Datadog

Cribl Stream can send log and metric events to Datadog. (Datadog supports metrics only of type gauge, counter, and rate via its REST API.)

Cribl Stream sends events to the following Datadog endpoints in the US region. Use a DNS lookup to discover and include the corresponding IP addresses in your firewall rules’ allowlist.

  • Logs: https://http-intake.logs.datadoghq.com/v1/input
  • Metrics: https://api.datadoghq.com/api/v1/series

Type: Streaming | TLS Support: Yes | PQ Support: Yes

Configuring Cribl Stream to Output to Datadog

From the top nav, click Manage, then select a Worker Group to configure. Next, you have two options:

To configure via the graphical QuickConnect UI, click Routing > QuickConnect (Stream) or Collect (Edge). Next, click Add Destination at right. From the resulting drawer’s tiles, select Datadog. Next, click either Add Destination or (if displayed) Select Existing. The resulting drawer will provide the options below.

Or, to configure via the Routing UI, click Data > Destinations (Stream) or More > Destinations (Edge). From the resulting page’s tiles or the Destinations left nav, select Datadog. Next, click Add Destination to open a New Destination modal that provides the options below.

General Settings

Output ID: Enter a unique name to identify this Destination definition.

Authentication Settings

Use the Authentication method drop-down to select one of these options:

  • Manual: Displays a field for you to enter an API key that is available in your Datadog profile.

  • Secret: This option exposes an API key (text secret) drop-down, in which you can select a stored secret that references the API access token described above. A Create link is available to store a new, reusable secret.

API key: Enter your Datadog organization’s API key.

Optional Settings

Datadog site: Select the Datadog region you are sending to. Defaults to US; the other options are US3, US5, Europe, US1-FED, and AP1.

Send logs as: Specify the content type to use when sending logs. Defaults to application/json, where each log message is represented by a JSON object. The alternative text/plain option sends one message per line, with newline \n delimiters.

Message field: Name of the event field that contains the message to send. If not specified, Cribl Stream sends a JSON representation of the whole event (regardless of whether Send logs as is set to JSON or plain text).

Source: Name of the source to send with logs. If you’re sending logs as JSON objects (i.e., you’ve selected Send logs as: application/json), the event’s source field (if set) will override this value.

Host: Name of the host to send with logs. If you’re sending logs as JSON objects, the event’s host field (if set) will override this value.

Service: Name of the service to send with logs. If you’re sending logs as JSON objects, the event’s __service field (if set) will override this value.

Datadog tags: List of tags to send with logs (e.g., env:prod, env_staging:east).

Severity: Default value for message severity. If you’re sending logs as JSON objects, the event’s __severity field (if set) will override this value. Defaults to info; the drop-down offers many other severity options.

Datadog uses the above five fields (source, host, __service, tags, and __severity) to enhance searches and UX.

Allow API key from events: If toggled to Yes, any API key in the __agent_api_key internal field will override the API key field’s value. This option is useful if events originate from multiple Datadog Agent Sources, each configured with a different API key. (For further details, see Managing API Keys.)

Backpressure behavior: Specify whether to block, drop, or queue events when all receivers are exerting backpressure. Defaults to Block.

Tags: Optionally, add tags that you can use to filter and group Destinations in Cribl Stream’s Manage Destinations page. These tags aren’t added to processed events. Use a tab or hard return between (arbitrary) tag names.

Persistent Queue Settings

This tab is displayed when the Backpressure behavior is set to Persistent Queue.

On Cribl-managed Cribl.Cloud Workers (with an Enterprise plan), this tab exposes only the destructive Clear Persistent Queue button (described below in this section). A maximum queue size of 1 GB disk space is automatically allocated per PQ‑enabled Destination, per Worker Process. The 1 GB limit is on outbound uncompressed data, and no compression is applied to the queue.

This limit is not configurable. If the queue fills up, Cribl Stream will block outbound data. To configure the queue size, compression, queue-full fallback behavior, and other options below, use a hybrid Group.

Max file size: The maximum data volume to store in each queue file before closing it. Enter a numeral with units of KB, MB, etc. Defaults to 1 MB.

Max queue size: The maximum amount of disk space that the queue is allowed to consume on each Worker Process. Once this limit is reached, this Destination will stop queueing data and apply the Queue‑full behavior. Required, and defaults to 5 GB. Accepts positive numbers with units of KB, MB, GB, etc. Can be set as high as 1 TB, unless you’ve configured a different Max PQ size per Worker Process in Group Settings.

Queue file path: The location for the persistent queue files. Defaults to $CRIBL_HOME/state/queues. To this value, Cribl Stream will append /<worker‑id>/<output‑id>.

Compression: Codec to use to compress the persisted data, once a file is closed. Defaults to None. Select Gzip to enable compression.

Queue-full behavior: Whether to block or drop events when the queue is exerting backpressure (because disk is low or at full capacity). Block is the same behavior as non-PQ blocking, corresponding to the Block option on the Backpressure behavior drop-down. Drop new data throws away incoming data, while leaving the contents of the PQ unchanged.

Clear Persistent Queue: Click this “panic” button if you want to delete the files that are currently queued for delivery to this Destination. A confirmation modal will appear - because this will free up disk space by permanently deleting the queued data, without delivering it to downstream receivers. (Appears only after Output ID has been defined.)

Strict ordering: The default Yes position enables FIFO (first in, first out) event forwarding. When receivers recover, Cribl Stream will send earlier queued events before forwarding newly arrived events. To instead prioritize new events before draining the queue, toggle this off. Doing so will expose this additional control:

  • Drain rate limit (EPS): Optionally, set a throttling rate (in events per second) on writing from the queue to receivers. (The default 0 value disables throttling.) Throttling the queue’s drain rate can boost the throughput of new/active connections, by reserving more resources for them. You can further optimize Workers’ startup connections and CPU load at Group Settings > Worker Processes.

Processing Settings

Post‑Processing

Pipeline: Pipeline to process data before sending the data out using this output.

System fields: A list of fields to automatically add to events that use this output. By default, includes cribl_pipe (identifying the Cribl Stream Pipeline that processed the event). Supports wildcards. Other options include:

  • cribl_host – Cribl Stream Node that processed the event.
  • cribl_input – Cribl Stream Source that processed the event.
  • cribl_output – Cribl Stream Destination that processed the event.
  • cribl_route – Cribl Stream Route (or QuickConnect) that processed the event.
  • cribl_wp – Cribl Stream Worker Process that processed the event.

Retries

Honor Retry-After header: Whether to honor a Retry-After header, provided that the header specifies a delay no longer than 180 seconds. Cribl Stream limits the delay to 180 seconds even if the Retry-After header specifies a longer delay. When enabled, any Retry-After header received takes precedence over all other options configured in the Retries section. When disabled, all Retry-After headers are ignored.

Settings for failed HTTP requests: When you want to automatically retry requests that receive particular HTTP response status codes, use these settings to list those response codes.

For any HTTP response status codes that are not explicitly configured for retries, Cribl Stream applies the following rules:

Status CodeAction
Greater than or equal to 400 and less than or equal to 500.Drop the request.
Greater than 500.Retry the request.

Upon receiving a response code that’s on the list, Cribl Stream first waits for a set time interval called the Pre-backoff interval and then begins retrying the request. Time between retries increases based on an exponential backoff algorithm whose base is the Backoff multiplier, until the backoff multiplier reaches the Backoff limit (ms). At that point, Cribl Stream continues retrying the request without increasing the time between retries any further.

By default, this Destination has no response codes configured for automatic retries. For each response code you want to add to the list, click Add Setting and configure the following settings:

  • HTTP status code: A response code that indicates a failed request, for example 429 (Too Many Requests) or 503 (Service Unavailable).
  • Pre-backoff interval (ms): The amount of time to wait before beginning retries, in milliseconds. Defaults to 1000 (one second).
  • Backoff multiplier: The base for the exponential backoff algorithm. A value of 2 (the default) means that Cribl Stream will retry after 2 seconds, then 4 seconds, then 8 seconds, and so on.
  • Backoff limit (ms): The maximum backoff interval Cribl Stream should apply for its final retry, in milliseconds. Default (and minimum) is 10,000 (10 seconds); maximum is 180,000 (180 seconds, or 3 minutes).

Retry timed-out HTTP requests: When you want to automatically retry requests that have timed out, toggle this control on to display the following settings for configuring retry behavior:

  • Pre-backoff interval (ms): The amount of time to wait before beginning retries, in milliseconds. Defaults to 1000 (one second).
  • Backoff multiplier: The base for the exponential backoff algorithm. A value of 2 (the default) means that Cribl Stream will retry after 2 seconds, then 4 seconds, then 8 seconds, and so on.
  • Backoff limit (ms): The maximum backoff interval Cribl Stream should apply for its final retry, in milliseconds. Default (and minimum) is 10,000 (10 seconds); maximum is 180,000 (180 seconds, or 3 minutes).

Advanced Settings

Validate server certs: Toggle to Yes to reject certificates that are not authorized by a CA in the CA certificate path, nor by another trusted CA (e.g., the system’s CA).

Round-robin DNS: Toggle to Yes to use round-robin DNS lookup across multiple IPv6 addresses. When a DNS server returns multiple addresses, this will cause Cribl Stream to cycle through them in the order returned.

Compress: Compresses the payload body before sending. Defaults to Yes (recommended).

Request timeout: Amount of time (in seconds) to wait for a request to complete before aborting it. Defaults to 30.

Request concurrency: Maximum number of concurrent requests per Worker Process. When Cribl Stream hits this limit, it begins throttling traffic to the downstream service. Defaults to 5. Minimum: 1. Maximum: 32.

Max body size (KB): Maximum size of the request body before compression. Defaults to 4096 KB. The actual request body size might exceed the specified value because the Destination adds bytes when it writes to the downstream receiver. Cribl recommends that you experiment with the Max body size value until downstream receivers reliably accept all events.

Max events per request: Maximum number of events to include in the request body. The 0 default allows unlimited events.

Flush period (s): Maximum time between requests. Low values could cause the payload size to be smaller than its configured maximum. Defaults to 1.

Extra HTTP headers: Name-value pairs to pass as additional HTTP headers. Values will be sent encrypted.

Failed request logging mode: Use this drop-down to determine which data should be logged when a request fails. Select among None (the default), Payload, or Payload + Headers. With this last option, Cribl Stream will redact all headers, except non-sensitive headers that you declare below in Safe headers.

Safe headers: Add headers to declare them as safe to log in plaintext. (Sensitive headers such as authorization will always be redacted, even if listed here.) Use a tab or hard return to separate header names.

Environment: If you’re using GitOps, optionally use this field to specify a single Git branch on which to enable this configuration. If empty, the config will be enabled everywhere.

Internal Fields

Cribl Stream uses a set of internal fields to assist in forwarding data to a Destination.

If an event contains the internal field __criblMetrics, Cribl Stream will send it to Datadog as a metric event. Otherwise, Cribl Stream will send it as a log event.

You can use these fields to override outbound event values for log events:

  • __service
  • __severity

No internal fields are supported for metric events.

Proxying Requests

If you need to proxy HTTP/S requests, see System Proxy Configuration.

For More Information

You might find these Datadog references helpful: