[Mageia-dev] [RFC] rsyslog vs journalctl

Wed Feb 6 12:25:27 CET 2013

'Twas brillig, and Anne Nicolas at 06/02/13 08:43 did gyre and gimble:
+> There was a discussion yesterday evening in packager meeting about what
+> we should do with rsyslog. It's needed for upgrade from Mageia 2. But
+> journalctl is now installed by default.
+> 
+> Is there some requirement for systemd ? Shall we have both installed? We
+> need an answer to deal with upgrade and isos
+
+At present the main systemd package provides "syslog" and also creates
+the folder /var/log/journal which is what enables persistent logging
+with the journal (without this folder it just logs into /run/log/journal
+and keeps it in memory rotating away as needed over time)
+
+I did this to push the journal generally in cauldron and get it used and
+see how things go.
+
+If required, I can split this into a separate package
+(systemd-persistent-journal-logging) which simply provides "syslog" and
+the folder /var/log/journal
+
+This would allow users to pick whether they want persistent logging with
+journal or rsyslog (vs. the current choice of only being able to pick
+rsyslog *in addition* to persistent logging).
+
+
+An alternative is to simply document to people how to change the journal
+space requirements such that even if persistent logging is enabled, it
+will not take up too much room and purge itself quite aggressively.
+
+
+I suppose the final decision should be based on what kind of experience
+we ultimately want to provide in our tools. If I get a chance I can take
+a quick look at the drakservices and draklog to see what simple stuff I
+could hack in. The options for really nice, service-specific log
+searching and viewing are really opened if we force the journal
+persistent logs.
+
+
+So if I were to choose, I'd leave everything as it is. Persistent
+journal logging is enabled always but rsyslog is available as an option.
+
+This also has the advantage of meaning we, as bug triagers and
+debuggers, always know where to look for extracting the relevant logs.
+As Thomas mentioned to me over the weekend, we need a consistent command
+to extract the needed info. I said that I would work on ensuring such a
+command was included and thus available on the live media too should
+people need to use that to boot a broken machine to extract debug info.
+
+
+But I am also happy to concede to popular opinion here.
+
+Col
+
+-- 
+
+Colin Guthrie
+colin(at)mageia.org
+http://colin.guthr.ie/
+
+Day Job:
+  Tribalogic Limited http://www.tribalogic.net/
+Open Source:
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+  Trac Hacker http://trac.edgewall.org/
+