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Ben K.
Asked: 2011-02-02 12:31:09 +0800 CST

exclude syslog facility from all others

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I'm adding some custom logging on local0 in syslog.

Writing these messages to a specific log is easy, in my syslog.conf I have

local0.* -/var/log/my.log

But how can I exclude local0 from all other logs? In my current setup, local0 messages also show up in /var/log/syslog since it's specified as

*.*;auth,authpriv.none -/var/log/syslog

Do I need to go through all the other default logs and add local0.none, or is there some kind of global exclude I can use?

logging syslog

2 Answers

  1. The syslogd manpage states that the exclamation mark is used as a notation for excluding specified priorities, and that "You may use it intuitively as an exception specifier". The example given is

    mail.*;mail.!=info              /usr/adm/mail

    which would log all mail messages except those with "info" priority. So, for your problem, I'd use 

    *.*;local0.!debug;auth,authpriv.none /var/log/syslog

    or, more readable,

    *.*;local0.none;auth,authpriv.none /var/log/syslog

    However, you should be aware that I was not able to test this.

    • 7
  2. Best Answer

    In syslog I'm afraid your assumption is right, you have to do it by adding local0.none to each syslog line you don't want local0 in.

    If you're looking for other options rsyslog is all in nowadays (all the cool kids love it), and will actually let you do what you're asking for (check here).

    Also syslog-ng allows you to do what you're asking for, and have some pretty cool filtering by strings even (check here), I use it for advanced syslogging on my log collector server.

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