Install Vector From Source

This page covers installing Vector from source using the native toolchain for the host.

Vector can also be compiled to a static binary for Linux for x86_64, ARM64, and ARMv7 architectures. See compiling using Docker for details.

We recommend installing Vector through a supported platform, package manager, or pre-built archive, if possible. These handle permissions, directory creation, and other intricacies covered in the Next Steps section.

Installation

• Linux
• Windows
• Docker

The following steps should be used to compile Vector directly on Linux based systems.

1. Install Rust

   curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- -y --default-toolchain stable

2. Install compilation dependencies

   Install C and C++ compilers (GCC or Clang) and GNU make if they are not pre-installed on your system.

3. Download Vector's Source

   • Latest (0.8.2)
   • Master

   mkdir -p vector && \
     curl -sSfL --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://api.github.com/repos/timberio/vector/tarball/v0.8 | \
     tar xzf - -C vector --strip-components=1

4. Change into the vector directory

   cd vector

5. Compile Vector

   [FEATURES="<flag1>,<flag2>,..."] make build

   The FEATURES environment variable is optional. You can override the default features with this variable. See feature flags for more info.

   When finished, the vector binary will be placed in target/<target>/release/vector. For example, if you are building Vector on your Mac, your target triple is x86_64-apple-darwin, and the Vector binary will be located at target/x86_64-apple-darwin/release/vector.

6. Start Vector

   Finally, start vector:

   target/<target>/release/vector --config config/vector.toml

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Next Steps

Configuring

The Vector configuration file is located at:

config/vector.toml

A full spec is located at config/vector.spec.toml and examples are located in config/vector/examples/*. You can learn more about configuring Vector in the Configuration section.

Data Directory

We highly recommend creating a data directory that Vector can use:

mkdir /var/lib/vector

Make sure that this directory is writable by the vector process.

Vector offers a global data_dir option that you can use to specify the path of your directory.

vector.toml

data_dir = "/var/lib/vector" # default

Service Managers

Vector archives ship with service files in case you need them:

Init.d

To install Vector into Init.d run:

cp -av distribution/init.d/vector /etc/init.d

Systemd

To install Vector into Systemd run:

cp -av distribution/systemd/vector.service /etc/systemd/system

Updating

Simply follow the same installation instructions above.

How It Works

Feature Flags

The following feature flags are supported via the FEATURES env var when executing make build:

[FEATURES="<flag1>,<flag2>,..."] make build

There are three meta-features which can be used when compiling for the corresponding targets. If no features are specified, then the default one is used.

Feature	Description	Enabled by default
default	Default set of features for *-unknown-linux-gnu and *-apple-darwin targets.
default-musl	Default set of features for *-unknown-linux-musl targets. Requires cmake and perl as build dependencies.
default-msvc	Default set of features for *-pc-windows-msvc targets. Requires cmake and perl as build dependencies.

Alternatively, for finer control over dependencies and operating system features, it is possible to use specific features from the list below:

Feature	Description	Included in default feature
unix	Enables features that require cfg(unix) to be present on the platform, namely support for Unix domain sockets in docker source and jemalloc instead of the default memory allocator.
vendored	Forces vendoring of OpenSSL and ZLib dependencies instead of using their versions installed in the system. Requires perl as a build dependency.
leveldb-plain	Enables support for disk buffers using vendored LevelDB.
leveldb-cmake	The same as leveldb-plain, but is more portable. Requires cmake as a build dependency. Use it in case of compilation issues with leveldb-plain.
rdkafka-plain	Enables vendored librdkafka dependency, which is required for kafka source and kafka sink.
rdkafka-cmake	The same as rdkafka-plain, but is more portable. Requires cmake as a build dependency. Use it in case of compilation issues with rdkafka-plain.

In addition, it is possible to pick only a subset of Vector's components for the build using feature flags. In order to do it, it instead of default features one has to pass a comma-separated list of component features.

Click to see all supported component features

Name	Description
sources-docker	Enables building of docker source. Requires unix feature to be also enabled for support of Unix domain sockets.
sources-file	Enables building of file source.
sources-http	Enables building of http source.
sources-journald	Enables building of journald source.
sources-kafka	Enables building of kafka source. Requires rdkafka-plain or rdkafka-cmake feature to be also enabled.
sources-logplex	Enables building of logplex source.
sources-prometheus	Enables building of prometheus source.
sources-socket	Enables building of socket source.
sources-splunk_hec	Enables building of splunk_hec source.
sources-statsd	Enables building of statsd source.
sources-stdin	Enables building of stdin source.
sources-syslog	Enables building of syslog source.
sources-vector	Enables building of vector source.
transforms-add_fields	Enables building of add_fields transform.
transforms-add_tags	Enables building of add_tags transform.
transforms-ansi_stripper	Enables building of ansi_stripper transform.
transforms-aws_ec2_metadata	Enables building of aws_ec2_metadata transform.
transforms-coercer	Enables building of coercer transform.
transforms-concat	Enables building of concat transform.
transforms-dedupe	Enables building of dedupe transform.
transforms-filter	Enables building of filter transform.
transforms-geoip	Enables building of geoip transform.
transforms-grok_parser	Enables building of grok_parser transform.
transforms-json_parser	Enables building of json_parser transform.
transforms-kubernetes_pod_metadata	Enables building of kubernetes_pod_metadata transform.
transforms-log_to_metric	Enables building of log_to_metric transform.
transforms-logfmt_parser	Enables building of logfmt_parser transform.
transforms-lua	Enables building of lua transform.
transforms-merge	Enables building of merge transform.
transforms-regex_parser	Enables building of regex_parser transform.
transforms-remove_fields	Enables building of remove_fields transform.
transforms-remove_tags	Enables building of remove_tags transform.
transforms-rename_fields	Enables building of rename_fields transform.
transforms-sampler	Enables building of sampler transform.
transforms-split	Enables building of split transform.
transforms-swimlanes	Enables building of swimlanes transform.
transforms-tag_cardinality_limit	Enables building of tag_cardinality_limit transform.
transforms-tokenizer	Enables building of tokenizer transform.
sinks-aws_cloudwatch_logs	Enables building of aws_cloudwatch_logs sink.
sinks-aws_cloudwatch_metrics	Enables building of aws_cloudwatch_metrics sink.
sinks-aws_kinesis_firehose	Enables building of aws_kinesis_firehose sink.
sinks-aws_kinesis_streams	Enables building of aws_kinesis_streams sink.
sinks-aws_s3	Enables building of aws_s3 sink.
sinks-blackhole	Enables building of blackhole sink.
sinks-clickhouse	Enables building of clickhouse sink.
sinks-console	Enables building of console sink.
sinks-datadog_logs	Enables building of datadog_logs sink.
sinks-datadog_metrics	Enables building of datadog_metrics sink.
sinks-elasticsearch	Enables building of elasticsearch sink.
sinks-file	Enables building of file sink.
sinks-gcp_cloud_storage	Enables building of gcp_cloud_storage sink.
sinks-gcp_pubsub	Enables building of gcp_pubsub sink.
sinks-gcp_stackdriver_logs	Enables building of gcp_stackdriver_logs sink.
sinks-honeycomb	Enables building of honeycomb sink.
sinks-http	Enables building of http sink.
sinks-humio_logs	Enables building of humio_logs sink.
sinks-influxdb_metrics	Enables building of influxdb_metrics sink.
sinks-kafka	Enables building of kafka sink. Requires rdkafka-plain or rdkafka-cmake feature to be also enabled.
sinks-logdna	Enables building of logdna sink.
sinks-loki	Enables building of loki sink.
sinks-new_relic_logs	Enables building of new_relic_logs sink.
sinks-papertrail	Enables building of papertrail sink.
sinks-prometheus	Enables building of prometheus sink.
sinks-pulsar	Enables building of pulsar sink.
sinks-sematext_logs	Enables building of sematext_logs sink.
sinks-socket	Enables building of socket sink.
sinks-splunk_hec	Enables building of splunk_hec sink.
sinks-statsd	Enables building of statsd sink.
sinks-vector	Enables building of vector sink.