SYSLOG.CONF(5) — UNIX Programmer’s Manual

NAME

syslog.conf − configuration file for syslogd system log daemon

SYNOPSIS

/etc/syslog.conf

DESCRIPTION

The file /etc/syslog.conf contains information used by the system log daemon, syslogd(8), to forward a system message to appropriate log files and/or users. syslog preprocesses this file through m4(1V) to obtain the correct information for certain log files.

A configuration entry is composed of two TAB-separated fields:

selectoraction

The selector field contains a semicolon-separated list of priority specifications of the form:

facility.level [; facility.level ]

where facility is a system facility, or comma-separated list of facilities, and level is an indication of the severity of the condition being logged. Recognized values for facility include:

user Messages generated by user processes. This is the default priority for messages from programs or facilities not listed in this file.

kern Messages generated by the kernel.

mail The mail system.

daemon System daemons, such as ftpd(8C), routed(8C), etc.

auth The authorization system: login(1), su(1), getty(8), etc.

lpr The line printer spooling system: lpr(1), lpc(8), lpd(8), etc.

news Reserved for the USENET network news system.

uucp Reserved for the UUCP system; it does not currently use the syslog mechanism.

cron The cron/at facility; crontab(1), at(1), cron(8), etc.

local0-7 Reserved for local use.

mark For timestamp messages produced internally by syslogd.

∗ An asterisk indicates all facilities except for the mark facility.

Recognized values for level are (in descending order of severity):

emerg For panic conditions that would normally be broadcast to all users.

alert For conditions that should be corrected immediately, such as a corrupted system database.

crit For warnings about critical conditions, such as hard device errors.

err For other errors.

warning For warning messages.

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

info Informational messages.

debug For messages that are normally used only when debugging a program.

none Do not send messages from the indicated facility to the selected file. For example, a selector of

∗.debug;mail.none

will send all messages except mail messages to the selected file.

The action field indicates where to forward the message. Values for this field can have one of four forms:

• A filename, beginning with a leading slash, which indicates that messages specified by the selector are to be written to the specified file. The file will be opened in append mode.

• The name of a remote host, prefixed with an @, as with: @server, which indicates that messages specified by the selector are to be forwarded to the syslogd on the named host.

• A comma-separated list of usernames, which indicates that messages specified by the selector are to be written to the named users if they are logged in.

• An asterisk, which indicates that messages specified by the selector are to be written to all logged-in users.

Blank lines are ignored. Lines for which the first nonwhite character is a ‘#’ are treated as comments.

EXAMPLE

With the following configuration file:

∗.notice;mail.info/var/log/notice
∗.crit/var/log/critical
kern,mark.debug/dev/console
kern.err@server
∗.emerg∗
∗.alertroot,operator
∗.alert;auth.warning/var/log/auth

syslogd will log all mail system messages except debug messages and all notice (or higher) messages into a file named /var/log/notice. It logs all critical messages into /var/log/critical, and all kernel messages and 20-minute marks onto the system console.

Kernel messages of err (error) severity or higher are forwarded to the machine named server. Emergency messages are forwarded to all users. The users “root” and “operator” are informed of any alert messages. All messages from the authorization system of warning level or higher are logged in the file /var/log/auth.

FILES

/etc/syslog.conf

/var/log/notice

/var/log/critical

/var/log/auth

Museum