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syslog-ng 3.3.0alpha2 released
by Balazs Scheidler 10 Mar '11

10 Mar '11

Hi, I'm happy to announce that I've just uploaded syslog-ng 3.3.0alpha2 to our website. It contains a couple of important bugfixes and some new features compared to 3.3.0alpha1. It worked for me quite well, and it endured the first round of testing by the BalaBit syslog-ng PE team, when they've started working with the code. Highlights ========== syslog-ng 3.3 has a couple of new and interesting features, already in this alpha release: * It uses multiple threads to do its work, thus capable of scaling to multiple CPUs. Add 'threaded(yes)' to your option block and you're good to go. * Built in mongodb destination for folks who prefer NoSQL over traditional SQL. * This version has a new and improved "pdbtool patternize" functionality More exciting stuff is coming. Known issues ============ I know for certain that it will not work on FreeBSD unless the following environment variable is set: IV_EXCLUDE_POLL_METHOD=kqueue Otherwise syslog-ng will crash at startup, immediately. Stability ========= Certainly you wouldn't want to run your production system on this version, however this code base had endured a couple of test rounds, so if it compiles and starts up for you (which can be a challenge I can admit), then the basic functions will most certainly work. Changes since 3.3.0alpha1 ========================= 3.3.0alpha2 Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:51:36 +0100 Features: ======== * Support for systemd activation added. * Add support for customizable token delimiters in "pdbtool patternize", which makes the resulting patterns to have much better quality. * Added support for a --no-parse command line option for "pdbtool patternize" to avoid parsing the input as normal syslog messages. * Added a new flag 'ignore-errors' to LogWriter based destinations (file, pipe, tcp, udp, syslog) * Added support for specifying the suppress() option globally. Bugfixes: ========= * Fixed a tcp()/udp()/syslog() destination driver issue that caused aborts during startup. * Handle non-epollable devices like /dev/null normally by failling back to the regular file-like handling. Earlier these caused an abort inside ivykis. * Makefile fixes to make it possible to compile syslog-ng from a "make dist" tarball. * Added error messages about libdbi initialization failures, that would prevent the SQL destination from working. * Make it possible to compile against PCRE not in a standard location (caused compilation failures on FreeBSD). * Fixed several $(grep) related bugs: - not to cause a segmentation faule when the filter expression supplied contains syntax errors - the template parsing code removed quotes required by filter expressions, with the current change it is possible to use quotes in the filter expressions directly: $(grep ('$username' == 'root') $MSG) - fixed the handling of template function invocations within correllation that had multiple messages in its context. * Fixed a segmentation fault in pdbtool match --debug-pattern in case there was no matching rule. * Fixed "pdbtool test". * Added a new macro named $CONTEXT_ID that expands to the current context-id in correllated rules. Other changes: ============== * Changed the default syslog-ng.conf version number to 3.3 to match the current version. * The pipe() destination used to override the default value of flush_lines() by explicitly setting it to 0. This behaviour has been removed, now the pipe() driver will properly use the default, unless overridden explicitly. * Ported the 3.2 linking changes to 3.3, which means that: - libsyslog-ng-patterndb.so is gone, both the command line pdbtool command and the patterndb plugin (libpatterndb.so) links its contents statically, to improve portability on Cygwin. - unit tests & command line utilities link properly in --enable-mixed-linking mode * Added debug messages in the correllation code to make it easier to debug correllation rules. * Added debug/verbose options to pdbtool. Credits: ======== Code, bugreports, testing, documentation suggestions and other improvements were contributed by: * Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz (PLD Linux) * Balazs Scheidler (BalaBit) * Balint Kovacs (BalaBit) * Corinna Vinschen (RedHat) * Dalibor Toman (fortech.cz) * Gergely Nagy (BalaBit) * Laszlo Boszormenyi (lsc.hu) * Marius Tomaschewski (Novell) * Peter Czanik (BalaBit) * Peter Gyongyosi (BalaBit) * Tom Gundersen (jklm.no) * Valentijn Sessink (blub.net) * Zoltan Pallagi (BalaBit) -- Bazsi

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PostgreSQL, MonitorWare Schema and log presentation/analysis
by Hendrik Visage 10 Mar '11

10 Mar '11

Hi there, I've searched hi and low for a log analyzer/presenter for PostgreSql backend (still looking) but keep bumping into stuff like LogAnalyzer wanting a MonitorWare Schema.. Searching for that with syslog-ng, I've been unsuccessful (or I am missing something), other than getting the SQL schema below on a chinese site. Now my quetion: Anybody else used syslog-ng to pump directly into a PostgreSQL db a Monitorware Schema? Any other place I can get some more information on this schema usage? Anybody using PostgreSQL as a storage back end with a Web based GUI? (Before we enter the MySQL vs PostgreSQL debates, the answer is simple: we know postgresql, we don't know mysql, and if we hit performance issues in the current environment, we know we will need to procure the necessary HW and handle those decisions there) CREATE TABLE SystemEvents ( ID int unsigned not null auto_increment primary key, CustomerID bigint, ReceivedAt datetime NULL, DeviceReportedTime datetime NULL, Facility smallint NULL, Priority smallint NULL, FromHost varchar(60) NULL, Message text, NTSeverity int NULL, Importance int NULL, EventSource varchar(60), EventUser varchar(60) NULL, EventCategory int NULL, EventID int NULL, EventBinaryData text NULL, MaxAvailable int NULL, CurrUsage int NULL, MinUsage int NULL, MaxUsage int NULL, InfoUnitID int NULL , SysLogTag varchar(60), EventLogType varchar(60), GenericFileName VarChar(60), SystemID int NULL ); CREATE TABLE SystemEventsProperties ( ID int unsigned not null auto_increment primary key, SystemEventID int NULL , ParamName varchar(255) NULL , ParamValue text NULL );

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syslog-ng 3.0.7 shows 2 daemons on restart
by Rakesh Rajasekharan 10 Mar '11

10 Mar '11

Hi, I have compiled syslog-ng 3.0.7 on an HP-UX machine. Now, when I try to restart, it shows 2 daemons. # /sbin/init.d/syslog_ng restart syslog-ng service starting. # ps -ef|grep -i syslog root 3635 3634 0 09:17:58 ? 0:00 /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/sbin/syslog-ng -f /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc/syslog-ng.conf -p /var/run/syslog-ng.pid root 3640# /sbin/init.d/syslog_ng restart syslog-ng service starting. # ps -ef|grep -i syslog *root 3635 3634 0 09:17:58 ? 0:00 /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/sbin/syslog-ng -f /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc/syslog-ng.conf -p /var/run/syslog-ng.pid root 3640 2701 0 09:18:01 pts/0 0:00 grep -i syslog root 3634 1 0 09:17:58 ? 0:00 /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/sbin/syslog-ng -f /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc/syslog-ng.conf -p /var/run/syslog-ng.pid 2701 0 09:18:01 pts/0 0:00 grep -i syslog root 3634 1 0 09:17:58 ? 0:00 /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/sbin/syslog-ng -f /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc/syslog-ng.conf -p /var/run/syslog-ng.pid * ** Is this soemthing expected . Please confirm. Thanks, Rakesh

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AIX 5.3 syslog-ng 3.0.7
by Rakesh Rajasekharan 09 Mar '11

09 Mar '11

Hi, I am facing a somewhat strange issue on AIX 5.3. I am unable to restart the daemon whenever i try to set it up as a central server. On a a normal case it works fine . After copying my syslog-ng.conf.server-sample as syslog-ng.conf., when i restart the daemon, it does not comlian about anything and gives me a PID as well. But the daemon does not seem to have started. Below are the logs. Setting Up as A Central Server ======================= cscaixlgg059:root:/opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc>cp syslog-ng.conf.server-sample syslog-ng.conf cscaixlgg059:root:/opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc>/*opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc/init.d/syslog-ng.d restart *0513-004 The Subsystem or Group, syslog_ng, is currently inoperative. 0513-059 The syslog_ng Subsystem has been started. Subsystem PID is 233502. cscaixlgg059:root:/opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc>ps -ef|grep -i syslog cscaixlgg059:root:/opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc>lssrc -a|grep -i syslog * syslog_ng local inoperative * But , otherwise as in a normal case or even as a client it wors perfectly fine. cscaixlgg059:root:/opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc>cp syslog-ng.conf.bkp syslog-ng.conf cscaixlgg059:root:/opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc>/opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc/init.d/syslog-ng.d restart 0513-004 The Subsystem or Group, syslog_ng, is currently inoperative. 0513-059 The syslog_ng Subsystem has been started. Subsystem PID is 155708. cscaixlgg059:root:/opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc>ps -ef|grep -i syslog root 155708 139370 0 05:43:40 - 0:00 /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/sbin/syslog-ng cscaixlgg059:root:/opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc>lssrc -a|grep -i syslog syslog_ng local 155708 active I created the syslog_ng substem as below */bin/mkssys -s syslog_ng -p /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/sbin/syslog-ng -a ' -F -f /opt/soe/local/syslog_ng/etc/syslog-ng.conf ' -u 0 -S -n 15 -f 9 -G local * Can someone please advice? Thanks & Regards, Rakesh

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follow_freq() On A Static File
by Hidayath Basha 09 Mar '11

09 Mar '11

Hello, Is it fine to apply follow_freq(1) on a static file (not tailing one) Or One should use follow_freq() only on a tailing file? Thanks and regards, Hidayath

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log4j
by Peter Czanik 08 Mar '11

08 Mar '11

Hello, As I don't code in Java, I don't have any personal experiences with log4j. But from e-mail and forum messages, and also from discussions at FOSDEM I know, that log4j is often used together with syslog-ng. I ran into this log4j related question this morning: http://serverfault.com/questions/242972/getting-syslog-ng-to-recognize-a-ja… I'd like to ask, if there is anybody who already has a solution for the above question or any other useful tips about log4j & syslog-ng to share. Thanks, bye, -- Peter Czanik (CzP) <czanik(a)balabit.hu> BalaBit IT Security / syslog-ng upstream http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

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code-commenting log messages
by Peter Gyongyosi 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

Hi, most of the pattern database-related projects I've seen here started off from the log side of the whole issue: investigating the messages an application produces and trying to create patterns based on them (manually or via patternize). Of course, this makes perfect sense if you're an administrator or you're trying to analyze logs from already-written applications, but what if you're the one who writes these applications and you'd like to make them easier to analyze later on? What if you're the extremely nice guy who wants to ship an up-to-date pattern database for syslog-ng along with your application? :) Or, to be more realistic, at least a list of the most important log messages your program can emit that the user can search to find out what an actual log message means. The idea I've been toying with is defining some kind of a standardized commenting scheme for logging-related calls in source code. Using this, the code could be parsed automatically and a list of log messages could easily be generated that could be used later for documentation or even generating a pattern database. I've done multiple rounds of investigation but I only found custom, application-specific solutions for this. So on one hand, I'm asking you if you've seen any widespread commenting schemes for log messages that can fulfil this task? Or even a custom, application-specific solution that is so incredibly cool that we should all adopt it instead of reinventing the wheel? :) Until then, I'm proposing a commenting scheme I think would be usable and I'm asking for your feedback. It is based on Javadoc, which is widespread enough to be familiar for the majority of developers and has mutations available for virtually all programming languages. I'm going to show the concept through the now-standard example of the logging of the login in sshd: /** * @log * * Signals that the authentication has succeeded or failed for a user. * * @class system * @tags useracct, secevt * @url http://www.openssh.com * * @example Accepted password for bazsi from 127.0.0.1 port 48650 ssh2 * @example Failed password for bazsi from 127.0.1.1 port 44637 ssh2 * * @pattern Accepted @ESTRING:usracct.authmethod: @for @ESTRING:usracct.username: @from @ESTRING:usracct.device: @port @ESTRING:: @@ANYSTRING:usracct.service@ * @pattern Failed @ESTRING:usracct.authmethod: @for @ESTRING:usracct.username: @from @ESTRING:usracct.device: @port @ESTRING:: @@ANYSTRING:usracct.service@ * * @regexp (Accepted|Failed) (gssapi(-with-mic|-keyex)?|rsa|dsa|password|publickey|keyboard-interactive/pam|hostbased) for [^[:space:]]+ from [^[:space:]]+ port [[:digit:]]+( (ssh|ssh2))?$ */ authlog("%s %s for %s%.100s from %.200s port %d%s", authmsg, method, authctxt->valid ? "" : "invalid user ", authctxt->user, get_remote_ipaddr(), get_remote_port(), info); To formalize it a bit: - comments for the log messages should follow the standard Javadoc/Doxygen formatting, with the main indentifier token being "@log" (or \log if you prefer, all further parameters should be usable in the backslash form as well) - the allowed parameters are @class, @url, @example, @regexp, @pattern and @tags - multiple @example, @pattern and @regexp fields are allowed - it is mandatory to specify either @example, @pattern or @regexp to give the application some kind of an identifier, all other params can be omitted I have my own concerns, though: - Is it even the right thing to do to spam source code like this? Is it the proper place for the semantic description of log messages? Sure, it's the easiest place to add such things while the app is being developed and if the comment's right there in the code it's more likely that any changes will be followed up during an update of the code, but still, it seems a bit of an overkill even for me now that I look at it... But maybe it'd worth it for the most important messages. - Maybe and @id would be useful to allow for manually specifying an identifier for the log messages (we all love Oracle's error codes, don't we? :)) - What should be done if a single log() call can emit multiple different messages with different meanings that should be getting their own separate entry? The example above is the perfect candidate for this: the "login accepted" and "login failed" events are definitely different. Maybe two separate @log comments could be added in this case. - How does it relate to more advanced db-parser features like correlation or the self-testing ability of pdbtool of name-value pairs in the <examples> section? (- Isn't it a bit too push-y to call it @pattern instead of @syslog-ng-pattern? :)) However, if such a scheme could be adopted, with some little hacking several cool things could be done (which I'm willing to do): - create "pdbtool sourceextract" or something like that that can generate ready-to-use pattern databases from the source code - this can be added to the build processes to update them along with manpages and similar stuff - Doxygen & co. could be patched to parse and display them - vim, Eclipse and Your Favourite Editor could get a one-click way to add such comment blocks, just as it is possible to add header comments easily What do you think? greets, Peter

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cisco/squid feedback
by Alexander Clouter 07 Mar '11

07 Mar '11

Hi, Digging around, I could not find anything on how to 'sensibly' log the junk that Cisco IOS devices (and their infernal WLC) spit out plus I was keen to rewrite squid HTTP proxy server logs to make use of the epoch+msec timestamp found in the MSG. I have documented, very roughly, my current solution on my website and would welcome amendments/fixes/flames/etc on the approach: http://www.digriz.org.uk/syslog-ng-integration Before you ask, I use 'match("fqdn.example.com" value("HOST_FROM") ...)' as netmask() is broken for IPv6 :) Cheers -- Alexander Clouter .sigmonster says: When pleasure remains, does it remain a pleasure?

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[PATCH]: support setting a default suppress() globally
by Gergely Nagy 04 Mar '11

04 Mar '11

Hi! Attached is a patch that makes it possible to set a default value for suppress() in the global options block, which will then be inherited by all drivers that support this option. Of course, it can still be overridden on a per-destination basis. What this means is, that if one has a larger number of destinations that all need the same suppress settings, we'd write that like this before this patch: destination d_1 { file("/var/log/messages-1" suppress(10)); }; destination d_2 { file("/var/log/messages-2" suppress(10)); }; ... destination d_N { file("/var/log/messages-N" suppress(10)); }; destination d_XX { file("/var/log/messages-XX" suppress(5)); }; After the patch, this can be shortened to: options { suppress(10); }; destination d_1 { file("/var/log/messages-1"); }; ... destination d_N { file("/var/log/messages-N"); }; destination d_XX { file("/var/log/messages-XX" suppress(5)); }; Both result in exactly the same behaviour, but the second is a lot shorter, and easier to maintain, as long as the majority of destinations need the same suppress() setting. Hopefully people will find this useful. The patch is also available from the work/global-suppress branch of my tree at git://git.balabit.hu/algernon/syslog-ng-3.3.git -- |8]

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Reading Multiple Files Using Regex
by Hidayath Basha 04 Mar '11

04 Mar '11

Hi, I have multiple files... some-host:/some/path $ ls -l -rw------- 1 root root 90K Mar 3 11:37 mylogs-2011-03-03 -rw------- 1 root root 121 Mar 4 11:40 mylogs-2011-03-04 Can I read these files in the source driver with following source driver? source s_files{ file("/some/path/mylogs*"); }; I use SLES 11.0 and syslog-ng 2.0.9 Thanks and regards, Hidayath Saven Technologies: A leader in technology driven business solutions ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------- #302, 3rd Floor, MyHome Sarovar Plaza, Hyderabad- 500 063, India Off: +91 040 23237303/7304 ext 115 email: hidayath.basha(a)saventech.com | www.saventech.com follow me: http://twitter.com/hidayath26 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------

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