The KV filter plug-in is a quick way to split key/value pairs from message data. An example syslog message where there is some prefix information followed by key/value pairs. In this case, each pair is separated by a semicolon and they keys and values are separated by a colon.

<140>1 2023-04-13T17:43:00+01:00 DEVICENAME5@10.1.2.3 EVENT 2693 [meta sequenceId="33"]"time-stamp":2023-04-13T17:43:00+01:00;"session-id":;"user-name":;"id":0;"type":CREATE;"entity":not-alarmed-event-notification

The first thing you need to do is to parse the message so the key/value pair data is in a single field.

"message" => "<%{POSINT:syslog_pri}>%{NUMBER:stuff} %{DATA:syslog_timestamp}+%{DATA:syslog_timestamp_offset} %{SYSLOGHOST:logsource}@%{DATA:sourceip} %{DATA:log_type} %{NUMBER:event_id} \[meta sequenceId=\"%{DATA:meta_sequence_id}\"\] %{GREEDYDATA:kvfields}"

Now that the data is available in kvfields, the kv filter can be used to parse the data. Indicate which character splits fields, which character splits the key and value, and what field is the source of the key/value pair data. Additionally, if you need to trim data from keys (trim_key) or values (trim_value), you can do so. In this case, each of the keys is quoted. I do not wish to carry the quotes through on the field name, so I am trimming the double-quote character from keys.

kv {
     field_split => ";"
     value_split  => ":"
     trim_key  => '"'
     source  => "kvfields"
}

You can recursively parse data, if needed, and the key/values parsed from a value will be sub-elements of the parent key.

Ruby

Sometimes more advanced logic is required to parse message content. There is a ruby filter plugin that allows you to run ruby code. As an example, the “attributes” key contains key/value pairs but the same delimiter is used for both key/value and the list of pairs.

<140>1 2023-04-13T17:57:00+01:00 DEVICENAME5@10.1.2.3 EVENT 2693 [meta sequenceId="12"] "time-stamp":2023-04-13T17:57:00+01:00;"session-id":;"user-name":;"id":0;"type":CREATE;"entity":not-alarmed-event-notification;"attributes":"condition-type;T-BE-FEC;condition-description;Bit Error Forward Error Correction HT = 325651545656;location;near-end;direction;ingress;time-period;1min;service-affect;NSA;severity-level;cleared;fm-entity;och-os-1/2/2;fm-entity-type;OCH-OS;occurrence-date-time;2023-04-13T17:55:55+01:00;alarm-condition-type;standing;extension-description;;last-severity-level;not-applicable;alarm-id;85332F351D9EA5FC7BB52C1C75F85B5527251155;"

If you break the string into an array on the delimiter, even elements are the key and the +1 odd element is the corresponding value.

ruby {
     code => "
          strattributes = event.get('[attributes]')
          arrayattributebreakout = strattributes.split(';')
          if arrayattributebreakout.count > 0
               arrayattributebreakout.each_with_index do |element,index|
               if index.even?
                    event.set(arrayattributebreakout[index], arrayattributebreakout[index+1])
               end
          end
       end
       "
}