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Date:      Wed, 21 Mar 2001 01:11:21 -0600
From:      Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
To:        jef moskot <jef@math.miami.edu>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: qpopper is very noisy
Message-ID:  <15032.21529.523652.502956@guru.mired.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0103202137020.94753-100000@hurricane.math.miami.edu>
References:  <15031.5419.482618.192130@guru.mired.org> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0103202137020.94753-100000@hurricane.math.miami.edu>

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jef moskot <jef@math.miami.edu> types:
> Mike Meyer wrote:
> > jef moskot <jef@math.miami.edu> types:
> > > I'm using qpopper right now and it's doing fine, but it spits out a line
> > > every time it's accessed when I'm logged into the console as root, which
> > > gets annoying pretty quickly.
> > > 
> > > Is it possible to turn this behavior off, while still allowing these
> > > messages to be reported normally in the log file?
> > 
> > Well, the best way is to not log in as root.
> At first I thought you were being a smartass, then I turned my brain on
> realized that that's a pretty good workaround.  Thanks!

There are a number of good reasons not to log in as root: it records
who does things if you've got multiple people who use the root
password, it makes it less likely you'll try to log in as root on a
network session, and it makes it clear that bad login attempts as root
are an attack. And yes, it also means you don't get those messages.

Personally, the only time I log in as root is to check root messages
from syslog.conf. I've even set up systems where it was impossible to
log in as root.

> > Failing that, you can use syslog.conf to control where the messages
> > from syslogd go. The man pages provide some details on this.
> I messed around with this originally, even found precisely what I wanted
> to do on a web page somewhere, made the change and...nothing happened.  
> Sorry, I can't remember the details of that attempt, but I'll try again.

Did you restart or reconfig syslogd?

> At any rate, do you think it would be a good idea to contact the author of
> the port, to turn this behavior off by default?  Is there any sensible
> reason to spam the root operator with non-critical messages?

It's not really the ports behavior; it's probably logging the access
at "notice" level, message transfer at "info" level, and details at
the "debug" level, which makes perfect sense. The default syslog.conf
logs *.notice to root, so any root login gets those messages. Just
deleting the "*.notice;... root" and restarting syslog.conf should
stop it, but it might stop other messages as well. In theory,
something like "*.notice;mail.none;... root" will also stop it, but
syslog.conf and theory have a poor track record on agreement.

	<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

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