UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

We had a hardware problem at work and none of the kernel problems outputted to the log file, just the screen. How can I configure the syslogd.conf file to record kernel events (ie hardware problems) to /dev/console and/var/log/messages. Can I just put:

/dev/console /var/log/messages on the first entry below. I guess I would have to uncomment out the #kern.*

I guess I am perplexed why read/write errors appeared on the screen even though the kern entry was commented out. Any help would be appreciated. I am running Fedora Core release 4 so I am wondering if I should have klogd enabled. If so how?

Currently my file looks like the following:

# Log all kernel messages to the console.
# Logging much else clutters up the screen.
#kern.* /dev/console

# Log anything (except mail) of level info or higher.
# Don't log private authentication messages!
*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none;cron.none /var/log/messages

# The authpriv file has restricted access.
authpriv.* /var/log/secure

# Log all the mail messages in one place.
mail.* -/var/log/maillog


# Log cron stuff
cron.* /var/log/cron

# Everybody gets emergency messages
*.emerg *

# Save news errors of level crit and higher in a special file.
uucp,news.crit /var/log/spooler

# Save boot messages also to boot.log
local7.* /var/log/boot.log

Read/write errors often get counted as "emergencies". Syslog doesn't distinguish between reading a CDROM and reading the swap device. So it prints it out to all users (which is what the line-ending '*') means.

One solution is to change this behavior so that it outputs such messages to a program which then determines if the message is important enough to send to a tty/console. Look for "swatch" and other similar syslog-action script-handlers.

Where would I find this swatch?

How can I get the emergencies to be logged into /var/log/messages?

What, don't people use Google anymore??

SWATCH: The Simple WATCHer of Logfiles

There is nothing on the website!