NAME¶

syslogd — log systems messages

SYNOPSIS¶

syslogd

[-V] [-a socket] [-d] [-f config_file] [-h] [-l host_list] [-m mark_interval] [-n] [-p log_socket] [-r] [-s domain_list] [--no-klog] [--no-unixaf] [--no-forward]

DESCRIPTION¶

Syslogd reads and logs messages to the system console, log files, other machines and/or users as specified by its configuration file. The options are as follows:

-V

Print version number and exit.

--help

Display help information and exit.

-d

Enter debug mode. syslogd does not put itself in the background, does not fork and shows debug information.

-a

Specify additional sockets from that syslogd has to listen to. This is needed if you are going to let some daemon run within a chroot()'ed environment. You can specify up to 19 additional sockets.

-f, --rcfile=FILE

Specify the pathname of an alternate configuration file; the default is system specific and displayed in the help output.

--rcdir=DIR

Specify the pathname of an alternate configuration directory; the default is system specific and displayed in the help output.

-h, --hop

Enable forwarding remote messages. By default syslogd will not forward messages it receives from remote hosts.

-l

A colon-seperated lists of hosts which should be considered local; they are logged by their hostnames instead by their FQDN.

-m, --mark=INTERVAL/fP

Select the number of minutes between ``mark'' messages; the default is 20 minutes. Setting it to 0 disables timestamps.

-n, --no-detach

Suppress backgrounding and detachment of the daemon from its controlling terminal.

-p, --socket=PATH

Specify the pathname of an alternate log socket. The default is systemspecific and displayed in the help output.

-r, --inet

Enable to receive remote messages using an internet domain socket. The default is to not receive any messages from the network. Older version always accepted remote messages.

-s

A colon-seperated list of domainnames which should be stripped from the FQDNs of hosts when logging.

--no-klog

Do not listen to the kernel log device. This is only supported on systems which define a kernel log device, on all others this is already the default, and the option will be silently ignored.

--no-unixaf

Do not listen to any unix domain socket. This option overrides -p and -a.

--no-forward

Do not forward any messages. This overrides -h.

Syslogd reads its configuration file when it starts up and whenever it receives a hangup signal. For information on the format of the configuration file, see syslog.conf(5). Syslogd reads messages from the UNIX domain socket /dev/log, from an Internet domain socket specified in /etc/services, and from the one of the special devices /dev/klog or /proc/kmsg depending on the system (to read kernel messages). In a GNU/Linux system it will not parse the System.map and use it to annotate the kernel messages. Syslogd creates the file /var/run/syslog.pid, and stores its process id there. This can be used to kill or reconfigure syslogd. The message sent to syslogd should consist of a single line. The message can contain a priority code, which should be a preceding decimal number in angle braces, for example, ‘⟨5.⟩’ This priority code should map into the priorities defined in the include file ⟨sys/syslog.h⟩.

FILES¶

/etc/syslog.conf

The configuration file.

/var/run/syslog.pid

The process id of current syslogd.

/dev/log

Name of the UNIX domain datagram log socket.

/dev/klog, /proc/kmsg

The kernel log device.

SEE ALSO¶

logger(1), syslog(3), services(5), syslog.conf(5)

HISTORY¶

The syslogd command appeared in 4.3BSD.