Hi Guys,

I just spent the last half hour learning syslog and log rolling with 
postgres.  Would there be objections to me expanding on the syslog 
sections in the docs?

http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/logfile-maintenance.html

I want to:

* Add a link to the third paragraph there where it says to set syslog to 
2 that goes to the syslog section of the SET parameters page.

* Give an example of how to configure your syslog.conf to log to a 
separate postgres log.  eg:

"Depending on your system, to have syslog log PostgreSQL entries to a 
particular file, add something like this to the top of your 
/etc/syslog.conf:

# Log all 'postgres' events to /var/log/pgsql
!postgres
*.*                                             /var/log/pgsql
# Nothing after this line applies to 'postgres'
!-postgres
"

* Mention that you might want to turn log_pid and log_timestamp off 
since syslog logs them anyway

* Mention something about system log rotator?  Or is that too 
platform-specific?

Chris



Tue, 30 Sep 2003 13:44:04 +0800
Christopher Kings-Lynne <chriskl@familyhealth.com.au>
expanding on syslog help
Christopher Kings-Lynne <chriskl@familyhealth.com.au> writes:
> Would there be objections to me expanding on the syslog 
> sections in the docs?

No, but ...

> # Log all 'postgres' events to /var/log/pgsql
> !postgres
> *.*                                             /var/log/pgsql
> # Nothing after this line applies to 'postgres'
> !-postgres
> "

This example seems not portable in the least; AFAICT neither syntax that
you show is accepted by HPUX's syslogd, for example.

> * Mention that you might want to turn log_pid and log_timestamp off 
> since syslog logs them anyway

Check.

> * Mention something about system log rotator?  Or is that too 
> platform-specific?

I think it's reasonable to suggest that syslogd might not solve the
problem all by itself.  Dunno if we can give better advice than "read
your local syslogd man page".

			regards, tom lane

Tue, 30 Sep 2003 02:25:29 -0400
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Re: expanding on syslog help 
Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
> *.*                                             /var/log/pgsql

With linux is better do:

*.*                           -/var/log/pgsql

the "-" instruct syslog to not flush on the disk each line received.

BTW in  general your instructions are platform dependend



Regards
Gaetano Mendola


Tue, 30 Sep 2003 09:47:24 +0200
Gaetano Mendola <mendola@bigfoot.com>
Re: expanding on syslog help
--On Tuesday, September 30, 2003 13:44:04 +0800 Christopher Kings-Lynne 
<chriskl@familyhealth.com.au> wrote:

> Hi Guys,
>
[snip]
>
> * Mention something about system log rotator?  Or is that too
> platform-specific?
newsyslog (FreeBSD base, http://www.courtesan.com/ (Portable) )
is useful.  newsyslog may be in the other *BSD's as well.

LER

>
> Chris
>
>
>
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-- 
Larry Rosenman                     http://www.lerctr.org/~ler
Phone: +1 972-414-9812                 E-Mail: ler@lerctr.org
US Mail: 1905 Steamboat Springs Drive, Garland, TX 75044-6749
Tue, 30 Sep 2003 04:37:50 -0500
Larry Rosenman <ler@lerctr.org>
Re: expanding on syslog help
--On Tuesday, September 30, 2003 13:44:04 +0800 Christopher Kings-Lynne 
<chriskl@familyhealth.com.au> wrote:

> Hi Guys,
>
> I just spent the last half hour learning syslog and log rolling with
> postgres.  Would there be objections to me expanding on the syslog
> sections in the docs?
>
> http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/logfile-maintenance.html
>
> I want to:
>
> * Add a link to the third paragraph there where it says to set syslog to
> 2 that goes to the syslog section of the SET parameters page.
>
> * Give an example of how to configure your syslog.conf to log to a
> separate postgres log.  eg:
>
> "Depending on your system, to have syslog log PostgreSQL entries to a
> particular file, add something like this to the top of your
> /etc/syslog.conf:
>
># Log all 'postgres' events to /var/log/pgsql
> !postgres
> *.*                                             /var/log/pgsql
># Nothing after this line applies to 'postgres'
> !-postgres
> "
a more standard (non-FreeBSD specific) answer is:
local0.*                                        /var/log/postgres.log
(this also works on FreeBSD, btw).




-- 
Larry Rosenman                     http://www.lerctr.org/~ler
Phone: +1 972-414-9812                 E-Mail: ler@lerctr.org
US Mail: 1905 Steamboat Springs Drive, Garland, TX 75044-6749
Tue, 30 Sep 2003 04:41:03 -0500
Larry Rosenman <ler@lerctr.org>
Re: expanding on syslog help
On Tue, 2003-09-30 at 01:44, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
> * Mention that you might want to turn log_pid and log_timestamp off 
> since syslog logs them anyway
> 

i think that debug_pretty_print is somewhat pointless too, as syslog
tends to wrap lines automagically... could be others.

> * Mention something about system log rotator?  Or is that too 
> platform-specific?
> 

 "The simplest production-grade approach to managing log output is to
send it all to syslog and let syslog deal with file rotation. To do
this, set the configurations parameter syslog to 2 (to log to syslog
only) in postgresql.conf. Then you can send a SIGHUP signal to the
syslog  daemon whenever you want to force it to start writing a new log
file. "

Perhaps add:
"If you want to automate the log rotation, the logrotate program can be
configured to work with log files from syslog."

at least, on most linux distros (and I'm just guessing others) this is
how they come configured.

Robert Treat
-- 
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL


30 Sep 2003 16:35:58 -0400
Robert Treat <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net>
Re: expanding on syslog help
Robert Treat wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-09-30 at 01:44, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
> > * Mention that you might want to turn log_pid and log_timestamp off 
> > since syslog logs them anyway
> > 
> 
> i think that debug_pretty_print is somewhat pointless too, as syslog
> tends to wrap lines automagically... could be others.
> 
> > * Mention something about system log rotator?  Or is that too 
> > platform-specific?
> > 
> 
>  "The simplest production-grade approach to managing log output is to
> send it all to syslog and let syslog deal with file rotation. To do
> this, set the configurations parameter syslog to 2 (to log to syslog
> only) in postgresql.conf. Then you can send a SIGHUP signal to the
> syslog  daemon whenever you want to force it to start writing a new log
> file. "
> 
> Perhaps add:
> "If you want to automate the log rotation, the logrotate program can be
> configured to work with log files from syslog."
> 
> at least, on most linux distros (and I'm just guessing others) this is
> how they come configured.

Added.  Thanks.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

Thu, 9 Oct 2003 15:04:34 -0400 (EDT)
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
Re: expanding on syslog help