Yes, selinux indeed was the issue. Not sure why my selinux config in the past allowed this, but it was being blocked currently on the default port. 

Updating the policy with-

sudo semanage port -a -t syslogd_port_t -p tcp 36598

...allows syslog-ng to log without having to start it manually from the terminal (where, as you pointed out, it runs unconfined. Otherwise it runs as syslogd_t and by default was limited to ports 514 & 601 and blocked on the default tcp 36598).

Thank you!

On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 6:54 PM, Scheidler, Balázs <balazs.scheidler@balabit.com> wrote:

I have now tested this combination on centos 7, and collecting local log messages do seem to work for me.

Please note that syslog-ng will detect whether it is running under systemd at runtime, and it does it this way:
```
  if (lstat("/run/systemd/system/", &st) < 0 || !S_ISDIR(st.st_mode))
```

e.g. it is checking whether /run/systemd/system is a directory. If it is, the system() source will use systemd-journal() as its source. If this does not exist, it will fall back to /dev/log.

syslog-ng would report the result of this check with a debug level message:
```
      msg_debug("Systemd is not detected as the running init system");
```

or

```
      msg_debug("Systemd is detected as the running init system");
```

The program destination stuff should really be independent of the init system, but a different AppArmor/SELinux config might be the culprit though. When you launch it from the console, it would be unconfined, but with systemd, a policy might be applied that does NOT allow executing external programs.

I hope this helps.

--
Bazsi

On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 6:54 AM, Fabien Wernli <wernli@in2p3.fr> wrote:

On Fri, Feb 10, 2017 at 09:32:21PM +0000, Clayton Dukes wrote:
> If I do a 'systemctl stop syslog-ng' and then just simply type 'syslog-ng' (no foreground, debug, etc. switches) from the command line, it works fine.
> Rather confusing, but I can't see why the systemctl file is not working as it should.
> Any ideas?

try this: in a terminal run `journalctl -f` as root.
In another terminal, run `systemctl start syslog-ng`.

If you don't see anything useful on the journalctl terminal, try increasing
the verbosity of syslog-ng (either by editing `/etc/sysconfig/syslog-ng`,
or by modifying
`/lib/systemd/system/syslog-ng.service` and running `systemctl daemon-reload`).

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______________________________________________________________________________
Member info: https://lists.balabit.hu/mailman/listinfo/syslog-ng
Documentation: http://www.balabit.com/support/documentation/?product=syslog-ng
FAQ: http://www.balabit.com/wiki/syslog-ng-faq

______________________________________________________________________________
Member info: https://lists.balabit.hu/mailman/listinfo/syslog-ng
Documentation: http://www.balabit.com/support/documentation/?product=syslog-ng
FAQ: http://www.balabit.com/wiki/syslog-ng-faq