🛠️ UniFi Network Application 9.4.17: CEF Syslog Timestamp Fixes

TL;DR: UniFi Network Application 9.4.17 brings two welcome changes for CEF events in syslog: their syslog timestamp now follows the local time zone (matching other UniFi events), and a new field UNIFIutcTime provides a proper UTC timestamp with time zone information.

UniFi Network Application 9.4.17 is now a release candidate. As usual, the release notes don't say much about syslog activity logging, but there are some very welcome improvements.

In my earlier post, 🕰️ Inconsistent Time Zones in UniFi Logs, I showed that most UniFi events used the local time zone while CEF events used UTC. That mismatch could break event correlation in log management systems and SIEMs—if you weren't aware of it and didn't handle the difference.

What has changed in 9.4.17 (for CEF events)

  • Syslog timestamps now align with local time. CEF events' syslog timestamp uses the local time zone, matching other UniFi event types. This is good news for consistency, even though it initially broke my Falcon LogScale / Falcon NG‑SIEM parser after the upgrade.
  • New field: UNIFIutcTime. This field carries a proper UTC timestamp with time zone info. Example: 2025-08-23T00:55:54.356Z.

Parser impact (and quick fix)

Because CEF events switched their syslog timestamp to local time, my existing parser logic needed an update. The fix was straightforward:

  • For CEF events, after parsing the CEF payload, use UNIFIutcTime as the event timestamp and ignore the syslog timestamp.
  • Result: consistent, unambiguous timestamps across event types generated by my UniFi Dream Machine Pro.

Thank you, Ubiquiti developers—this is a step in the right direction!

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