# How to Forward Logs in App Platform

App Platform is a fully managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that deploys applications from Git repositories or container images. It automatically builds, deploys, and scales components while handling all underlying infrastructure.

In addition to viewing [basic logs](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/view-logs/index.html.md) in App Platform, you can forward your application’s runtime logs to external log management providers. This lets you search, index, and retain logs using the provider’s tools. Forwarding logs does not count towards an application’s bandwidth usage. At this time, [dedicated egress IP addresses](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/add-ip-address/index.html.md) cannot be used for log forwarding.

Currently, App Platform supports log forwarding to [DigitalOcean Managed OpenSearch](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/databases/opensearch/how-to/create/index.html.md), [OpenSearch](https://opensearch.org/docs/latest/getting-started), [Datadog](https://www.datadoghq.com/), and [Logtail](https://logtail.com/).

## Configure Log Forwarding Using the Control Panel

To configure log forwarding, go to the [**Apps** page](https://cloud.digitalocean.com/apps), select your app, then click the **Settings** tab.

In the **Log Forwarding** section, click **Edit** and select your log collection provider. Then provide the applicable values for your provider:

| Provider | Settings |
|---|---|
| Managed OpenSearch | **Destination name**: A label for identifying the forwarding target. , **DigitalOcean OpenSearch database**: The name of your DigitalOcean Managed OpenSearch database cluster. , **User**: The username you use to access the cluster. Defaults to `doadmin`. , **Index name (optional)**: The name of the [OpenSearch index](https://opensearch.org/docs/latest/im-plugin) to forward the logs to. Defaults to `logs`., , Forwarding logs to [DigitalOcean Managed OpenSearch clusters](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/databases/opensearch/index.html.md) with trusted sources enabled is not supported. To send logs to a managed OpenSearch cluster, first disable trusted sources. |
| OpenSearch | **Destination name**: A label for identifying the forwarding target., **Endpoint**: The endpoint URL of your OpenSearch cluster, in the format `https://hostname:port`. , **User**: The username you use to access the cluster. , **Password**: The password for the username you use to access the cluster. , **Index name (optional)**: The name of the [OpenSearch index](https://opensearch.org/docs/latest/im-plugin) to forward the logs to. Defaults to `logs`. |
| Datadog | **Destination name**: A label for identifying the forwarding target. , **Endpoint**: The provider endpoint where App Platform forwards the logs. Use the HTTP endpoint `https://http-intake.logs.datadoghq.com/api/v2/logs`. If you use a different Datadog site, such as `US3`, the endpoint uses a different subdomain. In the example of `US3`, the endpoint is `https://http-intake.logs.us3.datadoghq.com/api/v2/logs`. Check [Datadog’s documentation](https://docs.datadoghq.com/api/latest/logs/#send-logs) to ensure you’re using the correct endpoint. , **API Key**: The [token](https://docs.datadoghq.com/account_management/api-app-keys/#client-tokens) generated by Datadog. For more information, see the [Datadog documentation](https://docs.datadoghq.com/logs). |
| Logtail | **Destination name**: A label for identifying the forwarding target. , **Token**: The token used to access a Rsyslog source in Logtail. For more information, see the [Logtail documentation](https://betterstack.com/docs/logs/digital-ocean/). |

Select specific resources to forward logs from, or select **Forward logs from all compute resources**.

![Log destination](https://docs.digitalocean.com/screenshots/app-platform/add-log-destination.f878f0391d5e185d04e781819241faa3e2ccc6f862387695c25ee7fb6be3339f.png)

Click **Add Log Destination** to enable remote logging for the provider.

## Configure Log Forwarding Using the App Spec

To configure log forwarding using the app spec, add a `log_destinations` object to your app spec and specify the log consumer’s details. For example, the following configuration forwards logs to a [DigitalOcean Managed OpenSearch cluster](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/databases/opensearch/how-to/create/index.html.md):

```yaml
log_destinations:
  - name: your_log_consumer_name
    open_search:
      cluster_name: your-opensearch-cluster
```

See the [app spec reference](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/reference/app-spec/index.html.md#yaml-file-structure) for more information about the `log_destinations` object and the details for each log consumer.