Understanding custom logging options

The Custom logs option in Azure Monitor helps to collect text-based logs that are not part of the standard logs collected by Azure Monitor, such as the system logs, event logs in Windows, and similar ones in Linux. In order to configure custom logs, the host machine must have the Log Analytics agent or the newer AMA installed on it. We just saw how to install the agents in the previous section.

Once we have ensured that the agents are in place, it is a very easy process to set up custom logs. Here are the steps:

1. In the Log Analytics workspace, select the Custom logs section and click on the + Add custom log option, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 13.9 – Setting up a new custom log using Log Analytics

2. In the wizard that follows, upload a sample log file so that the tool can parse it and understand the log format. Here is an example of a sample log file:

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