HP-UX Internet Services Administrator's Guide (August 2003)

Installing and Configuring Internet Services
Configuring the Internet Services Software
Chapter 238
The part of the selector that specifies where a message comes from is
called the facility. All Internet daemons and servers, except sendmail,
log messages to the daemon facility. sendmail logs messages to the mail
facility. syslogd logs messagesto the syslog facility. You can indicate all
facilities in the configuration file with an asterisk (*).
The part of the selector that specifies what priority a message has is
called the level. Selector levels are debug, information, notice,
warning, error, alert, emergency, and critical. A message must be
at or above the level you specify in order to be logged.
The action allows you to specify where messages should be directed. You
can have the messages directed to files, users, the console, or to a
syslogd running on another host.
The following is the default configuration for /etc/syslog.conf:
mail.debug /var/adm/syslog/mail.log
*.info,mail.none /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log
*.alert *.alert /det/console root
*.emerg *
With this configuration, all mail log messages at the debug level or
higher are sent to /var/adm/syslog/mail.log. Log messages from any
facility at the information level or higher (but no mail messages) are
sent to /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log. Log messages from any facility
at the alert level or higher are sent to the console and to any terminal
where the superuser is logged in. All messages at the emergency level or
higher are sent to all users on the system.
For more information about syslogd and its configuration file, type man
3C syslog or man 1M syslogd at the HP-UX prompt.
Maintaining System Log Files
The log files specified in your syslogd configuration can fill up your disk
if you do not monitor their size. To control the size of these files, do the
following:
1. Remove or rename your log files as in the following example:
cd /var/adm/syslog
mv mail.log mail.log.old
mv syslog.log sylog.log.old
2. Restart syslogd with the following commands: