- syslog-ng - lists.balabit.hu

syslog-ng 2.1.2 has been released
by devel＠balabit.hu 16 Nov '08

16 Nov '08

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PACKAGE : syslog-ng VERSION : 2.1.2 SUMMARY : new stable release DATE : Nov 16, 2008 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION: A new stable version of syslog-ng Open Source Edition (2.1.2) has been released. For latest fixes in the 2.1.x branch you are recommended to upgrade to this version. CHANGES: 2.1.2 Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:25:37 +0100 Bugfixes: * Fixed handling windows sizes above 65535 by changing the internal reference counter type to a 32 bit integer. * Fixed the reported port number in log statistics messages. * Fixed the internal representation of "facility" values, earlier an 8 bit value was used for both the priority and facility values, and although systems do not define facilities in this range, the LOG_FACMASK macro defines two additional bits. The type of this field was changed to 16 bits. * Fixed filter evaluation, the evaluation in AND and OR operators had a problem, it evaluated the right-hand-size of expressions first, and then the left-hand-side. This is wrong, and it easily ruins the concept of extracting information from messages via regexps. * Fixed a segmentation fault in the configuration parser on OpenBSD/amd64. All configuration options that expected a number in the parser may cause a crash, as the strdup() function went undeclared on OpenBSD, causing it to be auto-declared as a function returning "int". As a 32 bit int cannot hold a 64 bit pointer, this may cause a crash if the high-order bits of the pointer are lost. * Fixed a possible "stall" of the syslog-ng main loop, when SQL destinations are used and flow control is enabled on the log path feeding the SQL destination. * Fixed a possible 100% CPU usage case on HP-UX. HP-UX may return POLLERR on its own without the other flags set, this was not properly handled by syslog-ng, causing it to spin on the CPU. Other changes: * Instead of relying on BalaBit's version of libdbi, adapt the configure script to libdbi upstream. This currently means that instead of dbi-0.8.pc, syslog-ng is looking for dbi.pc, just as the upstream installs the pkg-config file. * Added --enable-mixed-linking option to the configure script. This functionally equivalent of the default linking option in syslog-ng 2.0. This change only makes this possibility more explicit. * Fixed some compilation warnings. * Removed the build dependency on flex 2.5.34. BINARY DOWNLOAD: If you have a binary subscription, you can download the latest binaries from: http://www.balabit.com/network-security/syslog-ng/opensource-logging-system… OR, if you have a platform that is supported by apt-get, use the following apt sources to fetch the latest releases: Debian GNU/Linux ---------------- sarge: deb https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@apt.balabit.com/syslog-ng/open-source/ debian-sarge/syslog-ng-2.1 syslog-ng etch: deb https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@apt.balabit.com/syslog-ng/open-source/ debian-etch/syslog-ng-2.1 syslog-ng RedHat Enterprise Linux ----------------------- RHEL-4 rpm https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@apt.balabit.com/syslog-ng/open-source/ rhel-4/syslog-ng-2.1 syslog-ng SUSE 10 ------- SUSE 10.0 rpm https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@apt.balabit.com/syslog-ng/open-source/ suse-10.0/syslog-ng-2.1 syslog-ng SUSE 10.1 rpm https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@apt.balabit.com/syslog-ng/open-source/ suse-10.1/syslog-ng-2.1 syslog-ng HTTP can also be used in the place of HTTPS If your version of apt-get does not support the HTTPS protocol. When using plain HTTP, the username and password will not be encrypted. SOURCE DOWNLOAD: The latest versions of syslog-ng in source format can be found at: http://www.balabit.com/downloads/files/syslog-ng/sources/2.1/src/

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Send auditd info to syslog-ng in RHEL
by Phusion 14 Nov '08

14 Nov '08

Does anyone know a way to send auditd information to syslog-ng? I have a server running RHEL5 and by default it stores the info to a log file defined in the config file. By default it points to /var/log/audit/audit.log. Let me know if you have experience with this or ideas of things to try. Phusion

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snmptrapd and HOST macro mapping
by joël Winteregg 13 Nov '08

13 Nov '08

Dear Syslog-ng users, I'm trying to understand (using syslog-ng community source code and some testing) if it is possible to map a given hostname located into MSGONLY macro to the FULLHOST or HOST macro. I'm trying to achieve this in order to fetch the hostname (SNMP trap source) provided by my snmptrapd collector (which is located on the same server as syslog-ng). The snmptrapd collector is logging its trap using syslog API as follow (snmptrapd source code): int log_handler_syslog( netsnmp_log_handler* logh, int pri, const char *str){ /* * XXX * We've got three items of information to work with: * Is the syslog currently open? * What ident string to use? * What facility to log to? * * We've got two "magic" locations (imagic & magic) plus the token */ if (!(logh->imagic)) { const char *ident = logh->token; int facility = (int)(intptr_t)logh->magic; if (!ident) ident = netsnmp_ds_get_string(NETSNMP_DS_LIBRARY_ID, NETSNMP_DS_LIB_APPTYPE); openlog(ident, LOG_CONS | LOG_PID, facility); logh->imagic = 1; } syslog( pri, "%s", str ); return 1; } As provided by syslog.h, there is no way to set the hostname used into syslog message (it is automatically set by the API). So my logs, provided by snmptrapd, look like the following (where HOST macro is related to the server hosting syslog-ng and snmptrapd): 12/11/2008 16:57:14 SYSLOG-COLLECTOR LEVEL=info snmptrapd[29592]: wlc02.mydomain.com Cold Start In order to be able to get wlc02.mydomain.com as $HOST or $FULLHOST macro, I set: chain_hostnames(yes); keep_hostname(yes); and I formated my snmptrapd logs MSGONLY content (using snmptrad config statements) as RFC 3164 need it: 12/11/2008 16:58:00 SYSLOG-COLLECTOR LEVEL=info snmptrapd[29592]: Nov 12 16:57:59 wlc02.mydomain.com Cold Start I thought that the above log would be seen as a relayed message by syslog-ng allowing me to fetch wlc02.mydomain.com into $HOST or $FULLHOST. Unfortunately this config provide me the following string into $FULLHOST macro: s_source@SYSLOG-COLLECTOR Does syslog-ng only use relay config statements (keep_hostname, etc.) when the log source is defined as udp() or tcp() ? I saw another hint about this here: http://osdir.com/ml/syslog-ng/2004-10/msg00062.html It says that: "If you still have your snmptrapd hostname, then you have to modify snmptrapd to use the original hostname when it sends the message about the trap" But as given above (syslog API usage into snmptrapd) how can I set the hostname of the syslog message ? Any hint is welcome ! Thanks in advance, Joël

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Does syslog-ng have the ability of controlling repeated lines?
by Mao Rui 13 Nov '08

13 Nov '08

I always got multiple lines of repeated messages. Syslog can merge them into a line like 'last message repeated n times'. But syslog-ng did not. Is there any way to make syslog-ng working in the same way? Best regards, Mao Rui

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fails if dns error resolve hostname destination forwarding
by JV 12 Nov '08

12 Nov '08

Tried searching in google and the mailing archives... I'm on syslog-ng-2.0.9 and it refuses to start if i have a filter like filter f_11 { level(info..emerg); }; destination d_8 { udp("sysremote" port(514)); }; log { source(s_sys); filter(f_11); destination(d_8); }; and sysremote is not resolvable via my DNS or /etc/hosts You'd think syslog-ng-2.0.9 would continue to run and do the other filters which is to log locally instead of refusing to run at all. Thats how the builtin syslog works i believe. This limits our ability to swap out replace syslog with syslog-ng since local logging should not fail just because dns is unreachable ? Am I missing something. Thanks in advance.

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syslog-ng refuses to open/write destination file
by Peck, Jonathan 12 Nov '08

12 Nov '08

Hello... Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have configured syslog-ng to add a custom application filter and log destination. Let me preface all works when I configure the destination to be in /var/log. However, due to operational needs the file needs to be written off to a directory in /usr/local/ssl/<application location>. Here's the tricky part. The /usr/local/ssl/<application> is actually being exported by a NFS server as a share. I thought perhaps that was the issue as I do see a "cannot open file for writing, permission denied" vomited by syslog-ng and stamped when I kick start the application. I checked the permissions on directory and the log file. They are all good. I am able to touch, create, destroy, move, copy etc data on that directory. It only appears syslog-ng is having the trouble. What makes it more goofy is when I manipulate how I kick start the app (via shell or daemon) sometimes I see the permission error sometimes I do not. Ultimately syslog-ng still just stamps everything to 'messages'. Question, does syslog-ng have a configuration for writing off your destination file to an NFS share? I've never had this problem appear before. Perhaps someone has some experience to lend a hand? Appreciate it in advance! Cheers - Jonathan ----------------------------------------- The information in this message may be proprietary and/or confidential, and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify First Data immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your computer.

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Re: [syslog-ng] syslog-ng takes 100% CPU when network fails
by D S, Manu (STSD) 06 Nov '08

06 Nov '08

This patch fixes the issue. Thanks! - Manu > > Hi, > > > > We are running syslog-ng 2.0.9 on a HP-UX 11.31 server. We > have configured this system as a client to forward logs to a remote > server. When there is a network failure ( simulated by ifconfig down ) > syslog-ng starts to consume CPU and even after the network comes back, > it does not forward any log messages and continues to hog CPU. > > > > We did system call tracing using tusc and found that "poll()" > gets "POLLERR" event from TCP socket descriptor, but syslog-ng does not > call any socket calls for the TCP, only calls "gettimeofday()". > > > > In the logs given, TCP connection to server is disconnected > at 13:10:30. From that time, poll() receives POLLERR on the TCP socket > (fd=6) and starts loop on gettimeofday(). Attached are the sar, > netstat and tusc logs. > > First of all, Thanks for the detailed error report. > > As I see the problem seems to be caused by the fact that HP-UX returns > POLLERR only without the other bits (e.g. POLLHUP) syslog-ng would > handle this gracefully if either the other bits would be set, or > there'd > be some pending messages to send, in which case a normal write() error > would occur. > > This patch should fix the problem, although I only compile-tested it. > I'd appreciate if you could test this patch in your environment. > > diff --git a/src/logwriter.c b/src/logwriter.c > index bb82b43..7a5fcf7 100644 > --- a/src/logwriter.c > +++ b/src/logwriter.c > @@ -139,6 +139,13 @@ log_writer_fd_dispatch(GSource *source, > log_writer_broken(self->writer, NC_CLOSE); > return FALSE; > } > + else if (self->pollfd.revents & (G_IO_ERR)) > + { > + msg_error("POLLERR occurred while idle", > + evt_tag_int("fd", self->fd->fd), > + NULL); > + log_writer_broken(self->writer, NC_WRITE_ERROR); > + } > else if (self->writer->queue->length || self->writer->partial) > { > if (!log_writer_flush_log(self->writer, self->fd)) > > > > > > -- > Bazsi >

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Problems compiling on RHEL 5 (flex error)
by Douglas E. Warner 06 Nov '08

06 Nov '08

I'm getting the following error trying to build packages for RHEL5: flex `test -f cfg-lex.l || echo './'`cfg-lex.l "cfg-lex.l", line 1: unrecognized '%' directive "cfg-lex.l", line 3: bad character: # "cfg-lex.l", line 3: unknown error processing section 1 "cfg-lex.l", line 3: bad character: " "cfg-lex.l", line 3: bad character: . "cfg-lex.l", line 3: bad character: " "cfg-lex.l", line 5: bad character: } make[2]: *** [cfg-lex.c] Error 1 make[2]: Any ideas on what I can do here? -Doug

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[PATCH] anonymizing filter
by Micah Anderson 06 Nov '08

06 Nov '08

Hello, A couple years ago this patch was submitted to the list for consideration for inclusion into syslog-ng. I am writing this email again to request that it be considered again. The patch provides a simple replace which enables you to strip out IP addresses from your logs before they are written to disk. The patch has been included in the Debian stable distribution, and currently is included in both Debian Sid and Lenny (unstable and testing). It has had a very wide testing base and is non-intrusive, it has existed since 2004 and has been adapted to work with the newer syslog-ng. The goal of this patch is to give an organization the means to implement site logging policies, by allowing for easy control over exactly what data is retained in the logfiles. When I first requested consideration for inclusion the reactions were some suggestions for improvement (which were done), some side discussions about the various states of data retention laws, and a general agreement that this patch is non-intrusive and had a valid use case (at least in the U.S., but also likely in other countries as well[0]). The side-discussions about data-retention laws were mostly around specific geographic localities that were considering laws that would make stripping of addresses illegal, or had already mandated such things. Although these were interesting discussions, as EU data retention laws would prohibit many people from making such configuration changes to their syslog-ng.conf, they were tangential to the point because this patch does not cause those to break such laws. On the other side of the pond, in the U.S., the EFF[1] has made it very clear that this mechanism of anonymizing logs is perfectly (a) legal in the U.S., and (b) advisable. There are many instances where it is preferable to keep less information on users than is collected by default on many systems. In the United States it is not currently required to retain data on users of a server, but you may be required to provide all data on a user which you have retained. OSPs can protect themselves from legal hassles and added work by choosing what data they wish to retain. The current climate in the U.S. makes this problem so much more important now than it was many years ago. Having the ability to implement a site-policy that enables an organization to decide if the trade-off between privacy and analysis is worthwhile. This patch allows organizations to have that choice if they feel that it is more important to avoid retaining sensitive data rather than having a full history of everything logged. Please accept this patch[2], Micah [0] EPIC International Data Retention Page http://www.epic.org/privacy/intl/data_retention.html [1] The EFF is the major civil liberties internet watchdog in the US, their "Best Practices for Online Service Providers" can be found here: http://www.eff.org/osp, they explicitly link to our patch as a recommendation [2] The latest patch can be found at https://code.autistici.org/trac/privacy/browser/trunk/syslog-ng

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Re: [syslog-ng] Encoding provlem when writing to postgres
by ml＠bortal.de 05 Nov '08

05 Nov '08

Hi, where can i get syslog-ng 3.0? I cant find it on http://www.balabit.com/downloads/files/syslog-ng/sources/ Thanks, Mario Am 15.10.2008 um Uhr haben Sie geschrieben: > On Wed, 2008-10-15 at 09:53 +0200, ml(a)bortal.de wrote: > > Hello List, > > > > How can i fix this? I am running postgresql-8.1 with Debian 4.0. > > Probably the syslog client sends non-utf8 characters in its message. > syslog-ng 2.0 and 2.1 do not really care about the message contents. > > 3.0 has support for various encodings and utf8 validation like this: > > This assumes that the input is latin1: > > source s_net { udp(encoding("iso-8859-1")); }; > > And this one enforces valid utf8 messages > > source s_net { udp(flags(validate-utf8)); }; > > I was planning to add another flag, but this is not yet implemented: > > source s_net { udp(flags(force-utf8)); }; > > Which would enforce valid utf8 sequences by changing the input. > > As an alternative don't use utf8 as the character encoding of your > database, use latin1, that'll permit any kind of data in the database. >

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