Can I insert field delimiters into an exported CEF syslog stream?

[sweendogz]

We have a few custom log types that we're ingesting into Arcsight, so we've got connectors built and funcitoning.  Several of the fields contain data with spaces such as "zonename groupname blockname".  This is all well and good; however we're also forwarding the parsed CEF message on to a host via syslog.  Since the CEF fields are space delimited in this syslog stream, it's making the parsing on the other end complicated.  

Is there a way to insert a comma, pipe or other unique delimiter in between each CEF field when streaming?

Thanks,

Bill

[brian.freedman@1]

You can define format templates by using rsyslog which will help define the format of your syslog events and you can make them more ArcSight friendly

Templates — rsyslog 8.11.0 documentation

[sweendogz]

So the connector is using rsylog to forward the message, and I can set up a template on the connector to modify the syslog output by tweaking the rsyslog template?

[mschleich]

Hi Bill,

Maybe this document could be interesting to know what you can do with CEF events (cf. below).

I know that you may chaining ArcSight Connector as CEF is the default format.

Thanks

Kind Regards

Michael

[rkent1]

Are there regex restrictions on "the other end"? If the parsing engine on that receiving end can support regex lookarounds, I can give you some guidance of how to properly parse CEF without needing to add extra delimiters.