The syslog-ng 3.0 Administrator Guide

Document version: Third
Release date: October 31, 2008
Latest version available at the BalaBit Documentation Page

Name

syslog-ng — syslog-ng system logger application

Synopsis

syslog-ng [options]

Description

NOTE: This manual page covers both editions of syslog-ng: syslog-ng Open Source Edition and the commercial syslog-ng Premium Edition. Features that are only included in the Premium Edition are marked with an asterisk (*). For details, see the official syslog-ng website: http://www.balabit.com/network-security/syslog-ng/.

This manual page is only an abstract; for the complete documentation of syslog-ng, see The syslog-ng Administrator Guide .

The syslog-ng application is a flexible and highly scalable system logging application. Typically, syslog-ng is used to manage log messages and implement centralized logging, where the aim is to collect the log messages of several devices on a single, central log server. The different devices - called syslog-ng clients - all run syslog-ng, and collect the log messages from the various applications, files, and other sources. The clients send all important log messages to the remote syslog-ng server, where the server sorts and stores them.

Options

--cfgfile <file> or -f <file>

Use the specified configuration file.

--chroot <dir> or -C <dir>

Change root to the specified directory after reading the configuration file. The directory must be set up accordingly. Note that it is not possible to reload the syslog-ng configuration after chrooting.

--debug or -d

Start syslog-ng in debug mode.

--foreground or -F

Do not daemonize, run in the foreground.

--group <group> or -g <group>

Switch to the specified group after initializing the configuration file.

--help or -h

Display a brief help message.

--no-caps

Run syslog-ng as root, without capability-support. This is the default behavior. On Linux, it is possible to run syslog-ng as non-root with capability-support if syslog-ng was compiled with the --enable-linux-caps option enabled. (Execute syslog-ng --version to display the list of enabled build parameters.)

--persist-file <persist-file> or -R <persist-file>

Set the path and name of the syslog-ng.persist file where the persistent configuration options are stored.

--pidfile <pidfile> or -P <pidfile>

Set path to the PID file where the pid of the main process is stored.

--qdisk-dir <path> or -Q <path>

Specify the location of the file used for disk-based buffering. By default, this file is located at /var/lib/syslog-ng/.

--stderr or -e

Log internal messages of syslog-ng to stderr. Mainly used for debugging purposes in conjunction with the --foreground option.

--syntax-only or -s

Verify that the configuration file is syntactically correct and exit.

--user <user> or -u <user>

Switch to the specified user after initializing the configuration file (and optionally chrooting). Note that it is not possible to reload the syslog-ng configuration if the specified user has no privilege to create the /dev/log file.

--verbose or -v

Enable verbose logging used to troubleshoot syslog-ng.

--version or -V

Display version number and compilation information.

Files

/etc/syslog-ng/

/etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf

See also

syslog-ng.conf(5)

The syslog-ng Administrator Guide

Author

This manual page was written by the BalaBit Documentation Team <documentation@balabit.com>.

Copyright

Copyright © 2007 BalaBit IT Security Ltd. All rights reserved. For more information about the legal status of this document please read: http://www.balabit.com/products/zorp/docs/legal_notice.bbq

© 2007-2008 BalaBit IT Security
Please send your comments or documentation bugs to: documentation@balabit.com

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