Hello, I have found a solution to the problem (syslog-ng OSE 3.5.1 is not accepting global options) but I still do not understand what is the cause of the problem. First some background information. I have built syslog-ng into a buildroot toolchain and flashed into an embedded development board. When I was prototyping my syslog-ng configuration file in the host computer, I was able to use configuration like this: time_reopen(10); However, when I started to use syslog-ng on the embedded target, the configuration previously mentioned did not work. If I included this line in my syslog-ng.conf file; syslog-ng would automatically assume time_reopen was equal to zero and show debug messages like this one: syslog connection failed; fd='8', server='AF_INET(192.168.1.10:1901)', error='Connection refused (146)', time_reopen='0' If I deleted that configuration line from the configuration file, syslog-ng would use its default value. This is the message I would see if the configuration line was removed: syslog connection failed; fd='8', server='AF_INET(192.168.1.10:1901)', error='Connection refused (146)', time_reopen='60' But what if I needed to use time_reopen=10 instead. Anyway, as I said in the beginning I do now know what is causing this behavior but I found a solution.....hex notation. If I use the following configuration line instead: time_reopen(0xa); Then, I would see the following syslog-ng debug message: syslog connection failed; fd='8', server='AF_INET(192.168.1.10:1901)', error='Connection refused (146)', time_reopen='10' The same is true for the following configuration items: flush_timeout log_fetch_limit log_iw_size log_fifo_size max-connections There may be other configuration items that exhibit the same behavior. If anybody can explain why this is happening I would appreciate an explanation, thank you. I hope this helps. From: Tamayo, Andres [mailto:Andres.Tamayo@viasat.com] Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 3:49 PM To: 'syslog-ng@lists.balabit.hu' Subject: [syslog-ng] syslog-ng OSE 3.5.1 is not accepting global options Hello, I am experiencing problems with syslog-ng OSE 3.5.1 reading the configuration file and accepting its global options. I had problems with 2 global options specified in my syslog-ng.conf file: @version: 3.5 @include "scl.conf" options { flush_lines(0); time_reopen(10); log_fifo_size(1000); use_dns(no); use_fqdn(yes); keep_hostname(no); keep_timestamp(yes); chain_hostnames(no); perm(0640); owner("root"); group("root"); create_dirs(yes); dir_perm(0750); dir_owner("root"); dir_group("root"); }; source s_cache { file("/path/to/some/file.txt", flags(no-parse)); }; destination d_network { syslog("192.168.1.10" port(1901) transport("tcp")); }; log { source(s_cache); destination(d_network); }; The time_reopen and log_fifo_size seem to be forced to zero if I try to specify alternate values for them as shown above. If I do not include them in the configuration file, syslog-ng uses their default values time_reopen=60 and log_fifo_size=10000. Does anybody know what may be causing this problem? The log_fifo_size default value is OK but I need a faster time_reopen window and I cannot find a way to specify it. If I do, syslog-ng forces it to time_reopen=0. I can tell because I get message like this when it is trying to reconnect: Syslog connection failed; fd='8', server='AF_INET(192.168.1.10:1901)', error='Connection refused (146)', time_reopen='0' If I remove the time_reopen(10) global option from the syslog-ng.conf file, then I get the following message when syslog-ng it is trying to reconnect: Syslog connection failed; fd='8', server='AF_INET(192.168.1.10:1901)', error='Connection refused (146)', time_reopen='60' Please let me know if you have any questions for me. Thank you for your help.