How to Post a Question in the Community that Gets Responses

[dscryber (David Sciuto)]

This platform is made with love for community discussions on the open source tool Graylog, it components and usage.

Here’s a Graylog support-inspired template (thank you, @aaronsachs ) that’ll get responses:

Description of your problem

<!-- Use this section to describe the problem that you're encountering. Please include any screenshots or recordings of the problem you're running into.-->

Description of steps you’ve taken to attempt to solve the issue

<!-- Use this section to provide detailed steps of what you've done so far to attempt to solve your problem so that the community knows how to help-->

Environmental information

Operating system information

<!--Please select the operating system that you're using Graylog on-->

• RHEL
• CentOS
• Ubuntu
• Debian
• Containers (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, etc.)
• FreeBSD
• Windows
• Other (e.g., using config management like Chef, Puppet, Ansible or Salt to deploy Graylog)

Package versions

<!--Please provide the package versions for all installed Graylog, MongoDB, and Elasticsearch packages-->

• Graylog
• MongoDB
• Elasticsearch

Service logs, configuration, and environment variables

• See the docs site (Default file locations — Graylog documentation) for all file locations
• For all container-based deployments, please include your full, redacted YAML configuration file

NOTE : When posting log output or code snippets (e.g., JSON, YAML, etc.), please surround your code with three backticks like so:

Your code goes here

For longer code or configuration bits, please enclose your snippet in a summary block like this:

Summary of your code snippet or config here

Your code goes inside the triple backticks

We have grown as an international community. Please respect the one and only forum rule: Use English as language.

Format topics with Markdown

New topics can be written using the editor in Markdown. There are many things you can and should do to improve readability with better formatting.

Code, Configuration, Logs, Shell Output should be formatted with surrounding three backticks in a new line like this:

``` 
is_master = true
node_id_file = /etc/graylog/server/node-id
password_secret = password_secret
root_username = admin
``` 

More tips on Markdown and general writing can be found here.

Improve the Conversation

Treat this place like you would walk into a public park. Treat everyone with respect, even if someone disagrees on your opinion. Listen what others suggest and learn from their experience.

Create a new thread for your question with your own details. Older threads might not necessarily fit, and also requires others to scroll and read history to fully understand if your issue is the same.

Keep it friendly and relaxed

Please hide frustration when asking a question here. A message which adds negative items feels different to a clear-cut problem description. Think about the other side and their feelings about your tone.

Remember

Please don’t stress it if answers take their time. We are human beings with our day job, and try to help you for free. Don’t be impolite and force one with a private message, keep it public and wait for an answer.

If you need faster professional support from an enterprise partner, please consult the project’s websites.

Things to keep in mind:

• Be civil. Don’t post anything that one would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
• Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
• Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.
• Choose the right category. A question for Graylog Add-ons does not fit into Graylog Central (peer support).

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

Before you ask your question

• Use Google and the search. Maybe a similar thread already solves your problem.
• Does the documentation provide a troubleshooting guide already? Try that first and add your findings here.
• If you think you’ve hit a bug, look into the upstream GitHub project if it already exists and link it in your post.

Please make sure to include every little detail in your question. This helps community members to analyse your problem. They do not need to ask again to find out more about your issue.

Sometimes a screenshot or a handcrafted overview picture help even more to understand what you mean.

Tip

Please also ensure that your posting is properly formatted and readable for others. More hints on Markdown can be found here.

Details you should always include

• Which documentation source did you use (URL, short quote).
• Distribution name and its version (/etc/os-release or /etc/*-release or /etc/*-version) of any involved host.
• Software versions (<applicationname> --version or web application - About).
• Additional dependencies (php -v, ruby -v, python -V, etc.).
• Installation method and download source (packages, or source, and if Git, git show -1).

Examples:

yum info graylog-server 
apt-cache showpkg graylog-server 
zypper info graylog-server 

Steps to reproduce or understand the question

• Configuration files you’ve edited (their content formatted with code tags, their location on disk).
• Cluster and HA related configuration details.
• Order of things, e.g. notification was triggered, corresponding debug log entries, your analysis.
• Which steps are needed to reproduce the problem standalone in a local environment, e.g. Docker or a (Vagrant) VM?

Tip

Keep your private details safe. Remove passwords, credentials, etc. and obfuscate host names from your company environment.

Add the things you’ve tried already

• Configuration changes which did not work - they could explain your idea.
• Docs and howtos you’ve found, but they do not match 100%.
• If it could be a bug, did you try a snapshot package or attempted to fix it already?

Tip

Do your homework and describe your idea in detail. Don’t throw something and ask for a ready-to-use solution.

Learn from others

Community members will help you to learn about all the tools we use and love. Please understand that you won’t get copy-paste solutions all the time. The more you are willing to invest into your learning curve, the more you will benefit later on

Helping others and learning new things is a good feeling. If you think the same, come back here on a regular basis and add your help and opinion. This is what matters most in our community. Others will honour that, making you the Graylog expert.

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