Configuring Syslog in Meraki Device

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Collection of logs is an important task if your company works with some kind of user data on-premise. And logging and monitoring of networking devices are also important. In this article, I will show how to set up Syslog on Meraki and using syslog-ng to receive those logs on to your logging server.

First, let’s start with enabling the Syslog feature on the Meraki dashboard.

  1. Network-wide -> General -> Reporting -> Syslog Server. Add logging server ip address and port.
  2. Install syslog-ng on to the logging server. (sudo apt-get install syslog-ng)
  3. Edit configuration for syslog-ng to listen 0.0.0.0 to port 514. Config file: /etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf. It will grab any Syslog sent to this server.
source s_sys {
    system();
    internal();
udp(ip(0.0.0.0) port(514));
};

4. Now define destination file to save the logs coming into the logging server.

destination d_meraki { file("/var/log/meraki.log"); };

5. Define filters to save the log file the way you want.

filter f_meraki { facility(meraki); };

6. Now define everything together in the log section to make it sensible configuration.

log { source ( s_sys ); filter( f_meraki ); destination ( d_meraki ); };

7. Save the file and restart Syslog-ng. 

systemctl syslog-ng restart

Final file will look something like this: 

@version:3.5
@include "scl.conf"

# syslog-ng configuration file.
#
# This should behave pretty much like the original syslog on RedHat. But
# it could be configured a lot smarter.
#
# See syslog-ng(8) and syslog-ng.conf(5) for more information.
#
# Note: it also sources additional configuration files (*.conf)
#       located in /etc/syslog-ng/conf.d/

options {
    flush_lines (0);
    time_reopen (10);
    log_fifo_size (1000);
    chain_hostnames (off);
    use_dns (no);
    use_fqdn (no);
    create_dirs (no);
    keep_hostname (yes);
};

source s_sys {
    system();
    internal();
udp(ip(0.0.0.0) port(514));
};

destination d_cons { file("/dev/console"); };
destination d_mesg { file("/var/log/messages"); };
destination d_auth { file("/var/log/secure"); };
destination d_mail { file("/var/log/maillog" flush_lines(10)); };
destination d_spol { file("/var/log/spooler"); };
destination d_boot { file("/var/log/boot.log"); };
destination d_cron { file("/var/log/cron"); };
destination d_kern { file("/var/log/kern"); };
destination d_mlal { usertty("*"); };

destination d_meraki { file("/var/log/meraki.log"); }; 

filter f_kernel     { facility(kern); };
filter f_default    { level(info..emerg) and
                        not (facility(mail)
                        or facility(authpriv)
                        or facility(cron)); };
filter f_auth       { facility(authpriv); };
filter f_mail       { facility(mail); };
filter f_emergency  { level(emerg); };
filter f_news       { facility(uucp) or
                        (facility(news)
                        and level(crit..emerg)); };
filter f_boot   { facility(local7); };
filter f_cron   { facility(cron); };

filter f_meraki { facility(meraki); };

#log { source(s_sys); filter(f_kernel); destination(d_cons); };
log { source(s_sys); filter(f_kernel); destination(d_kern); };
log { source(s_sys); filter(f_default); destination(d_mesg); };
log { source(s_sys); filter(f_auth); destination(d_auth); };
log { source(s_sys); filter(f_mail); destination(d_mail); };
log { source(s_sys); filter(f_emergency); destination(d_mlal); };
log { source(s_sys); filter(f_news); destination(d_spol); };
log { source(s_sys); filter(f_boot); destination(d_boot); };
log { source(s_sys); filter(f_cron); destination(d_cron); };

log { source ( s_sys ); filter( f_meraki ); destination ( d_meraki ); }; 


# Source additional configuration files (.conf extension only)
@include "/etc/syslog-ng/conf.d/*.conf"


# vim:ft=syslog-ng:ai:si:ts=4:sw=4:et:

You can use different SIEM and get output in a proper indexed format. My next post will show you how to get this log into ELK stack.

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