You don't need a mail server running to SEND mail. Most, if not all, UNIX flavors come with some form of mail client, most of which are based upon some version of sendmail. However, you will need to send it to a mail SERVER. You'll have to check for a mail client, since I don't use SuSE I can't tell you where one will be, I have used several other flavors of Linux and they have all had the "mail" client. You could set up your mail program inside your syslog-ng.conf the same as you would to any other program by using the "program" key word in a destination. The message from syslog-ng is then passed to the program as an argument I believe. If you are using syslog-ng version 1.5.x, you can also use templates to format the message passed to the program. Or you can write a small program that parses the message sent to it from syslog-ng and then use that program to intelligently send mail. I think that is the best option since then you can control what you send and how you send it as opposed to trying to make syslog-ng do it. If you have a busy syslog-ng host, that could slow it down and you don't want that.