https://bugzilla.balabit.com/show_bug.cgi?id=99

           Summary: syslog-ng unable to write to files owned by another user
                    and not world writable
           Product: syslog-ng
           Version: 3.1.x
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: minor
          Priority: unspecified
         Component: syslog-ng
        AssignedTo: bazsi@balabit.hu
        ReportedBy: mimosinnet@ningunlugar.org
Type of the Report: bug
   Estimated Hours: 0.0


I used to have a new destination that logged messages into a file owned by a certain user. This worked in syslog-ng-3.0.4:

destination problem     { file("/var/log/problem.log" owner("o3o") group("users")); };

# ls -lisah problem.log
6268890 920K -rw------- 1 o3o users 915K  7 des 12:52 problem.log

After upgrading to syslog-ng-3.1.1, I get the following message:

Dec  7 12:52:37 o3o syslog-ng[12594]: Error opening file for writing; filename='/var/log/problem.log', error='Permission denied (13)'
Dec  7 12:52:37 o3o syslog-ng[12594]: syslog-ng internal() messages are looping back, preventing loop by suppressing further messages; recurse_count='2'

I can write to the file as the o3o user (i.e. echo "test" >> /var/log/problem.log).

I have tried to put the file in the home directory with the same result:

destination problem   { file("/home/o3o/problem.log" owner("o3o") group("users")); };

I had to give world permissions to the file for syslog-ng to be able to write to it:

destination problem     { file("/var/log/problem.log" owner("o3o") group("users") perm(0622)); };

The file should only be writable for the specific user.

This seems similar to this other bug: https://bugzilla.balabit.com/show_bug.cgi?id=52

Thanks for the attention!