I have been using Linux for a number of years now, but there is an aspect of the syslog that still eludes me: facility local0 - local7. The other facilities are self-explanatory.

Could someone tell me or point me to a reference on this?

I posted this here as I have just installed FreeBSD and am configuring syslog. I probably could have posted in the Linux section, but some say that BSD people are smarter

lol, I am guessing that compliment is supposed to make us want to work harder for you? Now, the tricky thing is -- if we really were smarter then we would know to point you to better documentation than this site and save ourselves from work.

Lucky for you... you were right about the first part. Even better, I love reinventing the wheel.

The facility local? is really a matter of concern when you are _programming_ something. It becomes a matter of concern on the user end only when a program uses that facility. If a program used that method -- it would likely be documented in its ... well for lack of a better word... documentation.

For example:

Let's say I decide to write nifty_foodanglerd 1.0462. This nifty daemon performs a watch on your nifty_foodangle. I want this program to record the various events and information associated with normal (and abnormal) foodangler operation. Since I am nice, or lazy... you pick, I decide to use the syslog functionality and avoid reinventing the wheel. There are no real good descriptive facilities for what I am going so I choose to log it as local5 (being partial to the number 5). Now, I program my logging to record pertinent data as I see fit using the various levels to describe how important it is. Obviously... it is critical if your foodangle glorps and it will be logged like that. But really... if you recorded everytime if flomoxed your logs would overflow the disk -- that is debugging information anyway.

Once my program is done, you hear about it through the foodangle support groups and decide to give it a try. I'll let you know that all the logs will be using the local5 facility so you can seperate my messages for the crudy_forndagler which is a completely different beast altogether.



And I hope that left you slightly less confused. Unless you are programming you will not need to worry too much about this. If you would need to worry... the documentation will let you know everything a user needs to know.

Thanks, your reply was most helpful. BSD people are smarter! (Thats why I am switching, I am too smart for Linux )

And I'll point you to the documentation so you can figure it out for yourself.

syslog.conf(5)
syslog(3)