0), "\"component\":\"wuzzle\"") != NULL/{printf("%s", this->str)}'
Aggregate debug messages from process 1234, by message:
dtrace -x strsize=4k -n 'bunyan1234:::log-debug{@[copyinstr(arg0)] = count()}'
Have the bunyan CLI pretty-print the traced logs:
dtrace -x strsize=4k -qn 'bunyan1234:::log-*{printf("%s", copyinstr(arg0))}' | bunyan
A convenience handle has been made for this:
bunyan -p 1234
On systems that support the
jstack
action
via a node.js helper, get a stack backtrace for any debug message that
includes the string "danger!":dtrace -x strsize=4k -qn 'log-debug/strstr(copyinstr(arg0), "danger!") != NULL/{printf("\n%s", copyinstr(arg0)); jstack()}'
Output of the above might be:
{"name":"foo","hostname":"763bf293-d65c-42d5-872b-4abe25d5c4c7.local","pid":12747,"level":20,"msg":"danger!","time":"2012-10-30T18:28:57.115Z","v":0}
node`0x87e2010
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<< adaptor >>
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(anon) as list.ontimeout at timers.js position 4960
<< adaptor >>
<< internal >>
<< entry >>
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node`_ZN2v88internal9Execution4CallENS0_6HandleINS0_6ObjectEEES4_iPS4_Pbb+0xcb
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<< adaptor >>
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(anon) as list.ontimeout at timers.js position 4960
<< adaptor >>
<< internal >>
<< entry >>
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node`_ZN2v88internal9Execution4CallENS0_6HandleINS0_6ObjectEEES4_iPS4_Pbb+0xcb
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node`_ZN4node12MakeCallbackEN2v86HandleINS0_6ObjectEEENS1_INS0_6StringEEEiPNS1_INS0_5ValueEEE+0x66
node`_ZN4node9TimerWrap9OnTimeoutEP10uv_timer_si+0x63
node`uv__run_timers+0x66
node`uv__run+0x1b
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node`_start+0x83
Runtime environments
Node-bunyan supports running in a few runtime environments:- Node.js
- Browserify: See the
- Webpack: See the Webpack section below.
- NW.js
Support for other runtime environments is welcome. If you have suggestions, fixes, or mentions that node-bunyan already works in some other JavaScript runtime, please open an issue or a pull request.
The primary target is Node.js. It is the only environment in which I regularly test. If you have suggestions for how to automate testing for other environments, I'd appreciate feedback on this automated testing issue.
Browserify
As the Browserify site says it "lets yourequire('modules')
in the browser by bundling up all of your dependencies."
It is a build tool to run on your node.js script to bundle up your script and
all its node.js dependencies into a single file that is runnable in the
browser via:<script src="play.browser.js"></script>
As of version 1.1.0, node-bunyan supports being run via Browserify. The default stream when running in the browser is one that emits raw log records to
console.log/info/warn/error
.Here is a quick example showing you how you can get this working for your script.
- Get browserify and bunyan installed in your module:
```sh
$ npm install browserify bunyan
```
- An example script using Bunyan, "play.js":
```js
var bunyan = require('bunyan');
var log = bunyan.createLogger({name: 'play', level: 'debug'});
log.trace('this one does not emit');
log.debug('hi on debug'); // console.log
log.info('hi on info'); // console.info
log.warn('hi on warn'); // console.warn
log.error('hi on error'); // console.error
```
- Build this into a bundle to run in the browser, "play.browser.js":
```sh
$ ./node_modules/.bin/browserify play.js -o play.browser.js
```
- Put that into an HTML file, "play.html":
```html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<script src="play.browser.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<div>hi</div>
</body>
</html>
```
- Open that in your browser and open your browser console:
```sh
$ open play.html
```
Here is what it looks like in Firefox's console: For some, the raw log records might not be desired. To have a rendered log line you'll want to add your own stream, starting with something like this:
var bunyan = require('./lib/bunyan');
function MyRawStream() {}
MyRawStream.prototype.write = function (rec) {
console.log('[%s] %s: %s',
rec.time.toISOString(),
bunyan.nameFromLevel[rec.level],
rec.msg);
}
var log = bunyan.createLogger({
name: 'play',
streams: [
{
level: 'info',
stream: new MyRawStream(),
type: 'raw'
}
]
});
log.info('hi on info');
Webpack
Webpack can work with the same example Browserify above. To do this, we need to make webpack ignore optional files:Now tell webpack to ignore files for
[optional dependencies](https://webpack.js.org/configuration/module/#module-noparse)
in your "webpack.config.js":
module: {noParse: [/dtrace-provider$/, /safe-json-stringify$/, /mv/],
...
}
```
Now webpack builds.Versioning
All versions are <major>.<minor>.<patch>
which will be incremented for
breaking backward compat and major reworks, new features without breaking
change, and bug fixes, respectively. tl;dr: Semantic
versioning.License
MIT.See Also
See the user-maintained list of Bunyan-related software in the Bunyan
wiki.