Heroku Labs: HTTPS Drains
Last updated February 12, 2025
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Table of Contents
This Heroku Labs feature adds experimental support for draining app logs to HTTP(S) endpoints (an alternative to draining app logs via TCP-syslog).
The features added through labs are experimental and may change or be removed without notice.
How it works
Adding HTTP(S) drains
$ heroku drains:add https://user:pass@myendpoint.com/logs -a myapp
HTTP(S) drain endpoints
Logplex buffers log messages and submits batches of messages to an HTTP(S) endpoint via a POST request. The POST body contains syslog formatted messages, framed using the syslog TCP protocol octet counting framing method.
120 <40>1 2012-11-30T06:45:29+00:00 heroku web.3 d.73ea7440-270a-435a-a0ea-adf50b4e5f5a - State changed from starting to up
156 <40>1 2012-11-30T06:45:26+00:00 heroku web.3 d.73ea7440-270a-435a-a0ea-adf50b4e5f5a - Starting process with command `bundle exec rackup config.ru -p 24405`
Log messages contain a drain token (unique to that drain) that can be used to further validate the origin of drained log messages. The token for a drain can be retrieved with the heroku drains command:
$ heroku drains -a myapp
https://user:pass@myendpoint.com/logs (d.73ea7440-270a-435a-a0ea-adf50b4e5f5a)
Secure drains
Secure drains are now possible with a combination of HTTPS drain endpoints and HTTP basic auth.
Enabling
$ heroku labs:enable https-drains -a myapp
Enabling https-drains for myapp... done
WARNING: This feature is experimental and may change or be removed without notice.
Disabling
$ heroku labs:disable https-drains -a myapp
Disabling https-drains for myapp... done