A new Fluentd package was released
Introduction
The td-agent has been the most popular distribution of Fluentd sponsored by Treasure Data, Inc. Thanks to Treasure Data, Inc’s effort, Fluentd can be installed easily on a variety of platforms without any complex dependencies. The community released Fluentd v1.16 on 2023-03-29 and decided to rename its package name to fluent-package along with upgrading a new ruby version. In this blog post, we’ll explain what has changed and how it impacts the current users.
Even though the package name has been changed, Treasure Data, Inc still be a sponsor of the Fluentd community and the package delivery.
What changed?
As I mentioned in the introduction, td-agent is now renamed to fluent-package. The latest version of td-agent is v4.5. The following table shows the highlight of changes between td-agent v4.5.1 and fluent-package v5.0.1
You can find all changes at the official website.
| td-agent v4.5.1 | fluent-package v5.0.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Fluentd version | 1.16.1 | 1.16.2 |
| Ruby version | 2.7.8 | 3.2.2 |
| Service name | td-agent | fluentd |
| LTS | No | Yes |
Ruby version
Since Ruby 2.7.x reached its end of lifecycle date at 2023-03-31, the community decided to introduce the current latest version of Ruby 3.2.2. Thus, a new minor update for td-agent v4 will not be delivered anymore and its scheduled end of life is Dec 2023.
Service Name
For Linux users, the service name td-agent has been used to start/stop service with the following commands.
# systemctl start td-agent
# systemctl stop td-agent
# systemctl restart td-agent
With fluent-package, the service name has changed to fluentd.
# systemctl start fluentd
# systemctl stop fluentd
# systemctl restart fluentd
The installation directories and command names have also changed from td-agent. Installation and configuration directory :
/opt/td-agent -> /opt/fluent/
/etc/td-agent -> /etc/fluent/
Command names :
td-agent -> fluentd
td-agent-gem -> fluentd-gem
Thanks to the community effort, the old directories and command names are available during the migration process to keep backward compatibility. If you run td-agent manually by custom script, it is required to update the directory path and the command name.
Provides /usr/sbin/td-agent symlink for backward compatibility
Provides /usr/sbin/td-agent-gem symlink for backward compatibility
Provides /etc/td-agent symlink for backward compatibility
Provides /var/log/td-agent symlink for backward compatibilityThe details of migration steps will be covered by the future blog.
LTS (Long Term Support)
In the past, the release cycle of the td-agent package required users to perform quarterly updates in order to access the latest bug and security fixes. These updates occasionally introduced the latest Fluentd version, posing challenges for enterprise users who needed to conduct thorough testing and validation before integrating the new version into their production environments. In order to address this issue and accelerate the use of Fluentd in production, the community releases the Long Term Support package fluent-package LTS.
The first release of fluent-package LTS v5.0.1 was built based on Fluentd v1.16.2, and will be followed by v5.0.2(Fluentd v1.16.3), v5.0.3(Fluentd v1.16.4)... until the next LTS version v6.0.x which planned to be release in 2025.
The following image shows the current releases and future plans:
Summary
The package name of Fluent was renamed from td-agent to fluent-package since the release of the package is now fully maintained by the community. But don’t worry, we are working with the community to ensure backward compatibility to encourage users to adopt new packages and enjoy its benefits.
The LTS(Long Term Support) package was also released to provide stability and reliability over an extended period. With LTS, enterprises can plan their maintenance and upgrade cycles accordingly, reducing the risk of unexpected disruptions or downtime.
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