docker-images/scribe-2.2

Scribe

Facebook's legacy Scribe log aggregation daemon, packaged as a Docker image.

Scribe is a server for aggregating log data streamed in real time from a large number of servers. It accepts messages over a Thrift RPC interface and writes them to configurable back-end stores (files, network relays, etc.).

Note: Scribe was open-sourced by Facebook and is now archived at facebookarchive/scribe. This image exists because no official Docker image is available.

---

Quick Start

docker run -d \
  -p 1463:1463 \
  -v $(pwd)/logs:/var/log/scribe \
  ghcr.io/tiennm99/scribe:2.2

Scribe will listen on port 1463 (Thrift binary protocol) and write incoming log messages to /var/log/scribe inside the container.

---

Runnable Example

Want to see logs actually written end-to-end? The example/ directory has a docker compose setup that boots Scribe plus a small Go sender:

cd scribe-2.2/example
docker compose up --build

The sender pushes a few messages and exits; written log files appear on your host under example/logs/. See example/README.md for details.

---

Custom Configuration

Mount your own scribe.conf over the default one:

docker run -d \
  -p 1463:1463 \
  -v $(pwd)/my-scribe.conf:/etc/scribe/scribe.conf:ro \
  -v $(pwd)/logs:/var/log/scribe \
  ghcr.io/tiennm99/scribe:2.2

Or set SCRIBE_CONFIG to point to a different path inside the container:

docker run -d \
  -p 1463:1463 \
  -e SCRIBE_CONFIG=/opt/scribe/custom.conf \
  -v $(pwd)/custom.conf:/opt/scribe/custom.conf:ro \
  -v $(pwd)/logs:/var/log/scribe \
  ghcr.io/tiennm99/scribe:2.2

---

Docker Compose

services:
  scribe:
    image: ghcr.io/tiennm99/scribe:2.2
    ports:
      - "1463:1463"
    volumes:
      - scribe_logs:/var/log/scribe
      - ./config/scribe.conf:/etc/scribe/scribe.conf:ro
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  scribe_logs:

---

Configuration Reference

The default config at config/scribe.conf demonstrates the most common options:

Key	Default	Description
port	1463	TCP port scribed listens on
max_msg_per_second	100000	Rate limit across all categories (0 = unlimited)
max_msg_size	16777216	Max message size in bytes
check_interval	3	Seconds between store health checks

Store Types

Type	Description
file	Write messages to rotating files on disk
network	Relay messages to an upstream Scribe instance
buffer	Buffer messages in memory with a file fallback
null	Discard messages (useful for testing)
multi	Fan-out to multiple stores simultaneously

Full configuration documentation: https://github.com/facebookarchive/scribe/wiki/Scribe-Configuration

---

Sending Log Messages

Use the Scribe Thrift client library for your language, or a simple Python example:

from scribe import scribe
from thrift.transport import TSocket, TTransport
from thrift.protocol import TBinaryProtocol

socket    = TSocket.TSocket(host="localhost", port=1463)
transport = TTransport.TFramedTransport(socket)
protocol  = TBinaryProtocol.TBinaryProtocol(trans=transport, strictRead=False, strictWrite=False)
client    = scribe.Client(protocol)

transport.open()
log_entry = scribe.LogEntry(category="myapp", message="Hello, Scribe!")
result    = client.Log(messages=[log_entry])
transport.close()

---

Volumes

Path	Purpose
/var/log/scribe	Log output directory (mount a host path or named volume)
/etc/scribe	Configuration directory

---

Ports

Port	Protocol	Description
1463	TCP	Scribe Thrift RPC interface

---

Building Locally

docker build -t scribe:2.2 .

The Dockerfile uses a two-stage build:

1. builder - compiles Apache Thrift 0.9.1 and Scribe from source on CentOS 7
2. runtime - copies only the compiled binary and required shared libraries

---

Credits

• https://github.com/facebookarchive/scribe
• https://archive.apache.org/dist/thrift/0.9.1/