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SYSKLOGD(8)		  Linux System Administration		   SYSKLOGD(8)

NAME
       sysklogd - Linux system logging utilities.

SYNOPSIS
       syslogd	[ -a socket ] [ -d ] [ -f config file ] [ -h ] [ -l hostlist ]
       [ -m interval ] [ -n ] [ -p socket ] [ -r ] [ -s domainlist ] [ -S ]  [
       -v ] [ -x ]

DESCRIPTION
       Sysklogd provides two system utilities which provide support for system
       logging and kernel message trapping.  Support of both internet and unix
       domain  sockets	enables this utility package to support both local and
       remote logging.

       System logging is provided by a version of syslogd(8) derived from  the
       stock  BSD  sources.   Support  for  kernel  logging is provided by the
       klogd(8) utility which allows kernel logging to be conducted in	either
       a standalone fashion or as a client of syslogd.

       Syslogd	provides  a  kind  of  logging	that many modern programs use.
       Every logged message contains at least a time  and  a  hostname	field,
       normally	 a program name field, too, but that depends on how trusty the
       logging program is.

       While the syslogd sources have been heavily modified a couple of	 notes
       are  in	order.	 First	of  all there has been a systematic attempt to
       insure that syslogd follows its default, standard  BSD  behavior.   The
       second important concept to note is that this version of syslogd inter‐
       acts transparently with the version of syslog  found  in	 the  standard
       libraries.   If	a binary linked to the standard shared libraries fails
       to function correctly we would like an example of the anomalous	behav‐
       ior.

       The  main  configuration	 file /etc/syslog.conf or an alternative file,
       given with the -f option, is read at startup.   Any  lines  that	 begin
       with  the  hash	mark (``#'') and empty lines are ignored.  If an error
       occurs during parsing the whole line is ignored.

OPTIONS
       -a socket
	      Using this argument you can specify additional sockets from that
	      syslogd has to listen to.	 This is needed if you're going to let
	      some daemon run within a chroot() environment.  You can  use  up
	      to  19 additional sockets.  If your environment needs even more,
	      you have to increase the symbol MAXFUNIX	within	the  syslogd.c
	      source  file.   An example for a chroot() daemon is described by
	      the	   people	   from		  OpenBSD	    at
	      http://www.psionic.com/papers/dns.html.

       -d     Turns  on	 debug mode.  Using this the daemon will not proceed a
	      fork(2) to set itself in the background, but  opposite  to  that
	      stay  in	the foreground and write much debug information on the
	      current tty.  See the DEBUGGING section for more information.

       -f config file
	      Specify an alternative configuration file instead	 of  /etc/sys‐
	      log.conf, which is the default.

       -h     By  default  syslogd  will not forward messages it receives from
	      remote hosts.  Specifying this switch on the command  line  will
	      cause  the log daemon to forward any remote messages it receives
	      to forwarding hosts which have been defined.

       -l hostlist
	      Specify a hostname that should be logged only  with  its	simple
	      hostname	and  not  the  fqdn.   Multiple hosts may be specified
	      using the colon (``:'') separator.

       -m interval
	      The syslogd logs a mark timestamp regularly.  The default inter‐
	      val  between  two	 --  MARK -- lines is 20 minutes.  This can be
	      changed with this option.	 Setting the interval to zero turns it
	      off entirely.

       -n     Avoid auto-backgrounding.	 This is needed especially if the sys‐
	      logd is started and controlled by init(8).

       -p socket
	      You can specify an alternative unix  domain  socket  instead  of
	      /dev/log.

       -r     This option will enable the facility to receive message from the
	      network using an internet domain socket with the syslog  service
	      (see  services(5)).   The default is to not receive any messages
	      from the network.

	      This option is introduced in version 1.3 of the  sysklogd	 pack‐
	      age.   Please  note that the default behavior is the opposite of
	      how older versions behave, so you might have to turn this on.

       -s domainlist
	      Specify a domainname that should be stripped off before logging.
	      Multiple	domains may be specified using the colon (``:'') sepa‐
	      rator.  Please be advised that no sub-domains may	 be  specified
	      but  only	 entire domains.  For example if -s north.de is speci‐
	      fied and the host logging resolves to satu.infodrom.north.de  no
	      domain  would be cut, you will have to specify two domains like:
	      -s north.de:infodrom.north.de.

       -S     Verbose logging. If specified once,  the	numeric	 facility  and
	      priority are logged with each locally-written message. If speci‐
	      fied more than once, the names of the facility and priority  are
	      logged with each locally-written message.

       -v     Print version and exit.

       -x     Disable  name  lookups  when  receiving  remote  messages.  This
	      avoids deadlocks when the nameserver  is	running	 on  the  same
	      machine that runs the syslog daemon.

SIGNALS
       Syslogd	reacts	to  a set of signals.  You may easily send a signal to
       syslogd using the following:

	      kill -SIGNAL `cat /var/run/syslogd.pid`

       SIGHUP This lets syslogd perform a re-initialization.  All  open	 files
	      are closed, the configuration file (default is /etc/syslog.conf)
	      will be reread and the syslog(3) facility is started again.

       SIGTERM
	      The syslogd will die.

       SIGINT, SIGQUIT
	      If debugging is enabled these  are  ignored,  otherwise  syslogd
	      will die.

       SIGUSR1
	      Switch  debugging	 on/off.  This option can only be used if sys‐
	      logd is started with the -d debug option.

       SIGCHLD
	      Wait for childs if some were born, because of wall'ing messages.

CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX DIFFERENCES
       Syslogd uses a slightly different syntax	 for  its  configuration  file
       than  the  original BSD sources.	 Originally all messages of a specific
       priority and above were forwarded to the log file.

	      For example the following line caused ALL	 output	 from  daemons
	      using  the  daemon  facilities (debug is the lowest priority, so
	      every higher will also match) to go into /usr/adm/daemons:

		   # Sample syslog.conf
		   daemon.debug		    /usr/adm/daemons

       Under the new scheme this behavior remains the same.  The difference is
       the  addition  of  four	new specifiers, the asterisk (*) wildcard, the
       equation sign (=), the exclamation mark (!), and the minus sign (-).

       The * specifies that all messages for the specified facility are to  be
       directed	 to  the  destination.	 Note that this behavior is degenerate
       with specifying a priority level of debug.  Users have  indicated  that
       the asterisk notation is more intuitive.

       The  =  wildcard	 is used to restrict logging to the specified priority
       class.  This allows, for example, routing only debug messages to a par‐
       ticular logging source.

	      For example the following line in syslog.conf would direct debug
	      messages from all sources to the /usr/adm/debug file.

		   # Sample syslog.conf
		   *.=debug	       /usr/adm/debug

       The ! is used to exclude logging of  the	 specified  priorities.	  This
       affects all (!) possibilities of specifying priorities.

	      For  example  the	 following lines would log all messages of the
	      facility mail  except  those  with  the  priority	 info  to  the
	      /usr/adm/mail file.  And all messages from news.info (including)
	      to news.crit (excluding) would be logged	to  the	 /usr/adm/news
	      file.

		   # Sample syslog.conf
		   mail.*;mail.!=info	    /usr/adm/mail
		   news.info;news.!crit	    /usr/adm/news

       You  may	 use it intuitively as an exception specifier.	The above men‐
       tioned interpretation is simply inverted.  Doing that you may use

	    mail.none
       or
	    mail.!*
       or
	    mail.!debug

       to skip every message that comes with a mail facility.  There  is  much
       room to play with it. :-)

       The  -  may  only  be  used  to	prefix	a filename if you want to omit
       sync'ing the file after every write to it.

       This may take some acclimatization for those individuals	 used  to  the
       pure  BSD behavior but testers have indicated that this syntax is some‐
       what more flexible than the BSD	behavior.   Note  that	these  changes
       should not affect standard syslog.conf(5) files.	 You must specifically
       modify the configuration files to obtain the enhanced behavior.

SUPPORT FOR REMOTE LOGGING
       These modifications provide network support to  the  syslogd  facility.
       Network support means that messages can be forwarded from one node run‐
       ning syslogd to another node running syslogd where they will  be	 actu‐
       ally logged to a disk file.

       To  enable  this you have to specify the -r option on the command line.
       The default behavior is that syslogd won't listen to the network.

       The strategy is to have syslogd listen on  a  unix  domain  socket  for
       locally	generated  log	messages.  This behavior will allow syslogd to
       inter-operate with the syslog found in the standard C library.  At  the
       same time syslogd listens on the standard syslog port for messages for‐
       warded from other hosts.	 To have this work correctly  the  services(5)
       files (typically found in /etc) must have the following entry:

		   syslog	   514/udp

       If  this	 entry	is missing syslogd neither can receive remote messages
       nor send them, because the UDP port cant be  opened.   Instead  syslogd
       will die immediately, blowing out an error message.

       To  cause  messages  to be forwarded to another host replace the normal
       file line in the syslog.conf file with the name of the  host  to	 which
       the messages is to be sent prepended with an @.

	      For  example,  to	 forward ALL messages to a remote host use the
	      following syslog.conf entry:

		   # Sample syslogd configuration file to
		   # messages to a remote host forward all.
		   *.*		  @hostname

	      To forward all kernel messages to a remote host  the  configura‐
	      tion file would be as follows:

		   # Sample configuration file to forward all kernel
		   # messages to a remote host.
		   kern.*	  @hostname

       If the remote hostname cannot be resolved at startup, because the name-
       server might not be accessible (it may be started  after	 syslogd)  you
       don't  have to worry.  Syslogd will retry to resolve the name ten times
       and then complain.  Another possibility to avoid this is to  place  the
       hostname in /etc/hosts.

       With  normal  syslogds  you would get syslog-loops if you send out mes‐
       sages that were received from a remote host to the same host  (or  more
       complicated to a third host that sends it back to the first one, and so
       on).  In my domain (Infodrom Oldenburg) we accidently got one  and  our
       disks filled up with the same single message. :-(

       To  avoid  this	in further times no messages that were received from a
       remote host are sent out to another (or the same) remote host  anymore.
       If  there  are  scenarios where this doesn't make sense, please drop me
       (Joey) a line.

       If the remote host is located in the same domain as the	host,  syslogd
       is  running  on, only the simple hostname will be logged instead of the
       whole fqdn.

       In a local network you may provide a central log server to have all the
       important  information kept on one machine.  If the network consists of
       different domains you don't have to complain about logging fully quali‐
       fied names instead of simple hostnames.	You may want to use the strip-
       domain feature -s of this server.  You can tell the  syslogd  to	 strip
       off  several  domains  other  than the one the server is located in and
       only log simple hostnames.

       Using the -l option there's also a possibility to define	 single	 hosts
       as  local  machines.   This,  too, results in logging only their simple
       hostnames and not the fqdns.

       The UDP socket used to forward messages to remote hosts or  to  receive
       messages from them is only opened when it is needed.  In releases prior
       to 1.3-23 it was opened every time but not opened for reading  or  for‐
       warding respectively.

OUTPUT TO NAMED PIPES (FIFOs)
       This  version  of syslogd has support for logging output to named pipes
       (fifos).	 A fifo or named pipe can be used as  a	 destination  for  log
       messages	 by  prepending a pipy symbol (``|'') to the name of the file.
       This is handy for debugging.  Note that the fifo must be	 created  with
       the mkfifo command before syslogd is started.

	      The  following configuration file routes debug messages from the
	      kernel to a fifo:

		   # Sample configuration to route kernel debugging
		   # messages ONLY to /usr/adm/debug which is a
		   # named pipe.
		   kern.=debug		    |/usr/adm/debug

INSTALLATION CONCERNS
       There is probably one important consideration when installing this ver‐
       sion  of	 syslogd.  This version of syslogd is dependent on proper for‐
       matting of messages by the syslog function.   The  functioning  of  the
       syslog function in the shared libraries changed somewhere in the region
       of libc.so.4.[2-4].n.  The specific change was  to  null-terminate  the
       message	before	transmitting  it to the /dev/log socket.  Proper func‐
       tioning of this version of syslogd is dependent on null-termination  of
       the message.

       This  problem  will  typically manifest itself if old statically linked
       binaries are being used on the system.  Binaries using old versions  of
       the syslog function will cause empty lines to be logged followed by the
       message with the first character in  the	 message  removed.   Relinking
       these  binaries	to newer versions of the shared libraries will correct
       this problem.

       Both the syslogd(8) and the klogd(8) can either be run from init(8)  or
       started	as part of the rc.*  sequence.	If it is started from init the
       option -n must be set, otherwise you'll	get  tons  of  syslog  daemons
       started.	 This is because init(8) depends on the process ID.

SECURITY THREATS
       There  is  the potential for the syslogd daemon to be used as a conduit
       for a denial of service attack.	Thanks	go  to	John  Morrison	(jmor‐
       riso@rflab.ee.ubc.ca)  for alerting me to this potential.  A rogue pro‐
       gram(mer) could very easily flood the syslogd daemon with  syslog  mes‐
       sages  resulting	 in the log files consuming all the remaining space on
       the filesystem.	Activating logging over the inet domain	 sockets  will
       of  course  expose a system to risks outside of programs or individuals
       on the local machine.

       There are a number of methods of protecting a machine:

       1.     Implement kernel firewalling to limit which  hosts  or  networks
	      have access to the 514/UDP socket.

       2.     Logging  can  be	directed to an isolated or non-root filesystem
	      which, if filled, will not impair the machine.

       3.     The ext2 filesystem can be used which can be configured to limit
	      a	 certain  percentage  of  a  filesystem to usage by root only.
	      NOTE that this will require syslogd to  be  run  as  a  non-root
	      process.	 ALSO NOTE that this will prevent usage of remote log‐
	      ging since syslogd will be unable to bind to the 514/UDP socket.

       4.     Disabling inet domain sockets  will  limit  risk	to  the	 local
	      machine.

       5.     Use step 4 and if the problem persists and is not secondary to a
	      rogue program/daemon get a 3.5 ft (approx. 1  meter)  length  of
	      sucker rod* and have a chat with the user in question.

	      Sucker  rod  def.	 —  3/4,  7/8 or 1in. hardened steel rod, male
	      threaded on each end.  Primary use in the oil industry in	 West‐
	      ern North Dakota and other locations to pump 'suck' oil from oil
	      wells.  Secondary uses are for the construction of  cattle  feed
	      lots  and	 for  dealing with the occasional recalcitrant or bel‐
	      ligerent individual.

DEBUGGING
       When debugging is turned on using -d option then syslogd will  be  very
       verbose	by  writing much of what it does on stdout.  Whenever the con‐
       figuration file is reread and re-parsed you'll see  a  tabular,	corre‐
       sponding to the internal data structure.	 This tabular consists of four
       fields:

       number This field contains a serial number starting by zero.  This num‐
	      ber represents the position in the internal data structure (i.e.
	      the array).  If one number is left out then there	 might	be  an
	      error in the corresponding line in /etc/syslog.conf.

       pattern
	      This  field  is  tricky  and  represents	the internal structure
	      exactly.	Every column stands for	 a  facility  (refer  to  sys‐
	      log(3)).	 As  you can see, there are still some facilities left
	      free for former use, only the left most are used.	  Every	 field
	      in a column represents the priorities (refer to syslog(3)).

       action This  field  describes  the  particular  action that takes place
	      whenever a message is received that matches the pattern.	 Refer
	      to the syslog.conf(5) manpage for all possible actions.

       arguments
	      This field shows additional arguments to the actions in the last
	      field.  For file-logging this is the filename for	 the  logfile;
	      for  user-logging	 this  is  a list of users; for remote logging
	      this is the hostname of the machine to log to; for  console-log‐
	      ging this is the used console; for tty-logging this is the spec‐
	      ified tty; wall has no additional arguments.

FILES
       /etc/syslog.conf
	      Configuration file for syslogd.  See  syslog.conf(5)  for	 exact
	      information.
       /dev/log
	      The  Unix	 domain socket to from where local syslog messages are
	      read.
       /var/run/syslogd.pid
	      The file containing the process id of syslogd.

BUGS
       If an error occurs in one line the whole rule is ignored.

       Syslogd Syslogd	doesn’t change the filemode of opened logfiles at  any
       stage  of process.  If a file is created it is world readable, however,
       the syslog init script in Red Hat Enterprise Linux sets umask to 077 so
       only root has read permissions.	You can also change the permissions on
       your own.  This could be done in combination  with  rotating   logfiles
       using   the savelog(8) program that is shipped in the smail 3.x distri‐
       bution.	Remember that it might be a security hole if everybody is able
       to read auth.* messages as these might contain passwords.

SEE ALSO
       syslog.conf(5), klogd(8), logger(1), syslog(2), syslog(3), services(5),
       savelog(8)

COLLABORATORS
       Syslogd is taken from BSD  sources,  Greg  Wettstein  (greg@wind.enjel‐
       lic.com)	 performed  the	 port to Linux, Martin Schulze (joey@linux.de)
       fixed some bugs and added several new features.	Klogd  was  originally
       written	by  Steve  Lord	 (lord@cray.com),  Greg	 Wettstein  made major
       improvements.

       Dr. Greg Wettstein
       Enjellic Systems Development
       Oncology Research Division Computing Facility
       Roger Maris Cancer Center
       Fargo, ND
       greg@wind.enjellic.com

       Stephen Tweedie
       Department of Computer Science
       Edinburgh University, Scotland
       sct@dcs.ed.ac.uk

       Juha Virtanen
       jiivee@hut.fi

       Shane Alderton
       shane@ion.apana.org.au

       Martin Schulze
       Infodrom Oldenburg
       joey@linux.de

Version 1.3			12 October 1998			   SYSKLOGD(8)
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