[Cialug] difference between syslog and messages?

[Tom Pohl]

It is all dependent upon your syslog.conf (usually in /etc)

On RH systems, /var/log/messages get these types of messages:
*.info;mail.none;news.none;authpriv.none;cron.none		/var/log/messages

and /var/log/syslog isn't used at all, but on osx they don't use /var/log/messsages BUT /var/log/syslog gets these types of messages:
*.notice;authpriv,remoteauth,ftp,install,internal.none  /var/log/system.log

When it is all said and done, it's up to the admin to determine what type and where messages go!  You can even log your syslog messages to another host.

-Tom


On Nov 19, 2009, at 9:16 AM, Matthew Nuzum wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 8:45 AM, Nathan C. Smith <nathan.smith at ipmvs.com> wrote:
>> What are the differences between /var/log/syslog and /var/log/messages?  Is the messages log primarily for local system events or does it mean I have too many logging tools running?
>> 
> 
> I've wondered this too and I think it might be different from one
> distro to the next. On Ubuntu it appears that some things that go to
> syslog also go to messages where as when I was a RH person I thought
> some things went to messages and other, different, things went to
> syslog (but maybe I had a wrong understanding).
> 
> -- 
> Matthew Nuzum
> newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca and twitter
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