[syslog-ng] insider 2014-02: FIPS; GSoC; Incubator; Conferences;

[Peter Czanik]

Dear syslog-ng users,


This is the 31th issue of the syslog-ng Insider, a monthly newsletter 
that brings you syslog-ng related news.


FEATURED NEWS


FIPS

----

Certain departments of the US government and those conducting business 
on certain regulated markets are required to use tools utilizing 
cryptography certified according to the FIPS 140-2 standard to handle 
sensitive data. As logs often contain sensitive information, this 
regulation can apply to the log management system, too.

Starting with the 5.0.4 release, we are offering a version of syslog-ng 
Premium Edition to customers that is built and shipped with the OpenSSL 
FIPS Object Module and as thus usable in environments where such 
validation is required. (For more information about the OpenSSL FIPS 
Object Module, see _http://openssl.com/fips/_.) This is a separate 
version and the original version is available that uses the standard 
OpenSSL library. It is currently available on major Linux platforms and 
has the same functionality as the non-compliant version apart from a few 
limitations listed in the documentation.

Please visit _http://www.balabit.com/lp/fips_if for more information.


Google Summer of Code (GsoC)

----------------------------

Based on the success of last years syslog-ng Gsoc participation (in 
co-operation with the openSUSE project), this year we plan to 
participate in GsoC again with a number of syslog-ng related projects. 
The current list of ideas range from new sources and destination through 
under the hood improvements to integration with configuration management 
systems.

The syslog-ng GsoC page is available at 
_https://github.com/balabit/syslog-ng/wiki/GSoC2014_

The ideas page is available at 
_https://github.com/balabit/syslog-ng/wiki/GSoC2014-Idea-&-Project-list_

We also created a central hub for syslog-ng OSE related material, as part of our preparations for Google Summer of Code and onwards: it is available at_http://syslog-ng.org/_


syslog-ng incubator updates

---------------------------

The syslog-ng incubator is a collection of tools and modules which are 
not (yet) part of the official repository.

Since last month there are many smaller changes and brand new features. 
The master branch goes now hand in hand with syslog-ng's master branch, 
which is currently 3.6 pre-alpha code. If you are working on syslog-ng 
3.5, use the 3.5/master branch of syslog-ng-incubator.

On the feature side the Lua destination was enhanced, a monitoring 
source was added, together with a Graphite output. Among the Lua 
examples one can also find a script to push logs into ElasticSearch.

To try the new features, check out 
_https://github.com/balabit/syslog-ng-incubator_from git. You can read 
more about the Lua destination at 
_https://talien.blogs.balabit.com/2014/02/lua-the-undiscovered-country/_


syslog-ng at conferences

------------------------

In the past few weeks we visited three conferences. While there we 
talked about syslog-ng to many people, some during organized 
presentations, and many more between presentations and social events of 
the conferences.

A look back at FOSDEM and Config Management Camp: 
_https://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/2014/02/fosdem-2014-and-config-management-camp/_

The next confirmed event is:

Open Source Data Center Conference, 8-10 April, Berlin, Germany: 
_http://www.netways.de/osdc/_, Giving a talk titled "Monitoring with 
syslog-ng, Riemann and Kibana" There will be two developers present, so 
if anyone attends, and has Incubator, Lua, Riemann, etc. related 
questions, we'll be happy to answer.



SHORT NEWS:

  *

    Measuring log collection performance:
    _https://pzolee.blogs.balabit.com/2014/01/measuring-log-collection-performance/_


NEW RELEASES

  *

    syslog-ng 5.0.4:
    _https://lists.balabit.hu/pipermail/syslog-ng-announce/2014-February/000180.html_


Your feedback and news tips about the next issue is welcome at 
_documentation at balabit.com <mailto:documentation at balabit.com>_To read 
this newsletter on-line, visit: _http://insider.blogs.balabit.com/_


-- 
Peter Czanik (CzP) <czanik at balabit.hu>
BalaBit IT Security / syslog-ng upstream
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/
https://twitter.com/PCzanik