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from the with-all-this-logging-we-need-a-lumberjack dept.
World-renowned Unix master Chris Siebenmann has written an article entitled 'I wish systemd would get over its thing about syslog'. It addresses the strained relationship between the systemd init system and the traditional syslog approach to logging used on many Linux systems.
Chris writes:
Anyone who works with systemd soon comes to realize that systemd just doesn't like syslog very much. In fact systemd is so unhappy with syslog that it invented its own logging mechanism (in the form of journald). This is not news. What people who don't have to look deeply into the situation often don't realize is that systemd's dislike is sufficiently deep that systemd just doesn't interact very well with syslog.
This is a must-read article for anyone who needs to use systemd and syslog together.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RamiK on Sunday April 19 2015, @06:53PM
http://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/linux/SystemdAndSyslog?showcomments#comments [utoronto.ca]
I personally had very little interaction with syslog but in each case (windows machines, a few routers... Stuff I can't or won't ssh to basically) something broke. Line breaks, carriage returns, tabs, use of punctuation, double spacing all over (not char set... I saw the code. It was introduced manually into the string deliberately) and so on... Essentially each device OEM treated the protocol like it's own in-house dev tool and would keep it that way on release.
compiling...
(Score: 2, Redundant) by frojack on Sunday April 19 2015, @07:32PM
Agreed. Logging is almost universally abused.
Logging (regardless of platforms) tend contain massive amounts of stuff that doesn't need to be logged at all, is obtuse, and only meaningful to the coder, using terminology that makes them deliberately unintelligible.
And any complaining users are instructed to change their system logging level to avoid these messages. Never considering that you may need logging at a specific level for other equally non-compliant software.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Marand on Monday April 20 2015, @02:02AM
TL;DR for anyone that doesn't want to read Poettering's entire comment:
Poettering's reply, as usual, is "not a bug, someone else's problem" and passes blame to another party. Now, to be fair, it's possible that it's true in this case; I'm not able to verify it either way, so I make no assumption about it. It's just hard to take the comment seriously when that's his and Sievers' response to any sort of criticism.
Journal corruption issue? RESOLVED NOTABUG. systemd causes machine to not boot if kernel is run with 'debug' option? Fix your kernel not our problem. Etc. I'm sure they're occasionally correct and a problem really isn't their fault, but it seems to be their default method of deflecting criticism. (Sometimes they get creative and go for something like "you just hate handicapped people", though)
(Score: 3, Informative) by mvdwege on Monday April 20 2015, @07:34PM
Actually, the kernel 'debug' option was hashed out after Linus' first tirade at Kay Sievers. It was in fact admitted by Linux that systemd had correctly interpreted the 'debug' option, but was generating too much output for the kernel log buffer, which was admitted by Lennart to be a bug in systemd and fixed.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday April 20 2015, @11:28PM
You deserve an Informative mod, but my points haven't refreshed yet, unfortunately. I lost track of the kernel debug discussion somewhere between Sievers claiming no fault and Poettering admitting they actually did do something wrong, so I didn't know one of them admitted error about something. Last thing I saw about it, the kernel devs were discussing ways to suppress notification spam because Sievers was being difficult.
Sievers' part of that is what was relevant to the point I was making: they always seem to default to "it's not our fault, we did nothing wrong", not just with systemd, but with everything. It's been the same thing for years, all the way back to the creation of, and problems with, pulseaudio. When you cry "wolf" often, nobody will believe you when it's legitimate.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tibman on Monday April 20 2015, @01:44PM
aaaand i just learned that journald (optionally) has a small webserver in it : /
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