[syslog-ng] Ignoring previously handled/filtered messages

[John Goggan]

ger wrote:
> try
>   filter f_daemon { facility(daemon) and not program(name);};
> 
> where "name" is whatever program you're trying to filter out.

Thanks to Ger and Ilya for their responses.  While this does work, it really
seems like a poor way to do it to me -- and, I believe, is also quite a bit
different from the way standard syslog handles things.  The problem is that it
should just be easy to make it so that messages are handled only ONCE and then
not sent to additional logs unless specifically desires.  How many people
really want the same syslog message sent to multiple logs most of the time? 
It just seems that the default (which does this) is the opposite of what most
would want.

Plus, what needs to be done to get around this just doesn't make any sense. 
This means that if I want separate logs for imapd, named, telnetd, and ftpd
(to name just a few common daemons) -- and I want any other daemons that pop
up to still go to a daemon.log, I have to do this in my filter section:

filter f_imapd { program("imapd"); };
filter f_named { program("named"); };
filter f_telnetd { program("telnetd"); };
filter f_ftpd { program("ftpd"); };
filter f_auth { facility(auth)
                and not program("imapd")
                and not program("named")
                and not program("telnetd")
                and not program("ftpd"); };
filter f_daemon { facility(daemon)
                and not program("imapd")
                and not program("named")
                and not program("telnetd")
                and not program("ftpd"); };
filter f_messages { level(info..warn)
        and not facility(auth, authpriv, mail, news);
                and not program("imapd")
                and not program("named")
                and not program("telnetd")
                and not program("ftpd"); };

That just seems like a really bad design!  I have to make sure that I keep all
of the names updated in several different locations.  If I want to add a log
for just one more daemon, I have to add it to at least 3 other filters besides
its own filter!

Aren't other people experiencing such problems?  Or is no one out there using
syslog-ng to filter out specific daemons while still catching the unlisted
daemons in a daemon.log file?

There must be a better way...

 - John...