Re: syslogd and redirection of the debug output

[Waldi Ravens <waldi@moacs.indiv.nl.net>]

In <9510181550.AA04039@tex11.hfb.se>, Stefan Svensson <d95ssv@txfs1.hfb.se> wrote:

> I'm running MiNT 1.12.4, MintOS 1.4.1 and vconsole. As I understand these
> things, the system logger daemon (syslogd) is supposed to write lots of
> interesting information into different log files (such as errors and debug
> information). It doesn't. Has this something with /etc/syslogd.conf to do?

Yes, in syslogd.conf you tell syslogd what information gets where.
For example, a line:
mail.debug	/var/log/mail-log
tells syslogd to store all log messages with facility mail and a
priority greater than or equal to debug in the file /var/log/mail-log.
Of course, your mail transfer agent must send messages to the system
logger.

Other facilities are news, cron, uucp, lpr, daemon, syslog, user, auth,
kern, etc. Allthough any program could generate log messages with facility
news, it's pretty clear from the name, that only news processing software
should do so (e.g. inn). The auth facility can be used for general security
c.q. authorisation messages; for example by login, to keep a record of root
logins and failures. Unfortunately, the kern facility doesn't work under MiNT.

With the priorities (emerg, alert, crit, error, warning, notice, info, debug)
you can filter out the `annoying' stuff generated by some daemons. For example:
news.err	/var/log/news-log
news.alert	jaap
Messages from the news subsystem with a priority lower than error are ignored,
all others are stored in the news-log file, and messages with a priority alert
or emerg are also displayed on jaap's terminal (this kind of messages usually
requires human intervention).

> I've experimented a little with different settings, but nothing helps. The
> only thing that is logged is when the system is halted.

That's an internal syslogd message (facility syslog). Maybe you're not running
any software that generates log messages? Most software written for BSD systems
does, software written for AT&T UNIX doesn't.

> Finally, is there any possibilities of taking GEM down (after bootgem), log out
> and then start all over again (without rebooting the system)?

Nope. You'll have to wait for Martin Osieka's MiNA.


Waldi