[tpop3d-discuss] How do i change the syslog facility?

[Chris Elsworth]

On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 07:18:04PM +0000, Chris Lightfoot wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 11:44:44AM +0100, Henrik Larsson wrote:
> > Is there any way to change the syslog facility name or let tpop3d log
> > directly to a file?
> 
> OK, I've added run-time facility selection to 1.3.6preX
> (this might actually become 1.4.1 once I've integrated 
> Ben Schumacher's TLS code). I don't think that I will add
> logging direct to a file because I *hate* programs which
> log to their own random log files. I accept that syslog is
> pretty broken but at least it works (kind of) the same way
> everywhere....

If I may, can I venture the view that SysAdmins of busy ISPs hate syslogd 
almost as much as you hate daemons which log directly without it :)

A busy mail server might spend almost as much time (remember ISPs turn 
logging up to aid in troubleshooting, coping for customer complaints, etc) 
logging as it does sending mail when going via syslogd.

A real life example. Demon use thttpd (a very lightweight httpd server)
for Homepages. Output from top with irrelevant processes snipped:

  PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE  SIZE   RES STATE   TIME    CPU COMMAND
24110 nobody     1  49    0   51M   18M run   549.2H 12.94% thttpd
15207 root      18  58    0 4608K 1824K sleep  82.8H  1.57% syslogd

Notice the runtime on each process. syslogd takes up a substantial amount 
of CPU time - for this reason we're looking at moving to direct file 
logging. One line (about 100 bytes) is logged per hit.

Back to the point - logging directly to a file does have its uses, it cuts 
down on overhead that busy systems cannot afford to have.

Just make sure there's an easy way to make it open a new log - SIGUSR or 
so, for example, should stop logging to the current file and begin a new 
one (usually sent after log rotation scripts run).

-- 
Chris Elsworth  -  Software & Systems Developer  /  Systems Administrator