Gentoo Websites Logo
Go to: Gentoo Home Documentation Forums Lists Bugs Planet Store Wiki Get Gentoo!

Bug 890475

Summary: app-admin/syslog-ng should provide a more generally usable default configuration
Product: Gentoo Linux Reporter: Tobias Leupold <tl>
Component: Current packagesAssignee: Tomáš Mózes <hydrapolic>
Status: UNCONFIRMED ---    
Severity: normal CC: bkohler, proxy-maint, sam
Priority: Normal    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---
Attachments: Artix Linux's adapted default syslog-ng.conf file
Artix Linux's adapted default syslog-ng logrotate.d file

Description Tobias Leupold 2023-01-11 12:35:38 UTC
Created attachment 848211 [details]
Artix Linux's adapted default syslog-ng.conf file

I recently had a lot to do with Artix Linux, where, by default, you can choose from syslog-ng and metalog as your default system logger. My Gentoo machines ran rsyslog. I thus had a look at syslog-ng (that we – of course – also have).

When installing syslog-ng, a very basic configuration is provided. If I get this correctly, everything simply is logged to /var/log/messages and that's it.

I think the default configuration should be a bit more versatile, so that a lot of people can use it as-is (logging to only one file is surely needed in some cases, but not in general I think).

I thus would propose to provide a default configuration to the one Artix has. This seems reasonable to me.

I'll attach both the adapted syslog-ng.conf file and the adapted logrotate file.
Comment 1 Tobias Leupold 2023-01-11 12:37:06 UTC
Created attachment 848213 [details]
Artix Linux's adapted default syslog-ng logrotate.d file
Comment 2 Ben Kohler gentoo-dev 2023-01-11 13:32:22 UTC
FYI we provide a better one at /usr/share/doc/syslog-ng-*/syslog-ng.conf.gentoo.hardened.bz2 , I would be in favor of installing that one by default.
Comment 3 Tobias Leupold 2023-01-11 14:01:58 UTC
Oh, okay, I didn't see this one. Would perhaps also be an option. Everything else than having only one file to log to would be better.

Although I don't understand why the logrotate definition will – in case everything is due – reload the daemon eight times?!

I simply think that the default configuration should simply be suitable for most use-cases.