Winston Transports
In winston a transport is essentially a storage device for your logs. Each instance of a winston logger can have multiple transports configured at different levels. For example, one may want error logs to be stored in a persistent remote location (like a database), but all logs output to the console or a local file.
There are several core transports included in winston, which leverage the built-in networking and file I/O offered by node.js core. In addition, there are third-party transports which are supported by the winston core team. And last (but not least) there are additional transports written by members of the community.
Winston Core
There are several core transports included in winston, which leverage the built-in networking and file I/O offered by node.js core.
Console Transport
winston.add(winston.transports.Console, options)
The Console transport takes two simple options:
- level: Level of messages that this transport should log (default 'debug').
- silent: Boolean flag indicating whether to suppress output (default false).
- colorize: Boolean flag indicating if we should colorize output (default false).
- timestamp: Boolean flag indicating if we should prepend output with timestamps (default false). If function is specified, its return value will be used instead of timestamps.
Metadata: Logged via util.inspect(meta);
File Transport
winston.add(winston.transports.File, options)
The File transport should really be the 'Stream' transport since it will accept any WritableStream. It is named such because it will also accept filenames via the 'filename' option:
- level: Level of messages that this transport should log.
- silent: Boolean flag indicating whether to suppress output.
- colorize: Boolean flag indicating if we should colorize output.
- timestamp: Boolean flag indicating if we should prepend output with timestamps (default false). If function is specified, its return value will be used instead of timestamps.
- filename: The filename of the logfile to write output to.
- maxsize: Max size in bytes of the logfile, if the size is exceeded then a new file is created.
- maxFiles: Limit the number of files created when the size of the logfile is exceeded.
- stream: The WriteableStream to write output to.
- json: If true, messages will be logged as JSON (default true).
Metadata: Logged via util.inspect(meta);
Http Transport
winston.add(winston.transports.Http, options)
The Http transport is a generic way to log, query, and stream logs from an arbitrary Http endpoint, preferably winstond. It takes options that are passed to the node.js http or https request:
- host: (Default: localhost) Remote host of the HTTP logging endpoint
- port: (Default: 80 or 443) Remote port of the HTTP logging endpoint
- path: (Default: /) Remote URI of the HTTP logging endpoint
- auth: (Default: None) An object representing the
usernameandpasswordfor HTTP Basic Auth - ssl: (Default: false) Value indicating if we should us HTTPS
Winston More
Starting with winston@0.3.0 an effort was made to remove any transport which added additional dependencies to winston. At the time there were several transports already in winston which will always be supported by the winston core team.
CouchDB Transport
As of winston@0.6.0 the CouchDB transport has been broken out into a new module: winston-couchdb.
winston.add(winston.transports.Couchdb, options)
The Couchdb will place your logs in a remote CouchDB database. It will also create a Design Document, _design/Logs for later querying and streaming your logs from CouchDB. The transport takes the following options:
- host: (Default: localhost) Remote host of the HTTP logging endpoint
- port: (Default: 5984) Remote port of the HTTP logging endpoint
- db: (Default: winston) Remote URI of the HTTP logging endpoint
- auth: (Default: None) An object representing the
usernameandpasswordfor HTTP Basic Auth - ssl: (Default: false) Value indicating if we should us HTTPS
Redis Transport
winston.add(winston.transports.Redis, options)
This transport accepts the options accepted by the node-redis client:
- host: (Default localhost) Remote host of the Redis server
- port: (Default 6379) Port the Redis server is running on.
- auth: (Default None) Password set on the Redis server
In addition to these, the Redis transport also accepts the following options.
- length: (Default 200) Number of log messages to store.
- container: (Default winston) Name of the Redis container you wish your logs to be in.
- channel: (Default None) Name of the Redis channel to stream logs from.
Metadata: Logged as JSON literal in Redis
Loggly Transport
As of winston@0.6.0 the Loggly transport has been broken out into a new module: winston-loggly.
winston.add(winston.transports.Loggly, options);
The Loggly transport is based on Nodejitsu's node-loggly implementation of the Loggly API. If you haven't heard of Loggly before, you should probably read their value proposition. The Loggly transport takes the following options. Either 'inputToken' or 'inputName' is required:
- level: Level of messages that this transport should log.
- subdomain: The subdomain of your Loggly account. [required]
- auth: The authentication information for your Loggly account. [required with inputName]
- inputName: The name of the input this instance should log to.
- inputToken: The input token of the input this instance should log to.
- json: If true, messages will be sent to Loggly as JSON.
Metadata: Logged in suggested Loggly format
Riak Transport
As of winston@0.3.0 the Riak transport has been broken out into a new module: winston-riak. Using it is just as easy:
var Riak = require('winston-riak').Riak; winston.add(Riak, options);
In addition to the options accepted by the riak-js client, the Riak transport also accepts the following options. It is worth noting that the riak-js debug option is set to false by default:
- level: Level of messages that this transport should log.
- bucket: The name of the Riak bucket you wish your logs to be in or a function to generate bucket names dynamically.
// Use a single bucket for all your logs var singleBucketTransport = new (Riak)({ bucket: 'some-logs-go-here' }); // Generate a dynamic bucket based on the date and level var dynamicBucketTransport = new (Riak)({ bucket: function (level, msg, meta, now) { var d = new Date(now); return level + [d.getDate(), d.getMonth(), d.getFullYear()].join('-'); } });
Metadata: Logged as JSON literal in Riak
MongoDB Transport
As of winston@0.3.0 the MongoDB transport has been broken out into a new module: winston-mongodb. Using it is just as easy:
var MongoDB = require('winston-mongodb').MongoDB; winston.add(MongoDB, options);
The MongoDB transport takes the following options. 'db' is required:
- level: Level of messages that this transport should log.
- silent: Boolean flag indicating whether to suppress output.
- db: The name of the database you want to log to. [required]
- collection: The name of the collection you want to store log messages in, defaults to 'log'.
- safe: Boolean indicating if you want eventual consistency on your log messages, if set to true it requires an extra round trip to the server to ensure the write was committed, defaults to true.
- host: The host running MongoDB, defaults to localhost.
- port: The port on the host that MongoDB is running on, defaults to MongoDB's default port.
Metadata: Logged as a native JSON object.
Additional Transports
The community has truly embraced winston; there are over 23 winston transports and over half of them are maintained by authors external to the winston core team. If you want to check them all out, just search npm:
$ npm search winston
If you have an issue using one of these modules you should contact the module author directly
SimpleDB Transport
The winston-simpledb transport is just as easy:
var SimpleDB = require('winston-simpledb').SimpleDB; winston.add(SimpleDB, options);
The SimpleDB transport takes the following options. All items marked with an asterisk are required:
- awsAccessKey:* your AWS Access Key
- secretAccessKey:* your AWS Secret Access Key
- awsAccountId:* your AWS Account Id
- domainName:* a string or function that returns the domain name to log to
- region:* the region your domain resides in
- itemName: a string ('uuid', 'epoch', 'timestamp') or function that returns the item name to log
Metadata: Logged as a native JSON object to the 'meta' attribute of the item.
Mail Transport
The winston-mail is an email transport:
var Mail = require('winston-mail').Mail; winston.add(Mail, options);
The Mail transport uses node-mail behind the scenes. Options are the following, to and host are required:
- to: The address(es) you want to send to. [required]
- from: The address you want to send from. (default:
winston@[server-host-name]) - host: SMTP server hostname
- port: SMTP port (default: 587 or 25)
- secure: Use secure
- username User for server auth
- password Password for server auth
- level: Level of messages that this transport should log.
- silent: Boolean flag indicating whether to suppress output.
Metadata: Stringified as JSON in email.
Amazon SNS (Simple Notification System) Transport
The winston-sns transport uses amazon SNS to send emails, texts, or a bunch of other notifications.
require('winston-sns').SNS; winston.add(winston.transports.SNS, options);
Options:
- aws_key: Your Amazon Web Services Key. [required]
- aws_secret: Your Amazon Web Services Secret. [required]
- subscriber: Subscriber number - found in your SNS AWS Console, after clicking on a topic. Same as AWS Account ID. [required]
- topic_arn: Also found in SNS AWS Console - listed under a topic as Topic ARN. [required]
- region: AWS Region to use. Can be one of:
us-east-1,us-west-1,eu-west-1,ap-southeast-1,ap-northeast-1,us-gov-west-1,sa-east-1. (default:us-east-1) - subject: Subject for notifications. (default: "Winston Error Report")
- message: Message of notifications. Uses placeholders for level (%l), error message (%e), and metadata (%m). (default: "Level '%l' Error:\n%e\n\nMetadata:\n%m")
- level: lowest level this transport will log. (default:
info)
Graylog2 Transport
winston-graylog2 is a Graylog2 transport:
var Graylog2 = require('winston-graylog2').Graylog2; winston.add(Graylog2, options);
The Graylog2 transport connects to a Graylog2 server over UDP using the following options:
-
level: Level of messages this transport should log. (default: info)
-
silent: Boolean flag indicating whether to suppress output. (default: false)
-
graylogHost: IP address or hostname of the graylog2 server. (default: localhost)
-
graylogPort: Port to send messages to on the graylog2 server. (default: 12201)
-
graylogHostname: The hostname associated with graylog2 messages. (default: require('os').hostname())
-
graylogFacility: The graylog2 facility to send log messages.. (default: nodejs)
Metadata: Stringified as JSON in the full message GELF field.
Cassandra Transport
winston-cassandra is a Cassandra transport:
var Cassandra = require('winston-cassandra').Cassandra; winston.add(Cassandra, options);
The Cassandra transport connects to a cluster using the native protocol with the following options:
- level: Level of messages that this transport should log (default:
'info'). - table: The name of the Cassandra column family you want to store log messages in (default:
'logs'). - partitionBy: How you want the logs to be partitioned. Possible values
'hour'and'day'(Default). - consistency: The consistency of the insert query (default:
quorum).
In addition to the options accepted by the Node.js Cassandra driver Client.
- hosts: Cluster nodes that will handle the write requests:
Array of strings containing the hosts, for example
['host1', 'host2'](required). - keyspace: The name of the keyspace that will contain the logs table (required). The keyspace should be already created in the cluster.
Find more Transports
$ npm search winston (...) winston-amon Winston transport for Amon logging =zoramite winston-amqp An AMQP transport for winston =kr1sp1n winston-cassandra A Cassandra transport for winston =jorgebay winston-couchdb a couchdb transport for winston =alz winston-express Express middleware to let you use winston from the browser. =regality winston-graylog2 A graylog2 transport for winston =smithclay winston-hbase A HBase transport for winston =ddude winston-loggly A Loggly transport for winston =indexzero winston-mail A mail transport for winston =wavded winston-mail2 A mail transport for winston =ivolo winston-mongodb A MongoDB transport for winston =indexzero winston-nodemail A mail transport for winston =reinpk winston-nssocket nssocket transport for winston =mmalecki winston-papertrail A Papertrail transport for winston =kenperkins winston-redis A fixed-length Redis transport for winston =indexzero winston-riak A Riak transport for winston =indexzero winston-scribe A scribe transport for winston =wnoronha winston-simpledb A Winston transport for Amazon SimpleDB =chilts winston-skywriter A Windows Azure table storage transport for winston =pofallon winston-sns A Simple Notification System Transport for winston =jesseditson winston-syslog A syslog transport for winston =indexzero winston-syslog-ain2 An ain2 based syslog transport for winston =lamtha winston-winlog Windows Event Log logger for Winston =jfromaniello winston-zmq A 0MQ transport for winston =dhendo winston-growl A growl transport for winston =pgherveou