Thanks to the schooling (particulars and tools) from Jeremy Mates we now have syslog-ng running. Thanks Jeremy! destination std { file("/Volumes/syslog/syslog-ng/$HOST/$YEAR/$MONTH/$DAY/ $FACILITY_$HOST_$YEAR_$MONTH_$DAY" create_dirs(yes) owner("root") group("secsyslogs") perm(0640) dir_perm(0750) ); Produces files name after the DAY only; all the directories are present and autocreated, but facilty, host, year, month are missing from the file name. As this seems to be a common example, I'm wondering if there is a problem with the system or something in the context of the conf file that I have set wrong. May I have a pointer to investigate from the list members? Regards, Kim