UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello,
I need a few explanation about the log files for system messages:
/var/adm/messages and
/var/log/syslog.

As /var/adm/messages is empty on my machine, i need help.
First, i would like to know what the difference between these 2 files is? Do they contain different kinds of system messages?

Do they exist on all unix version? (I know that they do exist on Sun but what about AIX?). Are they always plain text files?

Any answer is welcome, thank you in advance.

messages and syslog have always been around as far as i can tell.

you can tell the differance between the two files by what gets loged in them.

look at /etc/syslog.conf for the definition of each file.

See if syslogd process is running...
Both messages and syslog contains system messages, you define them at /etc/syslog.conf.

All kind of unix has a ( plain text ) system messages log file, it's location depends on the system ( do man syslog ).
The syslog files are text files.

Thank you