Manual Pages

Table of Contents

NAME

syslog.conf - syslogd configuration file

DESCRIPTION

The syslog.conf file is the configuration file for the syslogd daemon (see na_syslogd(8)). It consists of lines with two TAB separated fields:

selector
action

The selector field specifies the types of messages and priorities to which the line applies. The action field specifies the action to be taken if a message the syslogd daemon receives matches the selection criteria.

The selector field is encoded as a facility, a period (``.''), and a level , with no intervening white-space. Both the facility and the level are case insensitive.

The facility describes the part of the system generating the message, and is one of the following keywords: auth, cron, daemon and kern. Here's a short description of each facil_ity keyword:

kern
Messages generated by the filer kernel.

daemon
System daemons, such as the rshd daemon (see na_rshd(8)), the routing daemon (see na_routed(1)), the SNMP daemon (see na_snmpd(8)), etc.

auth
The authentication system, e.g. messages logged for Telnet sessions.

cron
The system's internal cron facility.

The level describes the severity of the message, and is a keyword from the following ordered list (higher to lower): emerg, alert, crit, err, warning, notice, info, and debug.

Here is a short description of each level keyword:

emerg
A panic condition that results in the disruption of normal service.

alert
A condition that should be corrected immediately, such as a failed disk.

crit
Critical conditions, such as hard disk errors.

err
Errors, such as those resulting from a bad configuration file.

warning
Warning messages.

notice
Conditions that are not error conditions, but that may require special handling.

info
Informational messages, such as the hourly uptime message (see na_uptime(1)).

debug
Debug messages used for diagnostic purposes. These messages are supressed by default.

If a received message matches the specified facility and is of the specified level (or a higher level ), the action specified in the action field will be taken.

Multiple selectors may be specified for a single action by separating them with semicolon (``;'') characters. It is important to note, however, that each selector can modify the ones preceding it.

Multiple facilities may be specified for a single level by separating them with comma (``,'') characters.

An asterisk (``*'') can be used to specify all facilities or all levels .

The special level none disables a particular facility .

The action field of each line specifies the action to be taken when the selector field selects a message. There are four forms:

A pathname (beginning with a leading slash). Selected
messages are appended to the specified file.

A hostname (preceded by an at (``@'') sign). Selected
messages are forwarded to the syslogd daemon on the named host.

/dev/console. Selected messages are written to the console.

An asterisk. Selected messages are written to the

console.

Blank lines and lines whose first non-blank character is a pound (``#'') character are ignored.

It is recommended that all /etc/syslog.conf files include the line 

  *.info          /etc/messages

so that all messages are logged to the /etc/messages file.

EXAMPLES

A configuration file might appear as follows: 

  # Log all kernel messages, and anything of level err or
  # higher to the console.
  *.err;kern.*                  /dev/console

  # Log anything of level info or higher to /etc/messages.
  *.info                        /etc/messages

  # Also log the messages that go to the console to a remote
  # loghost system called adminhost.
  *.err;kern.*                  @adminhost

  # The /etc/secure.message file has restricted access.
  auth.notice                   /etc/secure.message

Also see the sample configuration file in /etc/syslog.conf.sample

FILES

/etc/syslog.conf
The syslogd configuration file. /etc/syslog.conf.sample Sample syslogd configuration file.

BUGS

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

SEE ALSO

na_syslogd(8), na_messages(5)

Table of Contents