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

Ben Schumacher ben at blahr.com
Wed, 7 Nov 2001 17:36:11 -0700 (MST)


On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Chris Elsworth wrote:
> 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).

Not to start a religious argument here (although I have a feeling I
might), my personal preference is a system more in line with the
multilog portion of the daemontools
package. (http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html)

Instead of relying on syslog, which can be dubious or an interal file
logging facility, which add unneeded overhead to the core program, you
pipe the output to an external program that can take care of things like
automatically rotating log files. While I realize that some people don't
believe in this particular system, multilog used with supervise (of the
same package) gives a lot of added reliability and a whole lot less
stress.

That being said, I plan (actually, I've already started) to make the
necessary changes to tpop3d to support this. It'll be through the addition
of a command-line argument which will make it easy to turn this feature on
and off. Of course, after I make the changes, I'll post a patch to the
list for those interested.

Ben