Dear list,
I am using syslog-ng from some time and it is one realiable and easy for configuration software. But I have notice 2 issues in my configuration, which i have not solved yet.
I'm using:
# syslog-ng -V
syslog-ng 1.6.5
on debian 3.1, uname -a: Linux logsrv 2.4.27-2-386.

1.I'm logging to mysql 4.0  db with pipe. The pipe is locate in /tmp/mysql.pipe. But it is not starting with system startup.I have tried to use script for initial startup script like:

##################################################################
#!/bin/bash

if [ -e /tmp/mysql.pipe ]
        then
        while [ -e /tmp/mysql.pipe ]
                do
                mysql -u loguser --password=XXXX syslog < /tmp/mysql.pipe
                done
else
        mkfifo /tmp/mysql.pipe
fi
##################################################################

 I have read somewhere that the pipe must be located in somewhere else and stuff like this but did not find a solution. Also what should be the order of starting syslog-ng, mysql and mysql.pipe?
So if you have experience such a problem can you guide me through it?

2. and second issue is how to backup this mysql db (i know that it is a little bit of topic). Because the syslog db is nearly 5GB and like to extract and compress it.
have try with mysqlhotcopy but it is locking database for time of cp db to another place which last time was around 10 minutes.

Thanks in advance,
Nikolay Nenchev