AWS Kinesis Data Streams Sink

The Vector aws_kinesis_streams sink sends logs to AWS Kinesis Data Streams.

Configuration

Common
Advanced

vector.toml
vector.yaml
vector.json

[sinks.my_sink_id]
  # General
  type = "aws_kinesis_streams" # required
  inputs = ["my-source-or-transform-id", "prefix-*"] # required
  compression = "none" # optional, default
  partition_key_field = "user_id" # optional, no default
  region = "us-east-1" # required, required when endpoint = null
  stream_name = "my-stream" # required

  # Encoding
  encoding.codec = "json" # required

  # Healthcheck
  healthcheck.enabled = true # optional, default

11 items

commonrequired

optionaltable
auth
Options for the authentication strategy.
- optionalstring
  access_key_id
  The AWS access key id. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services. See AWS Authentication for more info.
  - Syntax: literal
  - View examples
- optionalstring
  assume_role
  The ARN of an IAM role to assume at startup. See AWS Authentication for more info.
  - Syntax: literal
  - View examples
- optionalstring
  secret_access_key
  The AWS secret access key. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services. See AWS Authentication for more info.
  - Syntax: literal
  - View examples
optionaltable
batch
Configures the sink batching behavior.
- commonoptionaluint
  max_bytes
  The maximum size of a batch, in bytes, before it is flushed.
  - Default: 5000000 (bytes)
- commonoptionaluint
  max_events
  The maximum size of a batch, in events, before it is flushed. See Buffers & batches for more info.
  - Default: 500 (events)
- commonoptionaluint
  timeout_secs
  The maximum age of a batch before it is flushed. See Buffers & batches for more info.
  - Default: 1 (seconds)
optionaltable
buffer
Configures the sink specific buffer behavior.
- commonoptionaluint
  max_events
  The maximum number of events allowed in the buffer. See Buffers & batches for more info.
  - Only relevant when: type = "memory"
  - Default: 500 (events)
- commonrequired*uint
  max_size
  The maximum size of the buffer on the disk. See Buffers & batches for more info.
  - Only required when: type = "disk"
  - View examples
- enumcommonoptionalstring
  type
  The buffer's type and storage mechanism.
  - Syntax: literal
  - Default: "memory"
  - Enum, must be one of: "memory" "disk"
  - View examples
- enumoptionalstring
  when_full
  The behavior when the buffer becomes full.
  - Syntax: literal
  - Default: "block"
  - Enum, must be one of: "block" "drop_newest"
  - View examples
enumcommonoptionalstring
compression
The compression strategy used to compress the encoded event data before transmission.
- Syntax: literal
- Default: "none"
- Enum, must be one of: "none" "gzip" "syntax"
- View examples
commonrequiredtable
encoding
Configures the encoding specific sink behavior.
- commonrequiredstring
  codec
  The encoding codec used to serialize the events before outputting.
  - Syntax: literal
  - View examples
- optional[string]
  except_fields
  Prevent the sink from encoding the specified labels.
  - View examples
- optional[string]
  only_fields
  Prevent the sink from encoding the specified labels.
  - View examples
- enumoptionalstring
  timestamp_format
  How to format event timestamps.
  - Syntax: literal
  - Default: "rfc3339"
  - Enum, must be one of: "rfc3339" "unix"
  - View examples
optionalstring
endpoint
Custom endpoint for use with AWS-compatible services. Providing a value for this option will make region moot.
- Syntax: literal
- Only relevant when: region = null
- View examples
commonoptionaltable
healthcheck
Health check options for the sink. See Health checks for more info.
- commonoptionalbool
  enabled
  Enables/disables the healthcheck upon Vector boot.
  - Default: true
  - View examples
commonoptionalstring
partition_key_field
The log field used as the Kinesis record's partition key value. See Partitioning for more info.
- Syntax: literal
- View examples
commonrequired*string
region
The AWS region of the target service. If endpoint is provided it will override this value since the endpoint includes the region.
- Syntax: literal
- Only required when: endpoint = null
- View examples
optionaltable
request
Configures the sink request behavior.
- optionaltable
  adaptive_concurrency
  Configure the adaptive concurrency algorithms. These values have been tuned by optimizing simulated results. In general you should not need to adjust these.
  - optionalfloat
    decrease_ratio
    The fraction of the current value to set the new concurrency limit when decreasing the limit. Valid values are greater than 0 and less than 1. Smaller values cause the algorithm to scale back rapidly when latency increases. Note that the new limit is rounded down after applying this ratio.
    - Default: 0.9
  - optionalfloat
    ewma_alpha
    The adaptive concurrency algorithm uses an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) of past RTT measurements as a reference to compare with the current RTT. This value controls how heavily new measurements are weighted compared to older ones. Valid values are greater than 0 and less than 1. Smaller values cause this reference to adjust more slowly, which may be useful if a service has unusually high response variability.
    - Default: 0.7
  - optionalfloat
    rtt_threshold_ratio
    When comparing the past RTT average to the current measurements, we ignore changes that are less than this ratio higher than the past RTT. Valid values are greater than or equal to 0. Larger values cause the algorithm to ignore larger increases in the RTT.
    - Default: 0.05
- commonoptionaluint
  concurrency
  The maximum number of in-flight requests allowed at any given time, or "adaptive" to allow Vector to automatically set the limit based on current network and service conditions.
  - Default: 5 (requests)
- commonoptionaluint
  rate_limit_duration_secs
  The time window, in seconds, used for the rate_limit_num option.
  - Default: 1 (seconds)
- commonoptionaluint
  rate_limit_num
  The maximum number of requests allowed within the rate_limit_duration_secs time window.
  - Default: 5
- optionaluint
  retry_attempts
  The maximum number of retries to make for failed requests. The default, for all intents and purposes, represents an infinite number of retries.
  - Default: 18446744073709552000
- optionaluint
  retry_initial_backoff_secs
  The amount of time to wait before attempting the first retry for a failed request. Once, the first retry has failed the fibonacci sequence will be used to select future backoffs.
  - Default: 1 (seconds)
- optionaluint
  retry_max_duration_secs
  The maximum amount of time, in seconds, to wait between retries.
  - Default: 10 (seconds)
- commonoptionaluint
  timeout_secs
  The maximum time a request can take before being aborted. It is highly recommended that you do not lower this value below the service's internal timeout, as this could create orphaned requests, pile on retries, and result in duplicate data downstream. See Buffers & batches for more info.
  - Default: 30 (seconds)
commonrequiredstring
stream_name
The stream name of the target Kinesis Logs stream.
- Syntax: literal
- View examples

Env Vars

9 items

common

commonoptionalstring
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
The AWS access key id. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services. See AWS Authentication for more info.
- Syntax: literal
- View examples
commonoptionalstring
AWS_CONFIG_FILE
Specifies the location of the file that the AWS CLI uses to store configuration profiles.
- Syntax: literal
- Default: "~/.aws/config"
commonoptionalstring
AWS_CREDENTIAL_EXPIRATION
Expiration time in RFC 3339 format. If unset, credentials won't expire.
- Syntax: literal
- View examples
commonoptionalstring
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION
The default AWS region.
- Syntax: literal
- Only relevant when: endpoint = null
- View examples
commonoptionalstring
AWS_PROFILE
Specifies the name of the CLI profile with the credentials and options to use. This can be the name of a profile stored in a credentials or config file.
- Syntax: literal
- Default: "default"
- View examples
commonoptionalstring
AWS_ROLE_SESSION_NAME
Specifies a name to associate with the role session. This value appears in CloudTrail logs for commands performed by the user of this profile.
- Syntax: literal
- View examples
commonoptionalstring
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
The AWS secret access key. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services. See AWS Authentication for more info.
- Syntax: literal
- View examples
commonoptionalstring
AWS_SESSION_TOKEN
The AWS session token. Used for AWS authentication when communicating with AWS services.
- Syntax: literal
- View examples
commonoptionalstring
AWS_SHARED_CREDENTIALS_FILE
Specifies the location of the file that the AWS CLI uses to store access keys.
- Syntax: literal
- Default: "~/.aws/credentials"

Telemetry

This component provides the following metrics that can be retrieved through the internal_metrics source. See the metrics section in the monitoring page for more info.

counter
processed_bytes_total
The total number of bytes processed by the component. This metric includes the following tags:
- component_kind - The Vector component kind.
- component_name - The Vector component ID.
- component_type - The Vector component type.
- instance - The Vector instance identified by host and port.
- job - The name of the job producing Vector metrics.
counter
events_in_total
The total number of events accepted by this component. This metric includes the following tags:
- component_kind - The Vector component kind.
- component_name - The Vector component ID.
- component_type - The Vector component type.
- instance - The Vector instance identified by host and port.
- job - The name of the job producing Vector metrics.
counter
processed_events_total
The total number of events processed by this component. This metric includes the following tags:
- component_kind - The Vector component kind.
- component_name - The Vector component ID.
- component_type - The Vector component type.
- file - The file that produced the error
- instance - The Vector instance identified by host and port.
- job - The name of the job producing Vector metrics.
counter
events_out_total
The total number of events emitted by this component. This metric includes the following tags:
- component_kind - The Vector component kind.
- component_name - The Vector component ID.
- component_type - The Vector component type.
- instance - The Vector instance identified by host and port.
- job - The name of the job producing Vector metrics.

How It Works

AWS Authentication

Vector checks for AWS credentials in the following order:

Options access_key_id and secret_access_key.
Environment variables AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY.
The credential_process command in the AWS config file. (usually located at ~/.aws/config)
The AWS credentials file. (usually located at ~/.aws/credentials)
The IAM instance profile. (will only work if running on an EC2 instance with an instance profile/role)

If credentials are not found the healtcheck will fail and an error will be logged.

Obtaining an access key

In general, we recommend using instance profiles/roles whenever possible. In cases where this is not possible you can generate an AWS access key for any user within your AWS account. AWS provides a detailed guide on how to do this. Such created AWS access keys can be used via access_key_id and secret_access_key options.

Assuming roles

Vector can assume an AWS IAM role via the assume_role option. This is an optional setting that is helpful for a variety of use cases, such as cross account access.

Buffers & batches

This component buffers & batches data as shown in the diagram above. You'll notice that Vector treats these concepts differently, instead of treating them as global concepts, Vector treats them as sink specific concepts. This isolates sinks, ensuring services disruptions are contained and delivery guarantees are honored.

Batches are flushed when 1 of 2 conditions are met:

The batch age meets or exceeds the configured timeout_secs.
The batch size meets or exceeds the configured <% if component.options.batch.children.respond_to?(:max_size) %>max_size<% else %>max_events<% end %>.

Buffers are controlled via the buffer.* options.

Health checks

Health checks ensure that the downstream service is accessible and ready to accept data. This check is performed upon sink initialization. If the health check fails an error will be logged and Vector will proceed to start.

Require health checks

If you'd like to exit immediately upon a health check failure, you can pass the --require-healthy flag:

vector --config /etc/vector/vector.toml --require-healthy

Disable health checks

If you'd like to disable health checks for this sink you can set the healthcheck option to false.

Partitioning

By default, Vector issues random 16 byte values for each Kinesis record's partition key, evenly distributing records across your Kinesis partitions. Depending on your use case this might not be sufficient since random distribution does not preserve order. To override this, you can supply the partition_key_field option. This option presents an alternate field on your event to use as the partition key value instead. This is useful if you have a field already on your event, and it also pairs nicely with the add_fields transform.

Missing partition keys

Kenesis requires a value for the partition key and therefore if the key is missing or the value is blank the event will be dropped and a warning level log event will be logged. As such, the field specified in the partition_key_field option should always contain a value.

Partition keys that exceed 256 characters

If the value provided exceeds the maximum allowed length of 256 characters Vector will slice the value and use the first 256 characters.

Non-string partition keys

Vector will coerce the value into a string.

Rate limits & adapative concurrency

Adaptive Request Concurrency (ARC)

Adaptive Requst Concurrency is a feature of Vector that does away with static rate limits and automatically optimizes HTTP concurrency limits based on downstream service responses. The underlying mechanism is a feedback loop inspired by TCP congestion control algorithms. Checkout the announcement blog post,

We highly recommend enabling this feature as it improves performance and reliability of Vector and the systems it communicates with.

To enable, set the request.concurrency option to adaptive:

vector.toml

[sinks.my-sink]
  request.concurrency = "adaptive"

Static rate limits

If Adaptive Request Concurrency is not for you, you can manually set static rate limits with the request.rate_limit_duration_secs, request.rate_limit_num, and request.concurrency options:

vector.toml

[sinks.my-sink]
  request.rate_limit_duration_secs = 1
  request.rate_limit_num = 10
  request.concurrency = 10

Retry policy

Vector will retry failed requests (status == 429, >= 500, and != 501). Other responses will not be retried. You can control the number of retry attempts and backoff rate with the request.retry_attempts and request.retry_backoff_secs options.

State

This component is stateless, meaning its behavior is consistent across each input.

#Configuration

#auth

#access_key_id

#assume_role

#secret_access_key

#batch

#max_bytes

#max_events

#timeout_secs

#buffer

#max_events

#max_size

#type

#when_full

#compression

#encoding

#codec

#except_fields

#only_fields

#timestamp_format

#endpoint

#healthcheck

#enabled

#partition_key_field

#region

#request

#adaptive_concurrency

#decrease_ratio

#ewma_alpha

#rtt_threshold_ratio

#concurrency

#rate_limit_duration_secs

#rate_limit_num

#retry_attempts

#retry_initial_backoff_secs

#retry_max_duration_secs

#timeout_secs

#stream_name

#Env Vars

#AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID

#AWS_CONFIG_FILE

#AWS_CREDENTIAL_EXPIRATION

#AWS_DEFAULT_REGION

#AWS_PROFILE

#AWS_ROLE_SESSION_NAME

#AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

#AWS_SESSION_TOKEN

#AWS_SHARED_CREDENTIALS_FILE

#Telemetry

#processed_bytes_total

#events_in_total

#processed_events_total

#events_out_total

#How It Works

#AWS Authentication

#Obtaining an access key

#Assuming roles

#Buffers & batches

#Health checks

#Require health checks

#Disable health checks

#Partitioning

#Missing partition keys

#Partition keys that exceed 256 characters

#Non-string partition keys

#Rate limits & adapative concurrency

#Adaptive Request Concurrency (ARC)

#Static rate limits

#Retry policy

#State

Configuration

auth

access_key_id

assume_role

secret_access_key

batch

max_bytes

max_events

timeout_secs

buffer

max_events

max_size

type

when_full

compression

encoding

codec

except_fields

only_fields

timestamp_format

endpoint

healthcheck

enabled

partition_key_field

region

request

adaptive_concurrency

decrease_ratio

ewma_alpha

rtt_threshold_ratio

concurrency

rate_limit_duration_secs

rate_limit_num

retry_attempts

retry_initial_backoff_secs

retry_max_duration_secs

timeout_secs

stream_name

Env Vars

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID

AWS_CONFIG_FILE

AWS_CREDENTIAL_EXPIRATION

AWS_DEFAULT_REGION

AWS_PROFILE

AWS_ROLE_SESSION_NAME

AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

AWS_SESSION_TOKEN

AWS_SHARED_CREDENTIALS_FILE