Cloud-Ready syslog-ng Images

Axoflow is happy to announce that our flavored syslog-ng container images are available for download. These images differ from the upstream syslog-ng images in a number of ways:

• They use Alpine Linux, instead of Debian testing for reliability and smaller size (thus smaller attack surface).
• They incorporate cloud native features and settings (such as the Kubernetes source).
• They incorporate container-level optimizations (like the use of an alternative malloc library) for better performance and improved security.
• They support the ARM architecture.

These images are part of our longer term vision: we are going to use them in the Axoflow products and services. Since our observability supply chain include open source elements, we believe we must actively support these projects we are building on. The syslog-ng images by Axoflow are the initial contribution to the syslog-ng community.

The demand for containerized syslog-ng is increasing. As enterprises migrate to containerized architectures, it’s a natural step to run syslog-ng in a container as well. Not to mention the new version of the Logging operator which deploys syslog-ng on top of Kubernetes, using these cloud-ready images! The new Alpine-based containers are suited for modern environments. They combine compact size and versatility like Python plugins. By providing container image support for arm64 architectures, we’re making it easier for developers to deploy applications on a wide range of hardware, from small embedded devices to larger servers. The ARM architecture is also becoming a mature player in the data center space. Nowadays most cloud providers offer machines with this architecture.

 

Open and available

We fundamentally believe that a modern data collector agent should be:

• open-source,
• transparent, and
• widely accessible.

This ensures a strong foundation of security and high-quality code. As such, the code and docker container definition is freely available to all. To make syslog-ng more widespread in the future, we plan to create deployment packages like Helm charts to make the developer experience more convenient.

We are committed to improving and expanding our services based on your feedback and suggestions. Give our syslog-ng images a try, and let us know what you think! Subscribe to our newsletter or follow us for future updates on syslog-ng and Axoflow.