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NAME

       syslog.conf - syslogd(8) configuration file

DESCRIPTION

       The  syslog.conf  file  is  the  main configuration file for syslogd(8)
       which logs system messages on *nix systems.  This file specifies  rules
       for logging.  For special features see the sysklogd(8) manpage.

       Every  rule  consists  of  two  fields,  a selector field and an action
       field.  These two fields are separated by one or more spaces  or  tabs.
       The  selector  field  specifies  a pattern of facilities and priorities
       belonging to the specified action.

       Lines starting with a hash mark (‘‘#’’) and empty lines are ignored.

       This release of syslogd is able to understand an extended syntax.   One
       rule  can  be  divided  into  several  lines  if  the  leading  line is
       terminated with an backslash (‘‘\’’).

SELECTORS

       The selector field consists of two parts, a facility  and  a  priority,
       separated by a period (‘‘.’’).  Both parts are case insensitive and can
       also be specified as decimal numbers corresponding to  the  definitions
       in  <syslog.h>.   It  is  obviously  safer  to  use  the names than the
       numbers.  Both facilities and priorities are  described  in  syslog(3).
       The  names  mentioned  below  correspond  to the similar LOG_-values in
       <syslog.h>.

       The facility is one of the following keywords:  auth,  authpriv,  cron,
       daemon,  ftp,  kern,  lpr,  mail,  mark, news, security (same as auth),
       syslog, user, uucp and local0 through local7.  The keyword security  is
       deprecated  and  mark is only for internal use and therefore should not
       be used in applications.  The facility  specifies  the  subsystem  that
       produced the message, e.g. all mail programs log with the mail facility
       (LOG_MAIL) if they log using syslog.

       In most cases anyone can log to any facility, so we rely on  convention
       for  the  correct  facility  to be chosen.  However, generally only the
       kernel  can  log  to  the  "kern"  facility.   This  is   because   the
       implementation  of  openlog()  and  syslog()  in  glibc  does not allow
       logging to the "kern" facility.   Klogd  circumvents  this  restriction
       when logging to syslogd by reimplementing those functions itself.

       The  priority  is  one  of  the following keywords, in ascending order:
       debug, info, notice, warning, warn (same as warning), err, error  (same
       as err), crit, alert, emerg, panic (same as emerg).  The keywords warn,
       error and panic are deprecated and should not  be  used  anymore.   The
       priority defines the severity of the message

       The  behavior  of  the original BSD syslogd is that all messages of the
       specified priority and higher are logged according to the given action.
       This syslogd(8) behaves the same, but has some extensions.

       In addition to the above mentioned names the syslogd(8) understands the
       following extensions: An asterisk (‘‘*’’) stands for all facilities  or
       all  priorities,  depending  on  where  it is used (before or after the
       period).  The  keyword  none  stands  for  no  priority  of  the  given
       facility.

       Multiple  facilities  may be specified for a single priority pattern in
       one  statement  using  the  comma  (‘‘,’’)  operator  to  separate  the
       facilities.   You may specify as many facilities as you want.  Remember
       that only the facility part from such a statement is taken, a  priority
       part  would  be skipped.  For example, it means that instead of writing
       "kern.info,auth.info" you just write "kern,auth.info", skipping the 1st
       ".info".

       Multiple  selectors  may  be  specified  for  a single action using the
       semicolon (‘‘;’’) separator.  In this case the selectors are  processed
       from  left  to  right,  with  each selector being able to overwrite the
       preceding ones.  Using this behavior you can  exclude  some  priorities
       from the pattern.

       This  syslogd(8)  has  a  syntax  extension to the original BSD source,
       which makes its use more intuitive.  You  may  precede  every  priority
       with an equation sign (‘‘=’’) to specify that syslogd should only refer
       to  this  single  priority  and  not  this  priority  and  all   higher
       priorities.

       You  may  also precide the priority with an exclamation mark (‘‘!’’) if
       you want syslogd to ignore this priority  and  all  higher  priorities.
       You  may  even  use both, the exclamation mark and the equation sign if
       you want syslogd to ignore only this single priority.  If you use  both
       extensions  than  the  exclamation  mark must occur before the equation
       sign, just use it intuitively.

ACTIONS

       The action field of a rule describes the abstract term ‘‘logfile’’.   A
       ‘‘logfile’’  need  not to be a real file, btw.  The syslogd(8) provides
       the following actions.

   Regular File
       Typically messages  are  logged  to  real  files.   The  file  must  be
       specified as an absolute pathname.

       You  may  prefix  each entry with a minus sign (‘‘-’’) to avoid syncing
       the file after each log message.  Note that you might lose  information
       if  the  system crashes right after a write attempt.  Nevertheless this
       might give you back some performance, especially if  you  run  programs
       that use logging in a very verbose manner.

   Named Pipes
       This  version  of  syslogd(8)  has support for logging output  to named
       pipes (fifos).  A fifo or named pipe can be used as a  destination  for
       log  messages  by  prepending  a pipe symbol (‘‘|’’) to the name of the
       file.  This is handy for debugging.  Note that the fifo must be created
       with the mkfifo(1) command  before syslogd(8) is started.

   Terminal and Console
       If  the file you specified is a tty, special tty-handling is done, same
       with /dev/console.

   Remote Machine
       This syslogd(8) provides full remote logging,  i.e.  is  able  to  send
       messages  to  a  remote host running syslogd(8) and to receive messages
       from remote hosts.  The remote host won’t forward the message again, it
       will  just  log  them  locally.   To  forward messages to another host,
       prepend the hostname with the at sign (‘‘@’’).

       Using this feature you’re able to collect  all  syslog  messages  on  a
       single  host,  if  all  other machines will log remotely to that.  This
       reduces administration needs.

   List of Users
       Usually critical  messages  are  also  directed  to  ‘‘root’’  on  that
       machine.  You can specify a list of users that shall get the message by
       simply writing their usernames.  You may specify more than one user  by
       separating  the  usernames  with  commas (‘‘,’’).  If they’re logged in
       they will receive the log messages.

   Everyone logged on
       Emergency messages often go to all users  currently  online  to  notify
       them  that  something strange is happening with the system.  To specify
       this wall(1)-feature use an asterisk (‘‘*’’).

EXAMPLES

       Here are some examples, partially taken from a real existing  site  and
       configuration.   Hopefully  they answer all questions about configuring
       syslogd(8), if not, drop me (Joey) a line.

              # Store critical stuff in critical
              #
              *.=crit;kern.none            /var/adm/critical

       This  will  store  all  messages  of  priority   crit   in   the   file
       /var/adm/critical, with the exception of any kernel messages.

              # Kernel messages are stored in the kernel file,
              # critical messages and higher ones also go
              # to another host and to the console
              #
              kern.*                       /var/adm/kernel
              kern.crit                    @finlandia
              kern.crit                    /dev/console
              kern.info;kern.!err          /var/adm/kernel-info

       The  first rule directs any message that has the kernel facility to the
       file /var/adm/kernel.  (But recall that only the kernel itself can  log
       to this facility.)

       The  second  statement directs all kernel messages of priority crit and
       higher to the remote host finlandia.  This is useful,  because  if  the
       host crashes and the disks get irreparable errors you might not be able
       to read the stored messages.  If they’re on a  remote  host,  too,  you
       still can try to find out the reason for the crash.

       The  third  rule directs kernel messages of priority crit and higher to
       the actual console, so the person who works on  the  machine  will  get
       them, too.

       The fourth line tells the syslogd to save all kernel messages that come
       with priorities from info up to warning in  the  file  /var/adm/kernel-
       info.

       This  is  an  example of the 2nd selector overwriting part of the first
       one.  The first selector selects kernel messages of priority  info  and
       higher.   The  second  selector filters out kernel messages of priority
       error and higher.  This leaves just priorities info, notice and warning
       to get logged.

              # The tcp wrapper logs with mail.info, we display
              # all the connections on tty12
              #
              mail.=info                   /dev/tty12

       This  directs  all  messages  that  use mail.info (in source LOG_MAIL |
       LOG_INFO) to /dev/tty12, the 12th console.  For example the  tcpwrapper
       tcpd(8) uses this as its default.

              # Write all mail related logs to a file
              #
              mail.*;mail.!=info           /var/adm/mail

       This  pattern  matches  all  messages that come with the mail facility,
       except for the info  priority.   These  will  be  stored  in  the  file
       /var/adm/mail.

              # Log all mail.info and news.info messages to info
              #
              mail,news.=info              /var/adm/info

       This  will extract all messages that come either with mail.info or with
       news.info and store them in the file /var/adm/info.

              # Log info and notice messages to messages file
              #
              *.=info;*.=notice;\
                   mail.none  /var/log/messages

       This lets the syslogd log all messages that come with either  the  info
       or  the notice priority into the file /var/log/messages, except for all
       messages that use the mail facility.

              # Log info messages to messages file
              #
              *.=info;\
                   mail,news.none       /var/log/messages

       This statement causes the syslogd to log all messages  that  come  with
       the  info  priority  to  the  file  /var/log/messages.  But any message
       coming either with the mail or the news facility will not be stored.

              # Emergency messages will be displayed using wall
              #
              *.=emerg                     *

       This rule tells the syslogd to write  all  emergency  messages  to  all
       currently logged in users.  This is the wall action.

              # Messages of the priority alert will be directed
              # to the operator
              #
              *.alert                      root,joey

       This  rule  directs  all  messages  of  priority alert or higher to the
       terminals of the operator, i.e. of the users ‘‘root’’ and  ‘‘joey’’  if
       they’re logged in.

              *.*                          @finlandia

       This  rule  would  redirect  all  messages  to  a  remote  host  called
       finlandia.  This is useful especially in a cluster  of  machines  where
       all syslog messages will be stored on only one machine.

CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX DIFFERENCES

       Syslogd  uses  a  slightly  different syntax for its configuration file
       than the original BSD sources.  Originally all messages of  a  specific
       priority  and  above  were  forwarded  to  the log file.  The modifiers
       ‘‘=’’, ‘‘!’’  and ‘‘-’’ were added to make the  syslogd  more  flexible
       and to use it in a more intuitive manner.

       The  original  BSD  syslogd  doesn’t  understand  spaces  as separators
       between the selector and the action field.

FILES

       /etc/syslog.conf
              Configuration file for syslogd

BUGS

       The effects of multiple selectors are  sometimes  not  intuitive.   For
       example  ‘‘mail.crit,*.err’’  will select ‘‘mail’’ facility messages at
       the level of ‘‘err’’ or higher, not at the level of ‘‘crit’’ or higher.

       Also,  if  you  specify a selector with an exclamation mark in it which
       isn’t preceded by a corresponding selector without an exclamation mark,
       nothing  will  be  logged.  Intuitively, the selector ‘‘ftp.!alert’’ on
       its own will select all ftp messages with priorities less  than  alert.
       In fact it selects nothing.  Similarly ‘‘ftp.!=alert’’ might reasonably
       be expected to select all ftp messages other than those  with  priority
       alert,  but  again  it  selects  nothing.   It seems the selectors with
       exclamation marks in them should only be used  as  ‘filters’  following
       selectors without exclamation marks.

       Finally,  using  a  backslash to divide a line into two doesn’t work if
       the backslash is used  immediately  after  the  end  of  the  selector,
       without intermediate whitespace.

SEE ALSO

       sysklogd(8), klogd(8), logger(1), syslog(2), syslog(3).

AUTHORS

       The    syslogd    is   taken   from   BSD   sources,   Greg   Wettstein
       <greg@wind.enjellic.com> performed the port to  Linux,  Martin  Schulze
       <joey@infodrom.org>  fixed  some  bugs,  added several new features and
       took over maintenance.