syslogd.1m (2010 09)

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syslogd(1M) syslogd(1M)
syslogd configures itself when it starts up and whenever it receives a hangup signal. Lines in the
configuration file consist of a selector to determine the message priorities to which the line applies and
an action. The action field is separated from the selector by one or more tabs.
Selectors are semicolon separated lists of priority specifiers. Each priority has a facility indicating the
subsystem that generated the message, a dot, and a level indicating the severity of the message. Sym-
bolic names can be used. An asterisk selects all facilities. All messages of the specified level or higher
(greater severity) are selected. More than one facility can be selected, using commas to separate them.
For example:
*.emerg;mail,daemon.crit
selects all facilities at the emerg level and the
mail and daemon facilities at the crit level.
The known facilities and levels recognized by
syslogd are those listed in syslog (3C) converted to lower-
case without the leading
LOG_. The additional facility
mark has a message at priority LOG_INFO sent
to it every 20 minutes (this can be changed with the
-m flag). The mark facility is not enabled by a facil-
ity field containing an asterisk. The level
none can be used to disable a particular facility. For example,
*.debug;mail.none
selects all messages except mail messages.
The second part of each line describes where the message is to be logged if this line is selected. There are
four forms:
• A file name (beginning with a leading slash). The file is opened in append mode. If the file does
not exist, it is created.
• A host name preceded by an @ character. Selected messages are forwarded to the syslogd
on
the named host.
• A comma-separated list of users. Selected messages are written to those users’ terminals if they
are logged in.
• An asterisk. Selected messages are written to the terminals of all logged-in users.
Blank lines and lines beginning with a
# character are ignored.
For example, the configuration file:
kern,mark.debug /dev/console
mail.debug /var/adm/syslog/mail.log
*.info;mail.none /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log
*.alert /dev/console
*.alert root,eric,kridle
*.emerg *
*.emerg @admin
logs all kernel messages and 20 minute marks onto the system console, all mail system messages to
/var/adm/syslog/mail.log, and all messages at info and above, except mail messages, to the file
/var/adm/syslog/syslog.log. Messages at alert and above are logged to the console and to the
users root, eric, and kridle if they are logged in. emerg messages are written to all logged-in users’
terminals, and forwarded to the host admin.
Only a superuser can invoke
syslogd.
Notes
syslogd logs messages into a set of files. Once the size of a log file reaches 2 GB, syslogd stops log-
ging to that file. You can configure the maximum size of syslogd log files by setting the variable
LOG_SIZE in /etc/default/syslogd. The values of LOG_SIZE can be any positive integer greater
than 2, representing the maximum size of the file in GB. When LOG_SIZE=NOLIMIT, syslogd uses
the limit imposed by the file system on file size.
syslogd logs messages in a locale-independent fashion as a stream of bytes and will replace each new-
line character in the message with a blank space except for the last newline character. Applications
using the services of syslogd can log messages in different locales. However, be careful when
configuring syslogd so that messages from different locales do not get logged to the same log file.
2 Hewlett-Packard Company − 2 − HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010