What is a web application for searching log files?

Question

linux

We have a distributed web system that writes a lot of logs. We made it so that all the logs merge onto one server. Recommend a web application for searching the logs.
I would like to combine logs into groups. And search by string, date period and group. So that the system does not review all the logs, but searches only in the necessary ones (according to the group and period). At the moment, the period is specified in the file name (for example, api_201401.log - January 2014), but of course we can adapt to the search system and change the file name format.
Inside the file, too, the format is specific. As a rule, entries in the logs are multi-line, but each line begins with a date, time and some session identifier.
For example:
2014-01-01 00:00:02 [f5400c] Bla-bla-bla...
I would like to also display all the lines of the log of this session when finding a line.
Is there a system that can solve this problem or write your own? Or is there a good system, and with some change in our logs, it can solve this problem? Thank you.

Answer 1

We use logstash + elasticsearch + kibana - great solution, realtime, full context search, tags and alerts.

Answer 2

Free version of splunk if you meet the limit of 500 megabytes of logs per day.
Well, from opensource - logstash + elasticsearch + kibana or graylog + elasticsearch
HP also has a ArcSight Logger product, free up to 750Mb / day.

Answer 3

if your system can write to syslog, it's easy to organize a syslog server with a web face.