Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 19:40:34 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: obrien@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: Mike Barcroft <mike@FreeBSD.ORG>, void <float@firedrake.org>, Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: syslogd and kqueue Message-ID: <3BDCCFB2.1E5CFC49@mindspring.com> References: <20011026233957.A9925@parhelion.firedrake.org> <20011026200436.A61058@xor.obsecurity.org> <20011027043342.A18231@parhelion.firedrake.org> <20011027001704.B2586@coffee.q9media.com> <20011027002622.C2586@coffee.q9media.com> <20011028180643.B59388@dragon.nuxi.com>
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David O'Brien wrote: > Actually, I find it weird and counter intuitive that syslogd will not > log to the files in the config file (/etc/syslog.conf) unless they > already exists. It really feels like we are living with a programming > bug 25 years later.... > > If I didn't want syslogd to log something, I would not have it in > syslog.conf. The intents is to have the switchover be atomic, in that the messages are not split in the middle of a line between files, and in that the switchover can not result in the loss of any messages. By using the rename/create/signal approach, syslogd is guaranteed to log new messages to the old file, despite the rename, until signalled to close and reopen the file (or a new file of another name, if syslog.conf is changed). If it created the file itself, there would be a potential race issue that would remain unresolved, which is hidden by the seperation of the create and the subsequent signal. Personally, I think that changing the syslogd is at most a harmless thing, and at worst, something that can be safely ignored, so I view the proposed change as nothing more than someone making work for themselves. The _useful_ thing to do would be to roll the newsyslog functionality into syslogd; however, as a .conf file that is expected to be distributed over NIS, I think that doing the syntax change is probably a bad idea... -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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