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Our connector pulls your PostgreSQL logs into Honeycomb for analysis, so you can analyze PostgreSQL traffic on your machines and finally get a quick handle on the database queries triggered by your application logic. It surfaces attributes like:
  • The normalized query shape
  • Time spent executing the query
  • Transaction ID
  • Client information
  • … and more!
Honeycomb is unique in its ability to calculate metrics and statistics on the fly, while retaining the full-resolution log lines (and the original query that started it all!).
This document is for running PostgreSQL directly. If running PostgreSQL on RDS, Honeycomb offers support for ingesting RDS PostgreSQL logs via CloudWatch Logs with the option to convert these unstructured logs into structured logs.
The agent used to translate logs to events and send them to Honeycomb is called honeytail.

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Configure PostgreSQL Query Logging

Before running honeytail, turn slow query logging on for all queries if possible. To turn on slow query logging, edit your postgresql.conf and set: 
log_min_duration_statement = 0
log_statement='none'
log_statement indicates which types of queries are logged, but is superseded when setting log_min_duration_statement to 0, as this effectively logs all queries. Setting log_statement to any other value will change the format of the query logs in a way that is not currently supported by the Honeycomb PostgreSQL parser.
Alternatively, you can set this from the psql shell by running 
ALTER SYSTEM SET log_min_duration_statement=0;
ALTER SYSTEM SET log_statement='none';
SELECT pg_reload_conf();
Finally, take note of the value of the log_line_prefix configuration line. It will look something like this: 
log_line_prefix = '%t [%p-%l] %q%u@%d '

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Install and Run Honeytail

On your PostgreSQL host, download and install the latest honeytail by running:
Download the honeytail_1.10.0_amd64.deb package.
wget -q https://honeycomb.io/download/honeytail/v1.10.0/honeytail_1.10.0_amd64.deb
Verify the package.
echo '3db441215f97eaed068aa0531c986cf5405957e3e8e26b22c16b571091caf917  honeytail_1.10.0_amd64.deb' | sha256sum -c
Install the package.
sudo dpkg -i honeytail_1.10.0_amd64.deb
The packages install honeytail, its config file /etc/honeytail/honeytail.conf, and some start scripts. Build honeytail from source if you need it in an unpackaged form or for ad-hoc use.
Make sure you have enabled query logging before running honeytail. To consume the current slow query log from the beginning, run: 
honeytail \
    --writekey=YOUR_API_KEY \
    --dataset=postgres-queries --parser=postgresql \
    --postgresql.log_line_prefix=YOUR_LOG_LINE_PREFIX \
    --file=/var/log/postgresql/postgresql-9.5-main.log \
    --tail.read_from=beginning

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Troubleshooting

Check out honeytail Troubleshooting for debugging tips.

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Run Honeytail Continuously

To run honeytail continuously as a daemon process, first modify the configuration file /etc/honeytail/honeytail.conf and uncomment and set:
  • ParserName to postgresql
  • WriteKey to your API key, available from the account page
  • LogFiles to the path for your PostgreSQL log file.
  • Dataset to the name of the dataset you wish to create with this log file.
Then start honeytail using upstart or systemd: 
sudo initctl start honeytail

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Backfill Archived Logs

You may have archived logs that you would like to import into Honeycomb. If you have a log file located at /var/log/postgresql/postgresql-main.log, you can backfill using this command: 
honeytail \
    --writekey=YOUR_API_KEY \
    --dataset=PostgreSQL \
    --parser=postgresql \
    --file=/var/log/postgresql/postgresql-main.log \
    --postgresql.log_line_prefix=YOUR_CONFIGURED_LOG_LINE_PREFIX \
    --backfill
This command can be used at any point to backfill from archived log files. You can read more about honeytail’s backfill behavior here.
honeytail does not unzip log files, so you will need to do this before backfilling.
Once you have finished backfilling your old logs, we recommend transitioning to the default streaming behavior to stream live logs to Honeycomb.

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Scrub Personally Identifiable Information

While we believe strongly in the value of being able to track down the precise query causing a problem, we understand the concerns of exporting log data, which may contain sensitive user information. With that in mind, we recommend using honeytail’s PostgreSQL parser, but adding a --scrub_field=query flag to hash the concrete query value. The normalized_query attribute will still be representative of the shape of the query, and identifying patterns including specific queries will still be possible—but the sensitive information will be completely obscured before leaving your servers. More information about dropping or scrubbing sensitive fields can be found here.

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Open Source

Honeytail is open source and Apache 2.0 licensed.