[gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Bruce A. Locke]

I've been playing around with the daemon tools package recently. 
Supervise is nice and would be handy in a server setting but I can't
figure out why anyone would want multilog over a syslog or syslog
replacement.  The resulting log files have to be filtered to be readable,
they are _not_ being put into /var/log with the syslog.d stuff, etc, the
filenames are not very human readable, there are multiple processes
involved (including the gluelog hack).  Seems like I'm loosing ease of
use, the ability to forward logs, a standard log location, etc in exchange
for a poorly documented monstrocity :)  What is the advantages of
multilog?  Perhaps I'm missing something :)

Would it be possible to get a syslog USE keyword or equiv and have the
supervise run scripts we create have support for it?  That way if the use
keyword is set then people can use syslog or a syslog replacement like
syslog-ng and people who happen to like multilog can continue using it.

Just a thought... any comments?

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce A. Locke
blocke@shivan.org

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Bruce A. Locke]

Whoops... I'm sorry... I took another look and misunderstood what multilog
is doing here...  How difficult would it for me to stop using multilog and
use the "old style" logging for smb, etc with their own old fashioned
files under /var/log?


On Wed, 11 Jul 2001 18:56:57 -0500
"Bruce A. Locke" <blocke@shivan.org> wrote:

> 
> I've been playing around with the daemon tools package recently. 
> Supervise is nice and would be handy in a server setting but I can't
> figure out why anyone would want multilog over a syslog or syslog
> replacement.  The resulting log files have to be filtered to be
readable,
> they are _not_ being put into /var/log with the syslog.d stuff, etc, the
> filenames are not very human readable, there are multiple processes
> involved (including the gluelog hack).  Seems like I'm loosing ease of
> use, the ability to forward logs, a standard log location, etc in
exchange
> for a poorly documented monstrocity :)  What is the advantages of
> multilog?  Perhaps I'm missing something :)
> 
> Would it be possible to get a syslog USE keyword or equiv and have the
> supervise run scripts we create have support for it?  That way if the
use
> keyword is set then people can use syslog or a syslog replacement like
> syslog-ng and people who happen to like multilog can continue using it.
> 
> Just a thought... any comments?
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Bruce A. Locke
> blocke@shivan.org
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@cvs.gentoo.org
> http://cvs.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev
> 



---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce A. Locke
blocke@shivan.org

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Jerry A!]

On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 06:56:57PM -0500, Bruce A. Locke wrote:
: 
: I've been playing around with the daemon tools package recently. 
: Supervise is nice and would be handy in a server setting but I can't
: figure out why anyone would want multilog over a syslog or syslog
: replacement.  The resulting log files have to be filtered to be readable,
: they are _not_ being put into /var/log with the syslog.d stuff, etc, the
: filenames are not very human readable, there are multiple processes
: involved (including the gluelog hack).  Seems like I'm loosing ease of
: use, the ability to forward logs, a standard log location, etc in exchange
: for a poorly documented monstrocity :)  What is the advantages of
: multilog?  Perhaps I'm missing something :)

Actually, check out http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/multilog.html.  You can
figure out how to accomplish what you're for (log sizes/rotation/etc.)

As for the /var/log/syslog.d/current, just make that a symbolic link to
/var/log/syslog.

Multilog is part of a package for daemonizing programs.  However, it's
designed to not choke and not beat up on the system like syslog. 
Likewiese, it makes every effort to ensure that no data is lost.  Oh,
and it's much more lightweight than syslogd/klogd.  It's a good program.

Having said that, I'll be honest, I don't like it.  It's a preference
thing, not a technical issue.  I'd recommend app-admin/metalog (and not
just because I put it in the tree).

Reply to this message if you need step-by-step instructions and I'll
post them later tonight (leaving in a coupla minutes--don't have time
right now).

: Would it be possible to get a syslog USE keyword or equiv and have the
: supervise run scripts we create have support for it?  That way if the use
: keyword is set then people can use syslog or a syslog replacement like
: syslog-ng and people who happen to like multilog can continue using it.

Achim?

        --Jerry

name:  Jerry Alexandratos         ||  Open-Source software isn't a
phone: 703.599.6023               ||  matter of life or death...
email: jerry@thehutt.org          ||  ...It's much more important
                                  ||  than that!

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Jerry A!]

On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 07:02:03PM -0500, Bruce A. Locke wrote:
: 
: Whoops... I'm sorry... I took another look and misunderstood what multilog
: is doing here...  How difficult would it for me to stop using multilog and
: use the "old style" logging for smb, etc with their own old fashioned
: files under /var/log?

Mucho difficult in one sense b/c gluelog/multilog are the ones listening
to /dev/log and intercepting syslog messages.

However, you could always have samba log directly to a file instead of
using the syslog facility.  Man smb.conf for details.

        --Jerry

name:  Jerry Alexandratos         ||  Open-Source software isn't a
phone: 703.599.6023               ||  matter of life or death...
email: jerry@thehutt.org          ||  ...It's much more important
                                  ||  than that!

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Achim Gottinger]

"Jerry A!" wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 06:56:57PM -0500, Bruce A. Locke wrote:
> :
> : I've been playing around with the daemon tools package recently.
> : Supervise is nice and would be handy in a server setting but I can't
> : figure out why anyone would want multilog over a syslog or syslog
> : replacement.  The resulting log files have to be filtered to be readable,
> : they are _not_ being put into /var/log with the syslog.d stuff, etc, the
> : filenames are not very human readable, there are multiple processes
> : involved (including the gluelog hack).  Seems like I'm loosing ease of
> : use, the ability to forward logs, a standard log location, etc in exchange
> : for a poorly documented monstrocity :)  What is the advantages of
> : multilog?  Perhaps I'm missing something :)
> 
> Actually, check out http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/multilog.html.  You can
> figure out how to accomplish what you're for (log sizes/rotation/etc.)
> 
> As for the /var/log/syslog.d/current, just make that a symbolic link to
> /var/log/syslog.
> 
> Multilog is part of a package for daemonizing programs.  However, it's
> designed to not choke and not beat up on the system like syslog.
> Likewiese, it makes every effort to ensure that no data is lost.  Oh,
> and it's much more lightweight than syslogd/klogd.  It's a good program.
> 
> Having said that, I'll be honest, I don't like it.  It's a preference
> thing, not a technical issue.  I'd recommend app-admin/metalog (and not
> just because I put it in the tree).
> 
> Reply to this message if you need step-by-step instructions and I'll
> post them later tonight (leaving in a coupla minutes--don't have time
> right now).
> 
> : Would it be possible to get a syslog USE keyword or equiv and have the
> : supervise run scripts we create have support for it?  That way if the use
> : keyword is set then people can use syslog or a syslog replacement like
> : syslog-ng and people who happen to like multilog can continue using it.
> 
> Achim?

Yep, good idea, I switched back to syslog too.

achim~
> 
>         --Jerry
> 
> name:  Jerry Alexandratos         ||  Open-Source software isn't a
> phone: 703.599.6023               ||  matter of life or death...
> email: jerry@thehutt.org          ||  ...It's much more important
>                                   ||  than that!
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@cvs.gentoo.org
> http://cvs.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Daniel Robbins]

On Sat, Jul 14, 2001 at 03:37:20PM +0200, Achim Gottinger wrote:

> Yep, good idea, I switched back to syslog too.

Also, I'm having Jerry look for a supervise replacement, as both multilog and
supervise (daemontools) have non-open source licenses as it turns out, and
should not be in our default base distribution.

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Thomas Beaudry]

What is the licensing?  I looked through the web site and the source code 
and could find nothing but his copyright notice.  Maybe I'm just blind...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

> Also, I'm having Jerry look for a supervise replacement, as both multilog 
and
> supervise (daemontools) have non-open source licenses as it turns out, 
and
> should not be in our default base distribution.

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Jerry A!]

On Sun, Jul 15, 2001 at 02:39:14AM +0000, Thomas Beaudry wrote:
: What is the licensing?  I looked through the web site and the source code 
: and could find nothing but his copyright notice.  Maybe I'm just blind...

You sorta have to dig around, and it's a little vague.  However, the
best place to get DJB's opinions is http://cr.yp.to/compatibility.html.

Anyway, I verified with him.  Basically, a binary distribution should be
the equivalent of downloading the software, uncompressing it, building
it w/out modification and then installing it.

Which means it would break Gentoo's layout scheme and force files to be
in /usr/local, as well as create /service, which breaks FHS, etc...

        --Jerry

name:  Jerry Alexandratos         ||  Open-Source software isn't a
phone: 703.599.6023               ||  matter of life or death...
email: jerry@thehutt.org          ||  ...It's much more important
                                  ||  than that!

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Thomas Beaudry]

If you're still looking for a supervise replacement, I just stumbled over 
this:

http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


> Also, I'm having Jerry look for a supervise replacement, as both multilog 
and
> supervise (daemontools) have non-open source licenses as it turns out, 
and
> should not be in our default base distribution.

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Daniel Robbins]

On Sat, Jul 21, 2001 at 10:27:37AM +0000, Thomas Beaudry wrote:
> If you're still looking for a supervise replacement, I just stumbled over 
> this:
> 
> http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/

>From reading the README file on the Monit Web site, it looks like Monit does
everything we would need and also would be easy to integrate into the system.
Jerry, Grant: could you look into monit as you have time and see if it you can
find any deficiencies?  Otherwise, this looks like a great solution.  And it
seems a lot less invasive than daemontools.

Thanks for the link, Thomas! :)

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Jerry A!]

On Sat, Jul 21, 2001 at 12:48:07PM -0600, Daniel Robbins wrote:
: On Sat, Jul 21, 2001 at 10:27:37AM +0000, Thomas Beaudry wrote:
: > If you're still looking for a supervise replacement, I just stumbled over 
: > this:
: > 
: > http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/
: 
: >From reading the README file on the Monit Web site, it looks like Monit does
: everything we would need and also would be easy to integrate into the system.
: Jerry, Grant: could you look into monit as you have time and see if it you can
: find any deficiencies?  Otherwise, this looks like a great solution.  And it
: seems a lot less invasive than daemontools.
: 
: Thanks for the link, Thomas! :)

I looked at it briefly.  I agree that this is the best of the solutions
that I've been exploring.  I'm gonna try to wrap up the mail stuff and
work more in-depth on this in the upcoming week.

        --Jerry

name:  Jerry Alexandratos         ||  Open-Source software isn't a
phone: 703.599.6023               ||  matter of life or death...
email: jerry@thehutt.org          ||  ...It's much more important
                                  ||  than that!

[gentoo-dev] why multilog?

[Grant Goodyear]

I took a look at Monit, and my only complaint is that it looks
like it is non-trivial to bring down a single service.  I think
that one would really have to kill the service manually and comment
out the service entries in the .monitrc file.  I may be missing
something, however.  I really do like the fact that it monitors
ports as well as pid's though!

-Grant-
-- 
___________________________________________________________________
|     Grant Goodyear                  |  The Secrets of Physics:   |
|     Dept. of Chemistry - UH         |1. Add zero.                |
|     Houston, TX  77204              |2. Multiply by one.         |
|-------------------------------------|3. Expand in a Taylor series|
|e-mail: goodyear@uh.edu              |4. Integrate by parts.      |
|www:bernacchi.chem.uh.edu/~grant     |5. Fourier transform.       |
|                                     |6. Add auxiliary variables  |
|_____________________________________|____________________________|